Annie, Between the States

by L. M. Elliott

  Annie laughed and gasped and smiled and flirted as she chasséd and twirled. This is what she had been missing and longing for—a night of being young and happy, like a foal feeling her oats and kicking up her heels. It was the first of many dances with Captain Farley, who actually turned out to be a deft dancer, supporting her with his arms but never drawing her too close for modesty and never ever stepping on her toes.

  Over glasses of punch and moments out in the cooling night air, they talked about school and poetry. Even though he was from South Carolina, Farley had attended the University of Virginia, studying Shakespeare and the early English poets. Once, as they came out of the night into the music-filled hall, he smiled down at her and sheepishly quoted the playwright: “If music be the food of love…”

  Annie glanced up into his eyes, blushed, and whispered back the line’s ending: “Play on.”

  Farley smiled and took her hand for the waltz. Annie liked him. She liked his self-effacing manner, which made him so different from the many hotheaded bucks frolicking about her that night. So different from General Stuart.

  As Captain Farley swept her around and around, making them one of a hundred pirouetting couples, perfectly in sync with one another, as if everyone in that room had the same heartbeat, the same glorious, swirling fate, Annie noticed Laurence and Charlotte stepping into the room. Her arm was hooked around his and he pressed his gloved hand atop hers. They beamed.

  Annie knew. Laurence had asked. Charlotte had accepted. And it was all right. Tonight, for the first time in a long time, everything felt right.

  “There he is! There!” Charlotte tugged on Annie’s arm and pointed. It was the next morning and time for the grand review, a military tradition that allowed commanding officers to assess the strength and readiness of the troops, but also served as a spectacular entertainment for civilians. Of course, some of the excitement was dampened by the fact that General Lee had been detained at his headquarters with pressing war plans. But Stuart planned to make up for Lee’s absence in show.

  Below them, on a long vast hill, Stuart was surrounded by his staff. Their horses were spotless. Their gray uniforms were brushed clean, with brass so polished that it seemed the sun would reflect off their buttons. Bugles sounded to herald the fact that Stuart was about to begin his formal inspection of all his cavalry. This was really why all were gathered in Culpeper, although the dancing had been delightful, ending only a few hours before. Stuart wanted to show off his cavalry—their beauty, their prowess, their discipline, their superior horsemanship. Their number alone awed. The line Stuart would inspect stretched a mile. As he trotted his high-spirited mare along the ranks, other horses stamped in place. Bright flags snapped and billowed in the winds. Three bands played. The cavalry looked invincible.

  Charlotte and Annie sat together in Annie’s carriage, surrounded by wagons and other townsfolk. Behind them a special train from Richmond had stopped on the tracks, and the passengers crammed themselves out through the open windows to watch. Charlotte had been holding Annie’s hand all morning, and now Annie broke loose to lift field glasses to her eyes.

  She was thrilled to watch Stuart, of course, and interested in locating Captain Farley and Laurence among the thousands of spit-and-polish men before them, but what she looked for now was her horse. She wanted to make sure Angel was holding steady in all this crowd and fuss.

  She ran the glasses up and down that long, long line, looking for glistening black and graceful white stockings. There! No. What about that one? No, again. She checked twenty black horses until suddenly she was sure she spotted Angel. She recognized the tall thin figure of her brother atop an elegant horse with raised tail and impatient, prancing hooves. There! There she was. She looked magnificent. Annie smiled. It was the greatest—and the hardest—gift she had ever made.

  Annie turned her glasses back to Stuart. His inspection of the troops took more than two hours. Finally, he climbed a knoll near them. He seemed like a king looking down upon his realm. He sat still and erect; his black ostrich plume ruffled with the wind as his men broke themselves into squadrons and began to parade in review before him.

  As Laurence trotted her past their carriage, Angel snorted and tossed her head happily. He waved at the girls. Charlotte gushed, “Oh, Annie, I cannot believe that your brother has chosen me. You must teach me to be as brave and well-read as you are, darling, so that I am worthier of being your sister.”

