The Cotton Run

by Daniel Wyatt

  “The pleasure is all mine,” Denning replied.

  He tipped his hat, bowed slightly and withdrew, thinking that he did not leave her with a good impression of him. But had he looked back, he would have caught Marie Keating standing at the door frame, smiling, watching him curiously as he walked to the entrance.

  Chapter nine

  Wilmington

  Soon after Denning left, Marie grabbed her umbrella and headed out the old print shop to walk the two blocks to the telegraph office.

  She looked around at the new Wilmington, far removed from the prewar version. The blockade had changed Wilmington from a quaint port into a frontier town lacking authority. It was now the base for Robert E. Lee’s supply line to his Army of Northern Virginia. There was no peace or rest in the place, which seemed to be always on the go. It lingered with a high-spirited mixture of speculators, scallywags, prostitutes, drunkards, gunmen, and noisy British and Southern navy officers and enlisted men with strange accents and vulgar behavior. Money and riches flowed lavishly in Wilmington, “the city of champagne and oysters”.

  She turned the corner to the telegraph office, next to Beery’s shipyard. She stopped and stared across the waterfront at the cotton bales stacked as high as houses, ready for shipment abroad. Prewar exports of resin, turpentine, tar, and grains had been taken over by cotton, cotton, and more cotton. To one side of the shipyard stood the incoming goods that had been run through the blockade, crated and guarded by men with shotguns.

  The porch of the telegraph office was crowded with men in Confederate uniforms that bore the insignia of all the services. Civilian men were also present in large numbers. Everyone was there for a purpose. The Chancellorsville casualty notices were out.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Keating,” a man greeted Marie formally, his gray eyes intent on her. “Not such a pleasant day, is it?”

  “It could be better, certainly, Mr. Jacoby,” Marie replied, smiling. “The sun wants to break through, though.”

  Eli Jacoby had been a good friend of the Keating family for many years. He was a charming man, she thought, recently widowed, always polite to her without overdoing it. A cotton and tobacco trader, she remembered. He was supposed to be handling government military contracts now. She hadn’t heard many good things about people in that venture. They often took advantage of the government military traders, selling them defective material. She hoped Jacoby wasn’t one of the bad dealers.

  Some of the men, including Jacoby, graciously gave her room at the wall. Without stopping to see if she knew anyone else, she made her way to the long white sheets posted on the outside wall. Under the roof, with the rain sprinkling overhead, Marie read down the names printed in fresh dark ink. When she came to the Ks, she held her hand to her stomach.

  KAMM, EDWARD, SERGEANT

  KAHLE, ALLAN, LIEUTENANT

  KAISER, CHARLES, LIEUTENANT

  KAY, WILLIAM, CAPTAIN

  KAZAK, DEREK, SERGEANT

  KEARNS, DAVID, MAJOR

  KEARSE, JUSTIN, LIEUTENANT

  KEENAN, GEORGE, MAJOR

  She looked again. Her husband’s name was not on the list. Thank God! He was still alive. She sighed out loud, ignoring the commotion around her. He had survived Chancellorsville.

  Jacoby came up to Marie and removed his hat. “Luke? Is he—?” his voice trailed off.

  “He’s not on it.”

  “That’s good to hear,” he said.

  “Oui.”

  Catching her breath, Marie relaxed and began to pick out her neighbors and acquaintances in the crowd. Their faces told the story of either joy or grief. However, as always, the sight and sound of death dominated. The widow Rogell was crying. Her son was in Lee’s cavalry. Mrs. Elmsey too was crying, her face flushed a deep red. She had two boys in the infantry. Were they both dead? Mr. and Mrs. McAleer, Mrs. Corbett, Mr. and Mrs. Potter — they were all affected.

  Marie didn’t know what to say to them. Their boys were so young, not more than nineteen or twenty. She could tell them that the best die young, but she knew it was trite and false. The passing of life had come to rest violently on several Wilmington homes this noon hour. She turned and walked back to her office.

