The Sentinels of Andersonville

by Tracy Groot

  She rattled the manacles on his wrists. “Why don’t they take these hateful things off?”

  “I don’t mind so much.” He winked. “I reckon if I am trussed up, they’ll feel safe around me. Say, I need to thank you for that map. Sure woulda come in handy if I had a chance to whack that guard.”

  “No chance?” she asked, and tried out under her breath the word whack.

  “They had me occupied in daily tortures. Their favorite was the rack—if you haven’t noticed I am two inches taller. Yet whatsoever multifarious cruelties they applied unto me, they had nothin’ on that mule. He prepared me for the worst. I thought I was eating cake. I ever tell you that mule’s name?”

  “No.”

  “General Winder. Ain’t that a scary coincidence.”

  “We had hoped for the best, Mr. Jones,” said Reverend Gillette, with disappointment he couldn’t hide, “and we got it—” a respectful nod at J. W. Pickett—“but this . . . we did not expect. I am deeply sorry for it.”

  “Well, Preacher, coming from the man who has most occasion to have aught against me, I am truly affected.”

  “Oh, Emery,” Violet said, and squeezed his arm. She wanted to throw her arms around him and wail her heart out, for the South was about to lose one of its shiningest men; but she didn’t want to give anyone the wrong impression. Of course, if it weren’t for . . . the other, why then, she would be happy to give such an impression, for Emery was a quality man. But with . . . him around . . . why, Emery felt like a brother.

  “Where is Dance?” She glanced around. “Is he on guard?”

  “My son is called to the front,” said J. W. Pickett, drawing himself tall. “He is now engaged in real soldierly duties.”

  “Dance?” said Dr. Stiles. “I thought you had meant Beau.”

  “I received a telegram from him yesterday.”

  “Dance, called to the front?” Mrs. Stiles said, her hand going to her throat. “Why didn’t he tell us?”

  Lily slipped her hand into Violet’s.

  “Called to the front, Cousin,” J. W. Pickett affirmed. “I only wish I could’ve told him how proud it made me.”

  “Your son has been at the front since his posting at Andersonville.”

  All looked at Papa. His eyes had a sudden perilous light. His hands lay flat against his sides where they would do no harm. Violet knew that pose—she did it all the time. She looked at him in awe.

  “Have you once told him how proud you were?” he asked Dance’s father.

  “Why, I—”

  “Emery!” Posey said. “What’s wrong? Is the front bad?”

  Emery had gone pale and did not seem to hear Posey. Then he looked at Violet as if to ask a question or convey a very important message, but Violet had no idea what that message was—her head was all a muddle.

  “We shall pray a hedge of protection,” Hettie Dixon told Violet, placing her hand on Violet’s arm.

  “Oh no! That means the front is bad!” Posey said. “Why’s he gone there?”

  “I’m not sure he has,” said Emery.

  “Time’s up, Jones,” said the provost marshal.

  “What do you mean by that?” Violet said to Emery.

  “Why, he told me himself where he went,” said J. W.

  “Emery, what do you mean?” said Violet.

  “What did he say?” Emery asked J. W.

  “Why—” Mr. Pickett thought for a moment. “‘Called away,’ I believe. It is the same thing. Where else would he be, with Sherman coming?”

  “Come along, Jones,” said the provost marshal.

  Daisy looked up at her father. “Papa, what does exiled mean?”

  “It means Emery’s going away a bit, but he’ll be back someday,” said Dr. Stiles. “Especially if the North wins.”

  “Then I hope they win!” Rosie declared, then clapped her hands over her mouth.

  “God protect you, son,” said Reverend Gillette, and extended his hand in blessing and farewell.

  —

  They took Emery away, and Posey ran off to cry. Rosie and Daisy decided she should not go it alone and followed. Mrs. Stiles asked everyone over for tea, and all left the courtroom with heavy hearts. Except for J. W. Pickett. He led the procession to the Stiles house and took up with Hettie Dixon on a subject Violet could not hear.