  It was said with such sincerity, Annie softened and let go of her grudge. “You’ll be fine, Charlotte. He is quite smitten, you know. What Laurence has always appreciated is kindness.” Then Annie repeated a line from Shakespeare that she had often used as a guide for herself: “Beauty lives with kindness.” She smiled. Charlotte smiled back.

  “Oh, look, Annie, isn’t that Captain Farley?”

  Annie turned in enough time to see the gentle South Carolinian scout ride by, his horse, like himself, dignified and graceful. She blushed slightly.

  “Aha, Annie, I see the beginning of something.” Charlotte wagged her finger. “Do tell!”

  Annie’s smile faded. It would be a while before she completely trusted Charlotte again. She said nothing and simply put the field glasses back to her eyes, but she noticed Charlotte’s hurt expression.

  Boom-boom-boom-boom.

  Suddenly, as part of the show, twenty-four artillery guns exploded. Acrid smoke billowed across the valley and the nearly ten thousand riders took up the Rebel caterwaul. They drew their sabers with a resounding scrape of metal, and with bellows of “Charge!” spurred their horses into a gallop to show the gathered civilians what a battle would be like. Swords gleamed, dirt clods flew, horses reared and whinnied, the earth trembled with the thundering of forty thousand hooves suddenly tearing along the earth.

  Charlotte gasped and clutched Annie, holding her handkerchief to her mouth. Annie frantically searched the mayhem of horses for Angel. Don’t let her be stampeded by some larger horse, Lord. Don’t let her get kicked. Don’t let Laurence fall under all those racing hooves, prayed Annie. Finally she found Angel, pulling ahead of dozens, her tail arched like a battle flag. Laurence’s hat was gone, his hair flying like her mane. Annie focused on his face. He was laughing.

  Annie followed with the glasses. See, brother. See how wonderful my horse is, she thought. See why you always had trouble stopping me from galloping her!

  The mock charge went on and on. Annie shook her head, disapproving of pushing the horses like that purely for show. And yet—she couldn’t help it—her heart raced at the exciting pageant before her.

  Boom-boom-boom.

  The guns exploded again. By now the thick smoke from the cannons was drifting toward the crowd. Annie heard a thud to the left of her and another to the right. Ladies were swooning. Now this was getting silly. The vanity of it was foolish; Stuart could break the horses running them like that. And why waste all that ammunition just to show off to a crowd that already worshiped him?

  Boom-boom-boom.

  Another two ladies standing in front of the carriage fell over—perfectly—into the arms of their escorts. Annie checked Charlotte, who was fanning herself frantically, her eyes wide and frightened. “Oh, Annie, I never imagined how terrible a battle could be before. I…I…I feel sick.” She leaned up against Annie.

  Well, thought Annie, at least she didn’t faint.

  That night, there was yet another ball. Again, Annie spent the evening mostly with Captain Farley. They danced outside under the stars. For Annie, it matched the romance of any book.

  The next morning Farley arrived at Mrs. Crawford’s house and asked for Annie. Mrs. Crawford, as was proper, stayed in the parlor with them as they talked.

  “I am not sure with whom to entrust this,” he said, holding out his carefully folded dress uniform. General Stuart had insisted that all his officers buy new uniforms for the review. Laurence had had to as well. “It is a fine material and meant for formal events; it’s rather expensive, I’m afraid. If I
take it with me, it’s sure to be ruined in my haversack.” He looked hopefully at Annie.

  Before she could respond, Mrs. Crawford stepped forward. “I’ll keep it for you, son. It will be here waiting for you when next you come to Culpeper, or when the war is over.”

  Captain Farley looked slightly disappointed, but he smiled graciously at the plump old matron. “Thank you, ma’am. I am grateful to you. We are to move again within days. General Lee is planning a campaign north. If anything befalls me, please wrap me in this and send me to my mother.”

  It was such a simple, sweet request. Annie hardly knew this man, really, but he had already won a spot in her heart that was growing. This time she stepped up. “There will be no need, Captain,” said Annie. “You must promise to visit me at Hickory Heights very soon. My brother will show you the way.”

