The Crescent Spy

by Michael Wallace

  She followed an oxcart through the marshy land surrounding the fort and, as the road passed through a thicket of swamp grass, came upon a team of slaves digging a defensive moat beneath the watchful eye of an overseer on horseback. Other than that, she saw few efforts to reinforce the fortifications. Even more shamefully, there were only a handful of men at the lookout points, and nobody challenged her as she strolled across the drawbridge and into the center of the fort. A crude gallows stood in the middle of the yard. It had no platform and was little more than a single wooden hook with a dangling noose.

  Josephine hadn’t known what she’d find at the fort—Solomon Fein hadn’t given her many instructions—but she’d assumed that the military command would be expecting someone from the Crescent. Apparently not.

  A pair of sweating young guards finally appeared and demanded to see a pass. Further questioning revealed that the pair had never heard of Josephine Breaux, had never read or even heard of the Crescent, and knew little about the hanging. One of them said there were two men, a white and a black. The other insisted it was just a black man. Was he slave or free? Nobody knew.

  She was getting frustrated when a handsome young officer appeared, dressed in a cadet gray frock coat that draped to his knees. He gave his name as Major Dunbar. She pegged his accent from upriver, probably Illinois, but loyalties had become fluid. He was polite when she said she was from the Crescent, and allowed that she could witness the hanging in the morning. When she pressed for details, he grew reticent.

  “It is purely a military manner, Miss—”

  “Breaux.”

  “Miss Breaux. I didn’t want a spectacle. My only duty is to execute justice so that others may be dissuaded from similar treasonous acts.”

  “Surely you can answer some simple questions. Is there one man or two?”

  “Two traitors were located. One will be hanged. The other will be given six months’ imprisonment and hard labor, then be expelled north.”

  “That sounds . . . lenient. Was the condemned man the ringleader?”

  “They were both found guilty before a military tribunal, that is all I can tell you.”

  “Yet one is hanging and the other will go free after a few months?”

  “Miss Breaux,” Dunbar said, his tone exasperated. “I have agreed you shall stay and witness the hanging. You may collect whatever details from that you may. But if you wish more information, you’ll have to wait for Colonel Morgan. He will return at the beginning of the month.”

  “Hullo!” a voice cried from the gatehouse.

  Two men entered the yard, one older, with a steel-gray beard and a cane, and the other a tall, slender fellow with big ears and a prominent Adam’s apple, his hair thick and wavy. It was he who had called.

  The younger man proved to be James Hines from the New Orleans Bee, and the older Hyrum Potterman from the True Delta. A few minutes later, a heavyset, red-faced man came huffing into the yard and introduced himself as Stanley Ludd from the Picayune. This was Solomon Fein’s rival.

  When she introduced herself, all three reporters gaped at her, none more so than Ludd. She imagined him rushing to the fort’s telegraph station the instant he was alone to send a message back to his paper. So much for Solomon Fein’s hopes to stun the man with a personally delivered copy of the Crescent bearing Josephine’s byline.

  “I don’t know what Fein is paying you, but I’ll beat it,” Ludd said.

  “Don’t trust this fellow,” Potterman said in a deep baritone that made him sound like a real Southern gentleman. He pointed his cane as Ludd. “The Picayune is filled with Republicans. Its subscription base is illiterate Irishmen, who buy it for the announcements about bordellos and grog houses. What, that’s three advertisements the Picayune has run for Lady Nell’s just this week?”

  Ludd used a handkerchief to wipe at his face and the back of his neck. “You seem quite the expert on bordellos. Are you sure it’s wise for a man of your age to be visiting Lady Nell’s?”

  “These men are both inveterate liars,” Hines said, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “When you leave the Crescent, remember you’ll always have a job at the Bee. What is Fein paying you? I’ll give you two dollars more.”

  “Not even one column inch, and y’all are already offering me a job?” Josephine asked. “Let’s wait until you’ve read a few of my pieces before we talk.”