  She trailed behind the group, walking hand-in-hand with Lily, who had placed herself at Violet’s side to shield her from the world.

  “I don’t know what to feel about Emery,” Lily said. “It is one thing that he shall not die, it is another that perhaps we shall never see him again. How these men have blown through our lives . . . Violet, we will do as Hettie says. We will pray for Dance, more than we ever prayed for Ben. I don’t think we prayed as much as we could have. You don’t pray as much when you think you’re going to win.”

  “What did Emery mean?” Violet wondered. “Did you see his face?”

  “I don’t have the heart to tell Posey I think I am in love with him.”

  “I’ll tell you the one to be in love with: Corporal Womack from the commissary building in Andersonville.”

  “Really? What do you mean?”

  “Say . . . Miss Stiles?”

  The girls stopped and turned.

  The grizzled guard they had seen in the courthouse pulled off his hat. “I reckon I have something for you.” He unslung a leather scrip from his shoulder and gave it to Violet.

  “Why . . . this belongs to Dance,” she said.

  “He told me to give it to you before he left.”

  “Why didn’t he take it with him? He’s never without it.”

  “I reckon there’s something important in there he wants you to read.”

  She looked at the scrip. “Emery doesn’t think he was called to the front.”

  The guard did not answer. He only gazed at the leather scrip as if he looked at something in the distance, and that distant thing was bleak. Then he held his thumb out toward the depot. “I gotta catch the train. My sergeant’ll have a fit if I ain’t back on time. I got leave only for the hearin’.”

  “Thank you, Mr. . . . ?”

  “Ain’t no mister about it. You can call me Burr.”

  “You’re Burr?”

  He pointed with his hat at the pouch. “Look to them words, Miss Stiles. Them are fine words.” He put his hat on, tugged it down tight, and left at a trot for the depot.

  —

  Burr sat a few rows behind Emery on the train and saw there would be no chance for private words with the boy. So he worked it over good in his head, and then got up and took the seat behind him. The provost marshal looked over his shoulder and whisked a mildly stern look at him. Burr pointed at Emery.

  “I got some parting words of consolation for the boy, as I ain’t ever gonna see him again.”

  The provost marshal shrugged and looked out the window.

  “Well, boy, it’s the North for you, eh?”

  “I reckon so.”

  “Maybe it ain’t so bad, so you take heart. I got two cousins. One is a Yank, and one is like you. My cousin who is a Yank came down for some time, but now he’s gone back home. He’s much happier.”

  It came to him slowly, but when it did some of the misery cleared from the boy’s face, and Burr gave a tiny encouraging nod.

  “Well, I do have some Northern ancestors,” the boy said. “Perhaps I will find a welcome.” He halfway glanced at the provost marshal. “What of your other cousin?”

  “Well,” said Burr—and his breath caught. “He’s gone away.”

  Emery looked like he wanted a lot more than that, but Burr could say no more. He gripped Emery’s shoulder, and went back to his seat.

  Burr was glad he caught on about Lew. He wasn’t a fair hand at words like Dance.

  This morning his wife had found a note on the table. Lew said he didn’t want to bring trouble on this house, so he had slipped away in the night. He said he’d try and connect with field slaves who could g
et him through to Sherman. He thanked Burr and his wife, apologized for helping himself to some peaches and bread, and asked them to burn the note.

  Burr looked out the window and wished Lew well, and put the same, and more, to Dance.

  20

  WHY WOULD DANCE part with his leather scrip?

  Violet had slipped upstairs and put it in the room she shared with Lily, lest J. W. Pickett ask questions. She couldn’t wait to get to it. This teatime felt like a funeral wake, and she was in no mood for somberness. Emery was saved, it was time to move on—what was exile compared to death?

  The scrip was a sanctuary, he’d once called it, a place to put sacred things. She asked him what, and he told her poems, and quotes, and things he didn’t want to forget. She didn’t dare ask, then, if he would show her some of those things. She thought he might, someday, but not like this.