  “Gladly, Miss…” He paused and then shyly said her first name for the first time. “Miss Annie.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  June 17, 1863

  Hickory Heights

  “It was terrible, Annie,” Laurence said quietly, describing a surprise attack by the Union cavalry four days after Stuart’s grand review. “They came from all directions. They caught us completely unawares. We were exhausted from the pomp and fuss of Stuart’s review and that fool saber charge he had ordered. Plus we had to repeat the review for Lee when the general was finally able to come. That one, at least, we held at a walk. But we were tuckered out, so we’d stretched out across four miles of hills to let our horses graze and recuperate. My men were snoring like bullfrogs, when around three A.M. a picket cries out: ‘Yankees! Great God! Millions of them!’

  “Ten thousand of their riders were on top of us before we could collect ourselves or protect our guns. The fighting went on till nightfall.”

  Annie was listening only so well. She was circling Angel, running her hand along her flanks, fighting off tears from the sight of the gashes across her beautiful coat, from the way the horse flinched when Annie’s light touch neared one of the cuts. Angel would carry those scars forever.

  “She’s all right, honey,” Laurence reassured her.

  He sat atop Angel, at the gate of Hickory Heights’ lane. His division was moving east along the turnpike from Upperville toward Aldie, to hide the infantry’s march up the Shenandoah Valley on the other side of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Once again, Lee was crossing into Maryland to find food for the hungry horses and men and to pull the Union armies away from Richmond. At all costs, Stuart was to keep the Federals from getting to the mountain passes at Ashby’s or Snicker’s gaps and seeing the Confederate army on the move. Stuart had ordered pickets to be established up and down Loudoun and Fauquier counties to watch for and fight any Union cavalry trying to find Lee.

  “Angel saved my life, Annie,” Laurence continued. “You saved my life by giving her to me. There was one charge from the bluecoats that cut down every rider within twenty feet of me. Six men, Annie, blasted from their saddles within a few seconds of one another. I was the only one to survive. Angel moved so fast, they just couldn’t fix their sights on her.”

  For a moment he was silent, watching the Virginia cavalry pass by. “I have to rejoin them, Annie. But I’ll try to come back to visit Mother once we’ve camped for the night.” He shifted in his saddle uncomfortably. “Annie, I need to tell you something.” He paused and cleared his throat. “William Farley was killed.”

  Annie looked up at him in surprise. Her stomach lurched. She’d seen death in Manassas and in the Middleburg hospitals, but miraculously no one she’d known well before had died. Farley’s gentle, aristocratic face came back to her. She shook her head. How could it be? He’d been so alive, so promising, the last time she’d seen him, just two weeks before.

  “A shell exploded right beside him, Annie. There was nothing anyone could do.” Laurence reached out and took her hand. “He was his gracious self even at the end. As we tried to get him to an ambulance, he said, ‘Good-bye, gentlemen, and forever. I know my condition, and we will not meet again. I thank you for your kindness.’”

  Angrily, Laurence pulled his hand away and straightened up. “There was no need for it,” he said huskily. “Vanity brought that battle on. The bluecoats were alerted to our whereabouts by all the noise we’d made—guns booming, our shouting—during that review.”

  Annie felt numb. She’d read the scathing condemnation of Stuart in the Richmond papers. They’d called him negligent, self-aggrandizing, more interested in ladies (rollicking, frolicking, and running after girls, said his critics) than in protecting the country or knowing the whereabouts of the enemy. She’d not known what to think. And now this? A man of poetry and grace, cut down. She thought of William Farley trying to give her his dress coat. It was as if he had had a premonition.

  “I’m sorry, Annie. You should know that William was very taken with you.”

  Suddenly, Annie was furious. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?” she shot back. “That this dead man might have come to love me? I think I could have loved him, Laurence; you were right about that. The fact that there was a wondrous possibility there only makes the loss sting harder. It is no comfort.”

  “I only thought you’d like to know.” Laurence sighed. “But I understand what you say.”

  “This war costs too much.” Annie choked out the words. For the first time, the tragic waste of it all revolted her.

