“In silence we returned to the great house we had rented, and I took Jacob to Kizzy. Silas and I made love that day and three times that night with not one word spoken between us. In the morning Silas took the train north, and I never saw him again.”
IMPROVING THE RACE
NEAR PETERSBURG, VIRGINIA
OCTOBER 9, 1864
The men who object to Sambo
Should take his place and fight.
For its better to have a nigger’s hue
Than a liver that’s wake and white.
Though Sambo’s black as the ace of spades
His finger a trigger can pull
And his eye runs straight on the barrel sights
From under his thatch of wool!
So hear me all boys, darlings—
If he asks for rights, I won’t laugh.
The right to be killed I’ll divide with him
And give him the greater half!
—Poem popular in the Army of the Potomac
MOST EVENINGS WHEN the 23rd USCT was in bivouac, First Sergeant Jesse Burns held reading school, but today was Sunday and the school’s texts were Testaments the Missionary Society had provided. Jesse’s reading pupils had grown in number, and Jesse asked the white officers to help out. Lieutenants Seibel and Hill—who’d been abolitionists before the war—were willing, and Captain Fessenden had had a real knack for teaching.
Reading school was the one place where officers and soldiers, whites and coloreds met as men, and their manners were courteous, even delicate. For it is a delight to both races when a forty-year-old once slave whose entire name is Dempsey first writes that name and traces each letter with his forefinger, and it is memorable when he discovers that the very marks on the page before him are the precious phrase “Yea, though I walk through the valley of death.”
It was a cool Sunday evening. Tomorrow, or next day, the Johnnies would try to reclaim some of the ground that had been so bloodily wrested from them, but this dusk was quiet, and around their cookfires the men talked low and a harmonica moaned.
Brass gleaming, uniform ironed, hands clasped in the small of his back, First Sergeant Jesse Burns stood at parade rest outside Lieutenant Seibel’s tent and announced himself. “Sir, I’d like a pass tonight to visit the 38th. I’ve friends there. They were in that fight at Chaffin’s Farm.”
Seibel wrote out the pass. “You’ll be here at reveille.”
“Yes, sir.”
“That was some scrap. Tell your friends some of us admire what they did.”
First Sergeant Burns’s pass warranted passage “within the area controlled by our forces outside Petersburg, Virginia.” When Jesse was living with Uther Botkin and courting Midge, he’d ask Uther for a pass so he could walk to Stratford. This army pass was not the same thing.
On the railroad platform, Jesse showed a provost’s corporal his pass.
When Jesse was courting Midge, patrollers might ask, “Goin’ to visit that Midge gal, Jesse? Wish I was. She’s a pert little thing.”
It had shamed him, their talking about her.
Now, First Sergeant Jesse Burns stood impassively while a white corporal struggled through the document, moving his lips.
“Where you goin’?” the man finally asked.
“Anywhere within the area controlled by our forces,” Jesse quoted.
“God, I hate a hincty nigger,” the man said.
“Don’t matter what you hate, Corporal.” Jesse climbed on the train. He had a flatcar to himself. Officers rode the passenger car at the end of the train.
The country along the Richmond/Petersburg line seemed the surface of the moon. Miles of stubby tree stumps had provided abatises and bombproof timbering and cookfires. Desperate brigades had contested for these empty, meandering red clay trenches and covered ways.
General Grant’s City Point & Petersburg Railroad ran from the supply wharves to the front. Where it came nearest the lines, the tracks dipped through trenches to protect trains from Confederate sharpshooters.
The upper third of the balloon stack was dotted with red bullet holes. Heat and sparks blanked out a broad band of stars directly overhead. The empty flatcar jiggled and bounced, and Jesse clung to a stanchion when the train rocketed downgrade.
Officers got on at Parke Station and Hancock Station. At Meade Station a white sergeant vaulted onto the flatcar, but moved to another after he spotted Jesse.
The train passed artillery parks, hundreds of guns gleaming in the starlight, and wagon depots where ambulances, limber carts, and supply wagons lined up side by side and head to tail in a vast silent square.