  Would she find what she already knew of him? She’d find creeds and manifestos, surely, as manifesto was likely the better part of Dance—but what of other things like colors and beauty? Deeply feeling things? She knew it of him, but wanted to see it on paper, this collection of Dance.

  What was he like at college? What was his life before Andersonville? What was his growing up? It was all a blurred brown place to her, a nothingness that needed to be filled in.

  “I will say, the stench is awful,” J. W. Pickett was saying. “He did not exaggerate that.”

  “He asked you to come, and you would not?” Dr. Stiles said, and now Violet’s attention was sure. Something about Cousin Pickett must pique Papa.

  “It is a particular determination of mine that my boys should press through difficult things on their own.”

  “Yes,” said Hettie Dixon, taking a sip of her tea. “And sometimes they need their father.”

  “Four times he wrote!” J. W. held forth in his rich courtroom voice. “Four times I said, ‘Dance, did I not raise you to press through impossibilities to solutions? Use your noggin, boy! What have you done to change those conditions?’ Well, the next time he wrote I could see he was reborn—‘Study Article 22,’ says he. ‘I’d do it myself but I have been called away.’ I’d do it myself! Oh, what it does to a father to see his toil come to fruition.”

  “Every now and then, perhaps once in a lifetime, one comes across something uniquely evil in its scope,” said Dr. Stiles, and Violet lowered her teacup. “Your boy . . . this town . . . myself . . . Reverend Gillette, and my beloved daughter . . . we came across something so evil no platitude can serve it. There is no pressing through. There is no answer. We need each other to confront it, and he needed you. Part of a father’s job is to know when that is.”

  Violet set down her teacup and stole upstairs.

  —

  Her hands were afire for Dance’s leather scrip. Something in Papa’s words did it. Why it should compel her to the scrip, she did not—

  The bedroom door was ajar.

  The scrip lay opened on the bed, pages strewn all over. Reading one page quite intently was Posey.

  Posey glanced up, and jumped. She put the paper behind her back.

  Violet shut the door, and turned fire-hot but harnessed fury on Posey. The parlor was directly below—they must not hear Posey’s death throes, for Violet was going to kill her.

  “Posey Eden Stiles!” She was so angry she could barely get anything out. “You little—That is mine!” She went to the bed and began to snatch up the papers.

  “It is not! It’s Dance’s! These are his sacred papers!”

  “Keep your voice down!” she hissed.

  “I thought we’d find out where they sent him,” Posey whispered back.

  “What have you got behind your back? Give it to me!”

  “I think you’re going to like this.”

  She brought out a lettered page. It was the Americus, Americus handbill.

  “You know what this means,” Posey said. “You are sacred to him.”

  Violet took the bill. “Why, I thought he . . .” She sank to the bed. “What else is here?”

  “Things I can’t understand. Like this.” She selected a paper in the pile, and gave it to Violet.

  That which I have feared the most has come upon me, for I am like them, and they are like me.

  “What’s he mean? Or how about this one.”

  The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven . . .

  “I think it’s Shakespeare.”

  “This one is a doozy.”

  “Mother does not like that word,” Violet said, taking the sheet.

  “Who is Dante?”

  Thy soul is by vile fear assail’d, which oft

  So overcasts a man, that he recoils

  From noblest resolution, like a beast

  At some false semblance in the twilight gloom.

  Speed now,

  And by thy eloquent persuasive tongue,

  And by all means for his deliverance meet,

  Assist him.

  “Oh, Dance,” Violet whispered.

  Spread on the bed was a lifetime of collected pages and bits. There were a few small daguerreotypes of young men in proud poses, likely his classmates. Some letters, some clippings from newspapers. Blank paper and envelopes, two pencils, a secure little pouch with a pen, wiper, and bottle of ink inside. Mostly it was pages and pages of written things, some quite yellow, some new. There was likely some organization to it before Posey got her hands on it.

  “Some of it is plain boring. Here is some claptrap from someone named John Donne. I can spell better than him.”

  Violet took the page.