  Potterman tapped his cane tip on the ground. “What, no confidence in your writing?”

  She smiled. “On the contrary. I don’t want to negotiate before you’ve seen what I can offer.”

  The men went several more rounds of banter and bickering. Nevertheless, there seemed to be no real animosity between the three, and they had even come downriver together. The true rivalry seemed to be between the Bee, the True Delta, and the Picayune on one side, and the Crescent on the other. In the competition to be the most rabid secessionist, Solomon Fein seemed to have won, and his circulation was on the rise at the expense of the other three.

  As for the reporters, Josephine pegged them by type: Ludd was the aggressive striver, the publisher who was also a writer and editorialist, Potterman was the aging reporter who turned in stories that were as thrilling as a log floating downriver, and Hines, the tall, gangly one, was the true writer. He’d already jotted a few words in a notebook and was paying closer attention to their surroundings than the others.

  “Well, sir,” Potterman said to Major Dunbar, who had been standing with an exasperated expression as the reporters went back and forth. “We understand you have two Yankee spies. One for hanging, one for hard labor. Let’s see these villains and pay our respects.”

  Major Dunbar may have stood as firm as General Jackson at Bull Run when it was only Josephine but, faced with a united front from the New Orleans press, seemed to recognize that discretion was the better part of valor and retreated from the battlefield. He called over the two privates armed with muskets and sent them off for the prisoners.

  “Very worrying, Major, very worrying,” Potterman said with a look around. “I’m an old military man myself, and I don’t like what I see here.”

  “How many men do you have in the fort?” Josephine said.

  Dunbar stared hard in the direction of the departed privates. “That’s a military secret. These aren’t the only spies on the river. Some spies no doubt read the newspapers.”

  “We’re all patriots,” Ludd said indignantly. “We wouldn’t publish anything that would harm Southern interests.”

  That was a ridiculous assertion. Unless the New Orleans press was more disciplined than either its Richmond or Washington counterparts, she expected these men would happily blab the deepest secrets of the Confederacy if it meant selling a few more papers.

  “I’m sure you wouldn’t,” Dunbar said, and his tone made it clear that he was thinking the same thing. “But never you mind. We’re well prepared with men and arms to repel any attempt by the enemy to pass the forts, and growing more prepared by the day.”

  The privates led out the two prisoners, who stood blinking at the sun before they were pushed forward. The men had no shoes and wore ragged trousers and torn, filthy shirts. The chains at their ankles clanked as they dragged along iron cannonballs.

  “So these are the spies,” Potterman said. He raised his bushy gray eyebrows, and his mustache twitched. “Which one did you say would be hung?”

  The other men chuckled at the question. One prisoner was white, the other black. It went without saying which of the men had been sentenced to hard labor and which would swing by the neck.

  The four reporters ate an early supper in the officers’ mess. The cook apologized for the lack of beef or pork due to the blockade, but he was able to serve a passable gumbo with shrimp and fish. It could have used more seasoning, but there was plenty of it.

  Seven other officers sat with Dunbar at the table, and from bits of conversation pieced together during the meal, Josephine guessed there were no more than eighty other troops in the for
t. James Hines, the one she’d pegged as the real writer, asked a number of pointed questions, which saved Josephine the risk of sounding too keen for details. Dunbar maintained his discipline in deflecting questions and cut off his officers whenever one grew helpful.

  After supper, the reporters drew straws to determine who got first crack at interviewing the prisoners, and Josephine drew the shortest. Not without some sleight of hand on Potterman’s part, as she’d spotted the older man shuffling the straws as she drew. She didn’t see any great disadvantage to going last, so she let him get away with it.

  While she waited her turn, she paced the wall behind the parapet, watching boats slip by on the river below them. A former passenger ferry fitted with welded steel plate puffed downriver, flying the Confederate naval jack of a circle of stars on a blue field. She drew her notebook from her satchel, glanced to make sure no soldiers were watching, and drew a quick sketch, with as many identifying details as she could. She wondered if it were a commerce raider trying to slip into the Gulf or a ship from the fledgling Confederate navy. Either way, it was useful information to pass to the Union.

