As the president passed directly in front of him, Henley thought that he was a man in his middle years, much like Henley himself. To have such acclaim and such power, surely it must warp the senses. Henley caught himself whispering what the man in the chariot repeated over and over to each Roman general as he made his triumphal procession through Rome: “Remember, thou art mortal.”
As she lay on her bed that night, Lutie thought what a strange time this is. Those who live through it will forever remember this lull, this rosy prelude to whatever shall follow, she thought. We laugh too readily. We speak more openly to one another than before. Perhaps we say things that would better be left unsaid. The smiles are brighter, and the men are more gallant. Is anyone as afraid as I am? The grain of destiny is in the wind.
She got out of bed and padded over to her window. Outside, the crickets sang to one another, a frog burped down at the pond, the night sounds of the country were so gentle. She heard a whinny from the back meadow, the meadow where the rainbows fell. Without moonlight the night shrouded her, more mysterious than before, each pinprick of light a blaze of questions; each constellation a gathering of unknown forces. She was forty-six years old and what did that mean? Time was a teardrop in an inky sky. What was time to a star or the passing of a comet in its eternal rounds of the sun and her planets? Without a heartbeat there is no time.
Instinctively she placed her hand over her heart. “Thank you, God, for my hardships and my blessings.”
II
THE
ANVIL
OF GOD
JULY 21, 1861
Dawn licked the mountains fifteen minutes before 5 A.M. Lutie awoke with first light, as she had done since childhood. She washed herself in the basin, threw on a light cotton undergarment and a thin cotton dress. Even at that hour she knew the day would be a stinker. Lutie loved hot, sticky days. Her aches and pains had already disappeared. She’d drunk enough of Sin-Sin’s rheumatism cure, white sassafras root tea, to float away her kidneys. On a day like today she felt young again.
She opened the family Bible. Inside, beautifully drawn, were the family trees of the Chalfontes and the Chatfields. The first Chatfield stepped on these shores from the Mayflower. Lutie thought to herself that the Mayflower was a small boat that brought thousands to the New World. Even Jennifer Fitzgerald claimed her people were on it. The Chalfontes, Lutie’s people, arrived with Lord Baltimore. Lutie derived enormous pleasure from this. If she were descended from Puritans, she’d slit her wrists. Bloodlines, so dear to Henley, interested her, but she didn’t set too much store by them. She’d seen splendid people produce vile children, and she’d seen walking horrors beget good people. Lutie thought the human race chaotic and curious at best. Breeding did not seem to improve its silliness as far as she could tell.
The thin pages crinkled under her forefinger and thumb. She turned to Exodus, chapter 14. Now this was why Lutie read the Bible. What a story. Moses and his people were camped at Pihahiroth by the sea. Pharaoh tore out after them with six hundred chariots. Despite God shaking his finger at Pharaoh by putting down a pillar of fire and by fiddling with the chariot wheels, Pharaoh was not to be deterred by a Jew God. After all, Pharaoh had gods of his own, thank you.
“And the Lord said unto Moses, Stretch out thine hand over the sea, that the waters may come again upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots, and upon their horses.
“And Moses stretched forth his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to his strength when the morning appeared; and the Egyptians fled against it; and the Lord overthrew the Egyptians in the midst of the sea.”
Lutie closed the book. Pretending to be Moses, she held out her hands. The water in her wash basin did not part.
Lutie believed the miracle happened, but she found it strange that after this robust display of heavenly power, Pharaoh did not turn in his Egyptian gods—falcons, owls, and rams—for this God. If she’d been Pharaoh, she would have swapped in a hurry.
The big house ran like a Swiss clock. Ernie June pounded dough in the kitchen. Cazzie the cat licked an egg that fell on the floor. Boyd drew clear water from the deep well next to the summer kitchen. Sin-Sin sang her favorite song, “Annie Laurie,” as she organized the day’s housework.
At 6 A.M. a deep, resonant boom captured everyone’s attention. The sound came from the northeast. Normally, thunderstorms crept over the mountains from the west, though sometimes one would sneak up from the south. Lutie couldn’t remember when she’d seen a big storm come in from the northeast.
The boom was soon followed by another. The reverberations were precise, rhythmic. Lutie walked out to the middle of the backyard and stood next to the chestnut tree and listened. The leaves of the great, three-story magnolias that ringed the lawn glistened.
Sumner had written that they had to keep Manassas Gap open so the railroad could keep running east and west. Everyone figured the Federals would attack Harper’s Ferry or some other position along the railroad which terminated in Manassas; either that or they’d make a beeline for Richmond. Sumner filled his letters with details that made her laugh. He called his hard biscuits “mummies.” Sumner’s letters chattered on like the man himself: gay, energetic, never thinking about tomorrow. He liked the other men. He worked harder than he’d ever worked in his life. As an engineer, he was highly valued. In his last letter, two weeks ago, he had told her not to worry. They were on the move. Once he had a minute, he’d tell her everything.
The roar continued. By now, most of the servants at Chatfield gathered on the lawn. Braxton and the men down at the stable silently stood in the middle of the racing ring. Even the horses paused and looked up from their ceaseless grazing.
Ernie June wrung her hands. Sin-Sin listened as intently as a blind woman.