  No man is an iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece

  Of the continent, a part of the maine; if a clod bee washed away

  By the sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a promontorie were,

  As well as if a mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any

  Man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankinde;

  And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls

  For thee.

  “I don’t think this will tell us where he is,” Posey said of all the papers.

  Violet had an instinct for the contrary. She pressed the page to her heart.

  “Do you know where the front is?”

  It was a moment before Violet could answer.

  “Atlanta’s the front right now. Just before it.”

  “The front is in front of Atlanta. What’s this?”

  Violet looked it over. “A class schedule, I think, for university.”

  “This?”

  It was well worn. She read through it, and smiled. “Well, Dance Pickett. It’s a rejection from the U. S. Patent Office. Dated 1852. He invented some sort of hand-mixing tool, but apparently someone else did so first. He was only—” she calculated—“eleven years old. Look here—he was commended for his ingenuity at such a young age.”

  “Why would he give up these treasures?” Posey said.

  “I suppose to put them in safekeeping until he returns. Soldiers lose things, I expect.” She began to gather the pages and set them to order. “Posey, I’m not angry anymore. You meant well.”

  “I always mean well. I am misunderstood.”

  Violet unfolded a sheet of paper.

  Posey sighed. “Well, I’m gonna go see if Cousin Pickett ate all the cinnamon cakes.”

  Violet did not answer. She kept reading.

  —

  Posey slipped out and made sure to close the door. She certainly didn’t want Cousin Pickett to see Dance’s scrip, as he was sleeping in her room now, confound him, and had to walk past Violet’s to get there.

  “Always the youngest who gets ousted,” she complained as she tramped down the stairs. She stopped at the window on the landing, for something outside caught her eye. Two kids standing on the lawn. One was Tessie Robinson.

  Posey hurried down the stairs. She must get to the cinnamon cakes before Ellen gave
them away.

  —

  Violet paused at the bottom stair. She knew she was never to appear in public in such a state. But there was nothing for it.

  She squared herself and went to the parlor. The men rose as she entered.

  “He did not go to the front.” Violet held up the leather scrip.

  “Why, Violet,” Mother said, rising from the sofa. “What is wrong? Darling, you are disheveled.”

  “Never mind that. Dance has proposed. I have accepted.”

  “He proposed?” Lily shrieked.

  “Darling, when did he propose?” Mother asked. “Oh, this is lovely. Questionable timing, but lovely.”

  “He proposed here.” She held up the scrip.

  “Why . . . that belongs to Dance,” said J. W. Pickett.

  Violet looked at her father. She felt like she was falling. “He’s gone into the prison, Papa.”

  “Why . . . that was unwise,” Reverend Gillette said. “They might think he’s a spy. They thought I was a spy.”

  “Dance, gone into the prison? Whatever do you mean?” said J. W. “Why should he do such a thing?”

  “He had to,” Violet said.

  “I know why,” said Reverend Gillette, and for a moment it looked as though the preacher were the father, a fiercely proud one. “Emery Jones had plans to rescue his friend. Maybe Dance took part in that.”

  “He took part in what?” said J. W.

  “Are you sure he went in?” Papa said, glancing at the scrip.

  “Yes, Papa, I am sure. We can ask the one who gave me this. His name is Burr. And while we are there, we shall have Burr summon Dance and we shall tell him I’ve accepted his proposal and he must come home immediately, whatever his reasons for going in.” She went to the hat rack for her bonnet.

  “Violet.”

  She halted two steps from the hat rack. She tried very hard to remain calm.

  “By the time we get there, it will be evening,” Papa said. “Burr will likely be off duty.”

  “He must not—I do not like the idea of Dance spending one night—”

  “He’ll be all right,” Reverend Gillette assured.

  She turned to him. “But you said—”

  “Hotel Ford will look out for him, like it did me. Norton, I do recommend we take the first train tomorrow. Perhaps we can borrow a brougham. But he will be fine, Violet. A night in the deep did me no harm. What is more . . . we can give Dance a little time to do what he set out to do.”