They puffed past the huge naval mortar “Dictator”; its flatcar sidetracked for tomorrow morning’s bombardment. The Dictator was squat and fat, and its iron mouth was commodious enough to scald a yearling hog.
The army was a sleeping beehive. A man could almost hear the somnolent buzz.
Jesse’s heartbeat expanded into the evening. Who would he be? Would he ever find Maggie and Jacob? Should he stay in the army? Should he become a schoolteacher? Some of Jesse’s men expected Master Lincoln to tell them what to do with their new lives.
When he got off the train, Jesse showed his pass to another provost’s man and asked for the 38th.
“They’re bivouacked at Broadway Landing.” The provost’s man pointed to the road. “Them boys did a good job the other week. Couldn’t get white brigades to make that attack. I’ve heard white troops are smarter than coloreds.”
“Maybe coloreds got more to prove.”
“Maybe so.” The man coughed. “Tell ’em . . . tell ’em they did fine.”
The road curved toward the landing in a slow white arc. The narrow moon was outshone by starlight, and shooting stars dove into the horizon.
A soldier informed Jesse that Sergeant Major Ratcliff was probably in his tent if he wasn’t at the hymn-singing.
Ratcliff’s tent was pitched on the slope above the river on sheltered level ground.
“Sergeant Major Ratcliff!” Jesse called. “First Sergeant Burns has the honor to pay a call.”
Last July, when news of the Crater debacle had flashed through the army, Ratcliff had brought a company from the 38th to help the survivors, and that night when Jesse reached the Federal trenches, Ratcliff and his men had still been working. “’Bout time you come home,” Ratcliff had said. “Me and my boys were thinkin’ to go after you.” Though the moon was bright that night and Ratcliff wasn’t three feet away, he didn’t remark Jesse’s teary eyes. “Burns, I hope you killed some Johnnies today,” he went on. “Because they surely killed a passel of niggers.”
In his abraded voice, Sergeant Major Ratcliff sang out, “Burns, get in here and have a drink. I’m celebratin’ promotion to the highest rank an enlisted man can get. Far as I know, the highest rank any nigger ever had.”
Jesse brushed the tent flap aside. Cot, heap of unwashed clothing, a dropleaf table, one camp chair. “Now, Ratcliff, you know I don’t drink.”
“I know you don’t. I just don’t know why you don’t.”
“I’d like coffee,” Jesse said, as always, and Ratcliff bellowed, “Private Washington, fetch Sergeant Burns a cup of your miserable coffee and get along to the singing. I’ll be along directly.”
The sergeant major’s arm was in a sling, and a scab from a saber cut stretched from the corner of his left eye across his forehead.
“Ratcliff, you are the worst-dressed colored man in this army,” Jesse said.
Ratcliff plucked at the hem of his rough field blouse as if some stranger wore it. “Hell, Burns, General Grant dresses like a mule drover, why shouldn’t I?”
“I am happy for your promotion,” Jesse said solemnly. “All of us are proud.”
“Ain’t nothin’ to be proud about,” Ratcliff said. “Major he gets out front a-waving his sword, so some Johnnie pots him, and the captain steps up, says, ‘Follow me,’ and directly a Johnnie picks him off too. Now we are down to lieutenants,
and, Burns, you’d be astounded at the temporariness of white lieutenants.
“By this time we are tangled in the abatis and Johnny is cutting us up, and by God I have become acting regimental commander of the 38th United States Niggers, so I say, ‘Boys, let’s gut some Johnnies,’ and be damned if we don’t. White officers, they don’t know how to talk to niggers. They say ‘Follow me’ or ‘To the colors’ when they should be saying ‘Let’s grab buckra by he stones.’ ”
“You suffered heavy losses.”
Ratcliff took a drink. “I lost some friends. Next day Johnnies pushed us back where we was. You know why we attacked? Lincoln’s up for relection next month and Grant wants to prove we ain’t stuck in the mud.”
Jesse recalled seeing Master Lincoln; Lincoln’s weariness, the mightiest man in America but such a sorry damn horseman.
“Got your coffee, Sergeant Major,” said a voice outside the tent.
“Leave it, Private, and go singing. Come on, Burns, let’s sit outside. Maybe the night air’ll improve my humor.”