  Marie Keating had come to America at fourteen. Her father, a wine and champagne agent for a large French winery near Paris, had been sent to the United States to establish overseas markets in North America. Four years later, after seeing their only child wed in an arranged alliance with the esteemed Keating family of North Carolina, Marie’s parents had returned to France.

  Marie tried to fit in as a Southern lady, but she felt so out of place in her adopted country. If it wasn’t for her husband, and his friends and relatives, she would have been rejected by most good families of Wilmington. Her casual outspokenness had brought her trouble soon after the newly married Keatings had made a honeymoon tour throughout the state.

  “Oh, you people,” she had told a party group, referring to the South’s dependence on slavery. “Why do Southerners do such things? France did away with slavery centuries ago. We survived.”

  Most had taken it in stride, but others at the party had never forgiven her. She had insulted the South. They believed that women shouldn’t have political opinions. The only excuse they could make for her was that she was a foreigner, a French woman. And French women were ignorant of the cherished Southern ways. They resented her accent, her barely concealed disrespect for Southern formality, her opinions, her European ways and expressions, her suntanned skin and the fact that she was left-handed. The list of imperfections was long. Marie knew that people were gossiping about her and she accepted it with honor. She didn’t mind that much. In fact, she was pleased that she was a subject of conversation.

  But oddly enough her most serious imperfection in her critics’ eyes was her mild devotion to the Rebel Cause. And the harder she worked for the Cause, the more suspect she became. For a time a foolish rumor ran rampant that she was a Northern spy. However, Marie’s position regarding the war was passively neutral, the way France and England felt about it. While the people of Wilmington were hoping and praying daily that England and France would step in as official Confederate allies, Marie knew it was unlikely that either country ever would. Why should they? Europe only wanted the South’s cotton. If they couldn’t squeeze enough out of ports like Wilmington and Charleston, they’d search out other foreign markets. She knew they were doing this already. Dixie wasn’t the only cotton producer. Southern cotton wasn’t worth losing young English and French lives over in some idiotic foreign war.

  Marie was astonished at how the South was still winning victories on the battlefield but losing the foodstuff war on the home front. The prices of such household commodities as bacon, flour, sugar, coffee, butter, and soap had increased ten times or more since the last year of peace. The true value of the Confederate dollar was quickly dwindling to virtually nothing. Last heard, it was worth less than ten cents. Credit was nonexistent. Cash the only policy. She was intelligent enough to realize that the Old South would not survive another year or two, unless it took the war to the North.

  It was its only chance to win.

  Chapter ten

  Washington, D.C.

  The next morning, a livid Secretary of War Edwin Stanton threw the day’s copy of the Washington Post at Colonel Baker.

  “There! Take a good look,” Stanton hollered, watching the paper fall to his office floor. “What does your spy have to say in his defense?”

  Baker looked down at the pages by his feet. “What do you mean, sir?”

  “Our reports say we lost twice as many men as Lee did. And we went into the spring campaign outnumbering him two to one!”

  “Maybe my man couldn’t get a dispatch through.” Baker replied. He bent over and picked up the scattered papers, carefully.

  “That’s not good enough!” Stanton stood. He leaned over his desk and glared at Baker. “What good is a spy in Lee’s army who can’t tell us of Jackson’s sneak atta
ck that took most of the day to arrange? Good grief, almost half a day of marching! Doesn’t he have eyes? How much time did your boy want?”

  “The telegraph might have gone down.”

  “Forget the telegraph. Why didn’t he send a note through our pickets? The president has been ill over all this. Do you know what he said to me? ‘My God, my God. What will the country say? Where can I find a leader?’ He’s thinking of relieving Hooker of command. If Lincoln had only known that we could have bagged Jackson, Lee, and the whole rotten bunch of them. If your spy had come through.”

  Baker knew that because of Stanton, Lincoln knew very little of the inner workings of his own cabinet. Only what he was supposed to know. “I wouldn’t necessarily believe the reports that we outnumbered Lee two to one. He’s stronger than that, sir.”

  “I have my own sources. Lee’s forces have always been greatly exaggerated.”

  Baker swallowed hard and said nothing.