  She heard shouts in what sounded like German from down below inside the fort. Then came Potterman’s deep baritone. If the older man from the True Delta was already with the prisoner, then it was almost her turn. She’d expected her wait to be longer.

  Josephine slapped at mosquitoes as she turned her attention to the interior of the fort. Out came Potterman, shaking his head. He lit a pipe, leaned on his cane, and chatted in a low voice with Ludd.

  When she came down, the two men were smoking and laughing. Ludd made some joke about why it took longer to hang a free black man than a slave.

  “Well, here is our Southern beauty,” Potterman said. “Fine night, Miss Breaux, fine night.”

  “Your turn,” Ludd told her. The heavy man was still sweating profusely in the thick, swampy air. “Though I dare say you won’t get anything for your troubles.”

  “You mean neither of you got anything useful?” she asked.

  The two men passed a look and a knowing smile. “I wouldn’t say that,” Ludd said. “I only said you wouldn’t get anything. We’re old hands at this business. Do this long enough and you can get a good interview from an alligator.”

  Potterman must have see the irritation flash across her face, because he tucked his pipe into the corner of his mouth and patted her shoulder like she was a child. “There now, child. I reckon you got yourself some scoops up north, but this here business is different. Why, the runaway slave is a simpleton, and the white fellow refuses to speak anything but German.”

  “I saw you trying to charm the major at supper,” Ludd said. “That may work with the Yankees, but Major Dunbar is a true Southerner, a professional. He won’t fall for that sort of nonsense.” He spread his hands. “Once you take away feminine wiles, there’s not much left for you, Miss Breaux. I’m afraid you’re in over your head.”

  The other man chuckled at this as he puffed on his pipe.

  “A true Southerner?” Josephine said. “Dunbar was raised in Illinois, as any fool could hear from his accent. As for you,” she added, turning to Potterman, who was still chuckling from Ludd’s barb, “I saw what you did when we drew straws. You must think I’m blind. You’re clumsy, as well as a fool. It’s safe to say you’d never make it as a riverboat gambler.”

  She picked up her skirts and turned away, still fuming, even as she knew she shouldn’t have let the patronizing old men get her dander up. For one, she’d soon have the same reputation as a young hothead that she’d earned in Washington. More importantly, she couldn’t get in the habit of blurting out information. She was in the information collecting business, not sharing.

  The ground was so damp here behind the levee, with swamp all around, that the jail was built above grade like the rest of the fort. There were three cells with heavy wooden doors, the first two of which held a prisoner. The third was empty.

  The damp had rotted the wood around the bars on the doors, and she supposed that a determined prisoner might dig his way out if he had a spoon or shard of rock to scoop at the rot so as to loosen the bars, and presuming he were slender enough to fit through the window. These two men, however, were chained to the stone wall opposite, out of reach of the doors.

  A soldier in a gray uniform stood by the doorway. Josephine suggested he go outside so the prisoners would loosen their tongues, but he would have none of it. Dunbar had warned him not to leave the prisoners alone with any of the reporters.

  “Don’t reckon you’ll try to bust them out,” the soldier said, “but the major keeps discipline. I dare say it’s been a nice change around here. We’re short of men, and morale is low—there’s no pretending otherwise.”

  “Why don’t they send reinforcements? Everyone knows how important these forts are.”

  “The governor raised some men, but as soon as they was properly drilled, Jeff Davis called them to Richmond. Reckon that makes sense. Got to stop them Yanks in Virginia.”

  “None of that matters if we lose the Mississippi.”

  “Nope. That it don’t.”

  Losing, or rather gaining the Mississippi was exactly what she was trying to accomplish on behalf of the Union, but she couldn’t help but feel sorry for this earnest young man from upriver, maybe Tennessee from the sound of it.

  “How long have you been here?” she asked.