The James River curved wide and black, its slick current sweeping around the wrecks the Johnnies had sunk to block the Federal ironclads. Richmond was only eight miles upriver. Federal campfires dotted the riverbanks upstream and down.
The coffee in Jesse’s cup was hot and sweet. “The whole army knows what you did. They think better of every colored man because of it.”
Ratcliff snorted. “First Sergeant Burns, you think a white man took over command of his regiment like I done would be promoted to sergeant major? White man be captain by now, and General Grant keepin’ an eye on him.”
“It will be slow and hard work, improving the race . . .”
“It’ll be goddamned never! Oh hell, Burns. Have a damn drink.” Ratcliff leaned over and poured whiskey into Jesse’s coffee. “I got this from a Johnny captain. If you wonder why they’re still fightin’, have a taste.”
Jesse set the cup down. On the riverbank, hymn singers were gathered in a ring around a campfire, standing shoulder to shoulder. The singing began with a powerful hum, then melody, finally harmony.
“Edward, you have a wife?” Jesse asked.
“Got three, last I counted.”
“We’re going to win this war, Edward. General Sherman has taken Atlanta and Lincoln will win the election and before long we’ll capture Richmond. I’ve been thinkin’ what it’ll be like after.”
The song seemed to come from one voice, and trembled the night air.
Jesse said, “I had a wife, Maggie. Master sold her south.”
“One of mine got sold. Next one it was me sold away, and the last’s still down by Norfolk I reckon. Want a wife, get down to the cribs at City Point. All the wives you want.”
“Never was another woman like Maggie.”
Ratcliff contented himself with a snort and a drink of whiskey.
The voices were strong and clear as new honey: “We are climbing Jacob’s ladder . . .”
“You teachin’ reading in the 38th?”
“Hell, Burns. Readin’ is for white men.” He jerked his head. “Listen to that.”
“I’m gonna eat at the welcome table, I’m gonna eat at the welcome table . . .” The lead was a sweet high tenor.
“That’s Private Washington. He can’t read, nary one word, but ain’t no white man sing like him.”
The chorus replied: “Yes, Lord, some of these days.”
Jesse said, “You think Private Washington could lay out Grant’s railroad? Fifteen miles of track laid under enemy fire. Ratcliff, our bread, when it gets to the regiment it’s still hot from the ovens at City Point. Private Washington—can he do that?”
“Can’t see why not.”
“He can’t read the damn plans!. Man can’t read or write’ll be the man toting rails and shoveling ballast. That’s all Private Washington’s good for.”
Sergeant Major Ratcliff said sweetly, “You can read and write, Jesse. It be helpin’ you?”
The chorus: “Yes, Lord, some of these days.” Men around a fire used magic voices to drive back the night.
“It ain’t gonna be different, Burns,” Ratcliff said softly. “We ain’t never gonna be like them. Some ways, we better.”
“I’ve got a wife and a child . . .” Jesse said. “Master Gatewood married us, though she . . . Maggie . . . didn’t want to.”
“So why in hell don’t you go with some woman what does? Lot of women, Jesse. Even an ugly bastard like you can find some woman put up with him.”
“Maggie didn’t have any choice. She was my slave same as I was Gatewood’s. Ratcliff, how are we better than they are?”
Ratcliff stood up. “Sergeant, you’d talk the hair off a shoat. Let’s go sing.”
The moon emerged and the broad curve of the river shone colder and brighter than the campfires.
“I’m gonna sit at the welcome table.”
“Yes, Lord . . . some of these days.”
THE PROMISED LAND
NEAR STRASBURG, VIRGINIA
OCTOBER 10, 1864
THE PARTISAN RANGERS fled through a scorched land. Fields bounding the Valley Pike stank of burned corn, and burned circles marked where stooks of wheat or hayricks had been. Tangles of crusted, blackened boards memorialized pigsties, horse barns, chicken coops, cow sheds, springhouses, bank barns, corncribs, livestock scales, wool sheds, and grist mills. What livestock the Federals hadn’t eaten they’d slaughtered and left to rot. When Captain Stump and his small band galloped by, black vultures groaned into flight.