  Stanton sat down. He took a deep breath and fingered some paperwork on his desk. “Go on. Get back to work.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  * * * *

  Chancellorsville, Virginia

  Luke Keating rode his horse into the compound of hospital tents.

  “Major!”

  Keating turned in the direction of the voice.

  “Major! Over here!”

  Keating saw a sergeant in his unit lying on the ground outside one of the tents, ignored by the scurry of others around him. Keating knew the sergeant’s family. He was a fine boy, a good soldier who never gave anyone trouble. He had just celebrated his twentieth birthday in April. He was supporting himself on one elbow, his sunburned face and blond hair damp with sweat. His right boot had been removed and his pant leg was torn up to a large, bleeding, infected scab below the knee.

  Keating dismounted and squatted over him. “Hank. Is there anything I can do for you?”

  “Don’t let them take me in there, Mr. Keating, Major... sir,” the sergeant pleaded.

  “What can I do, Hank?” Keating could see that the sergeant’s leg was in terrible shape. He reeked of liquor, but that had to be anesthetic. There was never any proper anesthetic around. Only whiskey.

  “Please. They told me they’re going to take my leg off.”

  Keating knew why. “Hank! Gangrene’s set in. Why didn’t you get attention earlier?”

  The frantic sergeant winced. “I was hoping it weren’t too bad. They dug the powder out and patched me up. Now look at it. I’m scared, Major!”

  “Did you write your mamma, today?”

  “Yes, sir. I did, major.”

  Keating tried to make Hank relax. They talked of North Carolina, Cape Fear, and Wilmington. The boy’s speech was becoming slurred. The whiskey was taking effect. Keating let him go on talking in his drunken state. It was then the major noticed another soldier, on the other side of the nearest tent, sitting off to one side, shivering and holding his blood-stained arm. He couldn’t have been more than seventeen, probably not old enough to shave or vote. A doctor and two orderlies were speaking to each other in the open medical tent. Keating caught part of the dialogue, something about the last two. He sniffed, suddenly catching a whiff of the sweet-and-sour scent of blood and flesh in the air. Off to the side of the tent was a stack of arms and legs. Keating stared at them and comprehended the dreadful reality of what would soon happen to Hank.

  The doctor came out and wiped his hands on his long, white cape splashed with fresh and dried-up blood stains. “You there,” he called out to a bearded orderly outside the tent. “Bring that man in.”

  Hank cringed. He crept backwards on his hands, cowering like a child. “No!”

  “You have to,” Keating begged. “You’ll die for sure if you don’t.”

  “I’m as good as dead ifin I do go in that there tent. My girlfriend back home won’t want me with one leg. What good will I be?”

  The boy’s hysterical, Keating told himself. “I’ll write her, Hank, and explain. What’s her name?”

  “Excuse me, major,” the heavy-set orderly said, as he put his arm around the sergeant’s shoulders and dragged him into the tent. “In you go, fella.”

  From outside, Keating watched the struggle to contain Hank on the table. He was gagged, and two men sat on him. Keating froze, fighting his urge to burst in and rescue poor Hank. He saw him shaking violently, then heard the awful sawing sound. Keating wanted to cry, but no tears would come. He wanted to throw up, but couldn’t do that either. He was too appalled. The horror of it seemed to paralyze his eyes, forcing him to keep looking. Luckily, Hank passed out, allowing the doctor to finish his grizzly work. The sergeant would now have a fifty-fifty chance of surviving an infection, so people have said, providing he could deal with the shock. Keating finally looked away, his eyes locking with those of the other soldier.

  “Send in the last man!” the doctor cried harshly, poking his head out of the tent and throwing the sergeant’s leg into the pile of human parts.

  Keating burned inside. Had the doctor no compassion? No mercy? Throwing Hank’s leg out like that! Keating stared at the shivering soldier, then at the waiting doctor. This was the youth of the nation.

  Such a pathetic waste.