  “You go on, then, miss. Major says I’m to let you see the prisoners, but I’m not to answer questions myself. I don’t want to be out with the slaves digging the canal ’cause I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.”

  “There’s that discipline you were talking about. Well, I wouldn’t want to get you in trouble when you’re only doing your duty. You keep on doing it, Private.”

  Josephine peered through the bars at the white prisoner, who did, indeed, have a German look about him, now that it had been pointed out.

  “Do you speak English?” she asked him.

  The man glanced at her and scowled. It was now almost dark outside, with only a little bit of light streaming through a barred window high up. He said something to her. Now that she was closer, it didn’t sound like German, but maybe Swedish or Norwegian. She tried again, and again he answered in his foreign tongue. After a few more attempts she gave up, thinking that maybe the two scoffers outside were right.

  Josephine turned to the second cell. The black man sitting in the corner looked up as she cleared her throat at the barred window.

  “Hello, I’m Miss Breaux. What’s your name?”

  “Caleb, ma’am.”

  “May I ask you a few questions?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Are you with the newspaper like them other men?”

  “Yes, I am. Did they talk to you?”

  “A little. Mostly, they tried to talk to Hans, but you can see that didn’t help.”

  “Is he German, or something else?”

  “Don’t know. He’s simple in the head.” Caleb shifted, clinking his chains.

  “They told me you were the simple one.”

  “I can’t read or write, ma’am, but I ain’t simple. I’ll show you.” He held up his hands. “Want to see how I can do sums with just my fingers?”

  He had a pleasant voice and sounded so reasonable that she found herself doubting this whole hanging business.

  “No need, I believe you, Caleb.” She hesitated. “Are you a spy?”

  He hung his head. “’Fraid so. I shouldn’t have done it. I know that now.”

  Any thoughts she might have harbored of uncovering the real truth of the matter, and thus freeing an innocent man, now vanished. It was a typical reporter fantasy, invariably disabused.

  “What did you do, Caleb?”

  “Well, Miss Breaux, a white man been paying me to watch the militias. I go up to Lafayette Square and watch them Zouaves in their blue pantaloons and tasseled caps. Marching. And I count ’em. Every time I do that, a man gives me a dollar. My sister got the consum
ption, and I buy her patent medicine for the cough, you see. When the soldiers catch me, they beat me and twist my thumbs, but I couldn’t tell ’em who paid me. A Yankee from up north, that’s all I figured.”

  As he spoke, Josephine took notes, trying to catch the flavor of his words and not just the substance. She made a quick sketch to help guide the illustrator, but no doubt Fein would want the artist to show the hanging itself in the most grisly way imaginable and not a forlorn prisoner in the corner with his knees drawn up against his chest. Sell more papers.

  “But how did you end up here, at the fort?”

  “I got to thinking, if he gives me a dollar for reporting on the troops in N’awlins, maybe news from the forts be good for two dollars. They was asking at Lafayette for free blacks and Irishmen to dig the earthworks, an’ I figure I get paid for that, and get paid more when I tell the Yankee how many men and guns there are at the fort.”

  This was all making Josephine squirm. It was almost exactly what she was doing here herself, spying on the defenses of the river fortifications. But with critical differences. She hadn’t suffered backbreaking work in the sun but had sat down with a major to be fed the best food Fort Jackson could offer. She was getting paid by the newspaper, paid a salary by the Pinkertons, and had her own resources as well. This man had risked his life, and what had she done?

  In spite of that, she had one thing in common with Caleb. Both of them had thrown in their lot with the United States and not with the supposedly glorious cause of their Southern homeland.

  “How’d you get caught?”

  “We was working in the sun, digging earthworks, when this Irishman starts saying ’bout how the Government gonna come downriver in their gunboats, and we’ll be working for the Yankees ’fore long. That gets me talking, and once I start, I can’t scarcely stop. Turn out that Irishman been reporting to the soldiers, an’ he tells the major that I’m spying for the Yankees.” Caleb looked down at his thick, calloused fingers. “Reckon I am the simple one, after all.”