  Laurence nodded, pulled his dusty slouch hat back on, and tried to cluck Angel into a walk. The mare nuzzled Annie and refused to move. Laurence let the reins fall. “I haven’t the heart to pull her away from you. I know she’s been looking for you.”

  Tears fell down Annie’s face unchecked. For a moment, she put her cheek against Angel’s forehead. Then she took her by the reins, led her into the lane, and pushed her on. Swishing her tail and looking back over her shoulder, Angel complied unhappily. Laurence slouched in the saddle.

  Annie watched them go until they disappeared into the crowd of slowly moving horses and riders. It was hard to recognize them as the swashbucklers who’d charged up and down the hills of Brandy Station and made ladies swoon.

  That afternoon some of Stuart’s riders clashed with Union cavalry just outside Aldie. These Yankees were new regiments, from New York, Massachusetts, Ohio, and Maine. They were fresh, emboldened by what had happened at Brandy Station, and they fought hard, finally struggling hand to hand in a hay-field. The Confederates lost a hundred men.

  Stuart himself rode into Middleburg. As always, the town’s ladies surrounded him with joy and flowers. But the celebration lasted only a few moments, until Rhode Island Federals rushed in, firing their guns. As darkness fell, blue and gray cavalrymen dashed up and down the village streets, shooting at one another, jumping barricades each side put up to trip the other.

  That’s when the call came to Jamie. Mosby wanted to join Stuart’s forces for this scrap, which was turning uglier by the moment. Annie followed Jamie, carrying a candle to light his way in the stable as he tacked up his horse. She didn’t want anyone else at Hickory Heights to see him get ready. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust them. She just didn’t want them to have knowledge that could endanger the household if the Yankees came asking questions.

  It was a damp, misty night. “Jamie, be careful. Promise me,” she said. “This is a real battle, not just a surprise raid on a sleeping camp.”

  Jamie whirled around to face her. “I know that!” He grinned. “Isn’t it grand?”

  He cantered away down the road, the ground barely visible through the fog, the moonlight only so much of a guide. For the first time in a long time, Annie knelt and prayed.

  At dawn on the nineteenth, as light filtered through her bedroom windows, Annie stretched and listened for the usual sound of morning singing. The birds were silent. She sat up quickly. There was a distant rumbling. She looked at the soft beam of light creeping across the floor. It was a bright day coming. That wasn’t thunder. It was artillery, sure.
>
  “Annie?” Through her bedroom wall Annie heard her mother’s call.

  “Coming,” she answered. When she opened the door, she found Miriam leaning against the wall, holding back the curtains, looking out.

  Annie joined her. There on the hills were two small armies—bluecoats to the east, gray to the west. Tiny puffs of smoke dappled the hills as carbines and rifles shot at one another. Punctuating it all were rumbling booms and large bursts of red and smoke—cannons. First there was a swell of blue riders moving forward, a crescent moon shape that surged, then wavered, then broke into bits as gray swarmed to meet it. Then the gray line wavered, broke, and fell back.

  One by one, Will, Colleen, and Sally tiptoed in and knelt by the other window, peering out at the fighting, their noses on the sill. Even Aunt Molly braved Aunt May to join them. “Just like Manassas,” she muttered. “They’ll run over us again, Miriam. What are we to do?”

  Miriam ignored her sister. “Where’s Jamie?” she asked Annie.

  Annie caught her breath. Somehow they had managed to avoid telling Miriam that Jamie had joined Mosby. She started to lie, to tell her mother he was probably up a tree watching himself. But Miriam’s light green eyes were fixed on Annie’s. Annie hesitated.

  Miriam reached out and patted Annie’s face. “He’s out there, isn’t he? My baby?”

  Biting her lip, Annie nodded her head.

  “Both my boys.” Miriam pulled in a long, shuddering breath, and then looked back out the window to the tiny waves of cavalrymen, careening back and forth across the distant hills. “It’s like a fever, Annie darling. There’s nothing to be done but to wait it out.”

  The cannons thundered off and on. Not until midnight could Annie and Aunt May convince Miriam to get into bed.