Earlier, at daybreak, Stump and Ollie and Alexander Kirkpatrick had been surprised by Federal cavalry outside Harrisonburg. The partisan rangers’ sentry had slept, misconduct which cost his life and the lives of three others who hadn’t been quick enough from bedroll to horseback. When his comrades fled, Baxter had his hands up.
Captain Stump’s band was diminished. Some men killed, some slipped away to join Colonel Mosby’s more respected fighters, some gone home to wait out war’s end.
Alexander, Ollie, and Stump had ridden two horses to death and Ollie had no saddle, but by three that afternoon they had put pursuit behind and paused at a stream to water. These days no sane Valley traveler would drink from a well. Ollie shuffled in circles, moaning and rubbing his buttocks. “I’m gonna kill this horse,” he said. “Goddamned if I won’t.”
In August, the Federals had started burning the Shenandoah Valley. Though the Brethren protested the devastation of their crops and animals, they would not fight, and tens of thousands fled north to refuge with their Pennsylvania kin.
“Then you’ll walk. Clever man.” Alexander Kirkpatrick knelt beside his horse to drink.
After the Federals had burned most of the farms that sheltered them, the partisan rangers had ranged more widely, ridden more miles on poorer horses. Now, not far ahead, tucked into a mountain hollow on the far side of the Shenandoah River, was their safest hideout: a small farm which General Sheridan’s arsonists had missed. The farmer had lost a leg at Gettysburg and a brother at Chattanooga, and there was grass for the horses, sweet water, and rest. The promised land.
“Alexander, I will shoot you one day,” Ollie said. “I go to sleep at night thinking where I’m gonna shoot you and how I won’t ever see your smug goddamned expression no more.”
“I am grateful if I can keep your mind occupied to some useful purpose.” Alexander bowed deeply.
Alexander had become a passable horseman. He carried four revolvers in saddle holsters and the seven-shot Spencer repeating carbine slung across his back. He wore a wide-brimmed, shallow-crowned black hat. Though it perched ridiculously on his head, it amused Alexander to wear the hat of the farmer he’d murdered. Alexander told time by a watch that had once belonged to a Federal cavalryman. Some evenings, when he was drunk enough, he’d open the watch back and examine the likeness of the cavalryman’s wife and a lock of her black hair. How melancholy life was!
“What’s that dust?” Ollie asked.
They quickly remounted. Although they flogged their weary horses, their pursuers steadily overhauled them.
“Half a mile,” Captain Stump cried encouragement. Once they crossed the bridge and ducked into the piney woods, they couldn’t be caught.
Ollie’s horse’s gait was breaking up, and the beast wouldn’t have carried Ollie much farther even if the bridge had been intact.
Bridge roof, deck, pilings burned and partly submerged, clinging to the far shore. Sheridan’s arsonists had visited here.
Captain Stump wheeled, peering upstream and down for a ford, but their pursuers galloped around the bend, four abreast, shooting. A bullet whipped the captain off his horse, and Alexander’s mount slumped to its knees. Alexander lost his pistol when he grabbed for his pommel.
Ollie emptied three Federal saddles before a rain of bullets expunged him from this life. Alexander jerked his hands above his head. Right leg at an acute angle, Captain Stump slumped in the road, blood leaking through fingers held to his face.
Their captors were young, magnificently mounted, and skilled at their work. Without a word, they collected the rangers’ guns and tossed them into the river. Several attended the survivor of Ollie’s marksmanship, others tied two dead comrades to their horses. They booted Ollie into the ditch.
Not unkindly, but without speaking, they brought Captain Stump and Alexander to a square-built officer on a sorrel gelding. “Major Young,” he said. “Seventeenth Pennsylvania Cavalry.”
Though his nose and forehead were bleeding and his leg flopped useless as a rag doll’s, Captain Stump managed a grin. “Captain Thaddeus J. Stump, Stump’s Partisan Rangers. Frankly, sir, I hadn’t hoped to meet you again today.”
“We were delayed at your bivouac by housekeeping duties.”
“Poor Baxter. You hanged him, I suppose.”
Jacob's Ladder: A Story of Virginia During the War Page 54