  * * * *

  Near Cape Fear

  The mouth of the Cape Fear River posed a problem for Captain Robert Carlisle of the USS Connecticut. The river’s two openings were only six miles apart, but due to the Frying Pan Shoals off Smith Island jutting ten miles into the ocean, the Union patrolling area spanned a staggering forty miles to cover both inlets. And all the forty miles of hiding places had to be patrolled, requiring a much larger force of Union ships than could properly be deployed. At least fifty at any one time were needed to cover the two inlets. The Union knew they were at a disadvantage and was doing its utmost to increase the quality of patrolling.

  Carlisle felt the hollow reverberation of the Connecticut’s engines as he paced the deck of his five-hundred-ton gunboat, telescope in hand. The delay had been longer than expected, waiting an additional week for engine parts to be shipped to Hatteras. The ship was now on an eight-knot course adjacent to the shore. They were on the late-night watch for this patrol. It was a relief to be at sea again. Carlisle’s assignment was to undertake an inside-line, two-day patrol of the Cape, then steam for the neutral waters off Nassau. An extra load of coal and enough provisions were on ship to keep them going for a week, making it unnecessary to send a foraging party to shore in that time. Carlisle always kept these foraging trips to a minimum, anyway, for fear of desertion.

  A stiff westerly evening breeze cracked the sails. He glanced in the direction of the Confederate stronghold of Fort Fisher, guarding the New Inlet approach to the Cape Fear River. Based on experience, he stayed out of the range of the twenty guns in the earthen traverses and the additional twenty-four-gun wall that ended at the Mound Battery overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. Befriended by the partial moonlight, someone on the Mound could probably see the Union steamer right now. Without a doubt they were monitoring the ship’s moves. Carlisle had tangled with the guns once before when his ship chased a blockade runner too near the shore. As a result, he had come very close to being blown clear out of the water. Nature favored the Rebels, for New Inlet was shallow, even at high water. Only specially constructed blockade runners could conquer it.

  Carlisle’s careful eye monitored the senior officer’s ship in the center of his squadron, identified only by the white lantern on the bridge. Flanked by his fellow gunboats either anchored or cruising off the mouth, Carlisle always had his guns trained on the inlet. All it would take would be a flick of light, a sniff of burning coal, or the faintest noise. At any of these a cascade of shells from his eleven-inch pivot gun and eight twenty-pound howitzers would descend on the unsuspecting Rebel ship. The deck crew, composed mainly of petty officers, stood motionless, their penetrating eyes on the open water. The petty officers were the multi-purpose sailors who actually ran the sh
ip. They manned the powerful guns aboard the USS Connecticut and were held together by a strong fraternity.

  As Carlisle made his way past the men, a voice in the darkness boasted, “The men are ready for a fight, captain.”

  “Are they?” Carlisle replied absently. He stopped pacing to let his first-mate, Commander Stephen Farley, catch up to him. They continued in a slow promenade of the deck.

  Carlisle stopped again and held the telescope to his right eye. He searched the New Inlet entrance for any sign of his adversaries. With the wind coming off shore, he and Farley were always alert to sounds and smells out of the ordinary. Anthracite coal, the enemy’s lifeline, had a distinct but hard-to-detect smell. Nevertheless, it was not impossible to pick it up, given the right wind conditions.

  “Keep a steady lookout, commander,” Carlisle said to Farley.

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  Chapter eleven

  The Bahamas

  The next return run out, the Silver Sally steamed through the channel at a constant eight knots, north by west. Leaning over the port rail, Captain Denning made a mental note of Boulder Island, a nautical mile or more off starboard. The island, nicknamed by pilots earlier in the war, was actually a large, high rock. It was surrounded by sand and was nearly two hundred yards long, protruding defiantly above the deep waters off Nassau to a height of fifty feet at its center. Pilots were in the habit of sailing within a few hundred yards of it in order to follow a particular channel leading to and from Nassau.

  “Put up the British flag,” Denning ordered Balsinger.

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  Denning looked the deck over, full of wood crates bound for Wilmington. Inside the crates were ladies fashions, French champagne, lead bars, guns, and raw British cotton for Marie Keating’s Lads of Liberty. The captain turned and headed to his cabin in the aft quarter. Inside, he looked at the calendar — May 29.