How long it took her she didn’t know, but Lutie finally realized it was cannon fire. She heard the voices of the Old Testament Yahweh calling for blood.
“No!” Lutie screamed. She ran for the rainbow meadow.
Sin-Sin ran after her. She wasn’t fast on her feet, but she ran as hard as she could.
Braxton jumped on a black gelding and rode up alongside Sin-Sin. He halted the horse and held out his muscled, lean arm. “Come on, girl.” Sin-Sin grabbed his arm, and as she jumped off the ground, Braxton lifted her up. Sin-Sin liked to look at horses, not ride them, and she squeezed Braxton so tightly he could barely breathe.
Lutie raced into the meadow. Her sedentary ways caught up with her. Her lungs scorched like fire, and she knelt down in the grass, sobbing. The sound of approaching hoofbeats terrified her. She thought it was Casimer from the Harkaway Hunt. She got up and tried to run again.
“Miz Lutie! Miz Lutie, stop!” Sin-Sin called to her.
Mad with fear, Lutie stumbled forward and tried to keep running. Braxton cantered beside her, then pulled slightly ahead of her. When she saw it wasn’t Casimer, she stopped and fell down. Sin-Sin, none too gracefully, slid off the horse and grabbed her mistress. “Miz Lutie, what’s got into you?”
The cannon boomed dully.
“My babies are out there! Oh, Sin-Sin, my babies!” Lutie screamed. She shook Sin-Sin’s shoulders. “My babies are out there! Why can’t they leave us alone? It’s the war, Sin-Sin. My God, I thought we’d get out of it. I thought they’d come to their senses. Why can’t everyone live in peace?”
“Seems like peoples always fightin’ over somethin’.” Sin-Sin wondered what would happen if the Yankees won. Would she be a free woman? Why should she think a Northern white man would keep a promise—whites is whites. Except for Lutie. She loved Lutie. “We gwine beat ’em today. Thass the end of it,” Sin-Sin said with authority.
Lutie began to cry again, “But my babies—”
“Now, honey, once chillun get to wheres they can talk back, they do as they pleases. Everything gwine be fine.” Sin-Sin put her arm around Lutie’s waist, and they slowly walked back to the big house.
Braxton rode back to the stable, gave his mount to Timo
thy, then quickly ran to the kitchen. There he quickly told his mother what happened. Ernie June’s eyes narrowed. She didn’t know what it meant or even if it was important. After all, Lutie had been hysterical. However, too many strange things were happening and she vowed to keep alert.
Later that morning, cannon still rumbling incessantly, Ernie June asked Sin-Sin, “What’d she mean ’bout her babies?”
“She half outta her head. You knows Sumner be the apple of her eye. Jes babblin’, Ernie June.” Sin-Sin knew that wouldn’t satisfy the cook, but she couldn’t think of another answer.
Gray fingers grasped the night, slowly tearing it into day.
On cooking duty for her group of five today, Geneva started a fire. Most of the men, exhausted from forced marches, still slept soundly as Geneva slipped away to fill two buckets of water from a stream which fed into the larger Bull Run. The lesson for the day provided a happy omen for her. Moses escaped the tyranny of Pharaoh. Surely the people of Virginia and the rest of the South would escape Lincoln.
The last four weeks had hardened her. Geneva had been in the saddle from dawn to after dusk nearly every day. Mars had even drilled his troops on retrieving their bridles and saddles if their mounts were cut down. She was beginning to understand the wisdom of his methods. The war was no longer a lark, no longer parade drills or mock battles in the camp. Although she’d witnessed no real battle yet, she participated in the harassment of Patterson’s outposts.
The camp moved to Winchester from Harper’s Ferry. Her regiment was now under J.E.B. Stuart, who commanded the First Virginia Cavalry. Mars’s men were supposed to patrol three hundred miles around Winchester. From the north, General Patterson crawled toward them, but as yet provoked no battle.
Geneva’s regiment had covered sixty miles in two days, arriving at Manassas on the night of July 20. July 19 it rained so hard that the men called to one another while riding so as not to get lost.
Nash carried on as best he could. He bore the grueling pace with no complaint, but he was not excited by it. Geneva, however, was thrilled.
As the gray gave way to a pale pink and then a rich rose, she prayed, “Thank you, God, for letting me live to fight this day.”
While bacon fried in the pan, Geneva made biscuits. Even tasteless they’d be welcome. She also put up enough strong coffee to stiffen the weariest constitution.
“Jimmy, as a cook, you make a good rider.” Banjo tiptoed beside her.
Nash threw off his blanket. He stumbled past Geneva and Banjo without a word. It generally took Nash a good hour to function.
The Confederate Army seemed to rise like an awakened cat, stretching this way and that, and then blinking with that unnerving alertness so peculiar to felines. The massed clamor of voices sounded like a low, rolling chord.
Breakfast was hasty.
Sam Wells called, “Mount up!”
Geneva sprang into her saddle. Mars trained them well. His regiment formed up within ten minutes.
A deep, loud explosion silenced everyone. It was 6 A.M. Every head snapped in the direction of the sound.
Mars rode down the line. The initial deep report was followed by others in the background, slightly higher in timbre. The battle was on. Mars paid no attention to the cannon fire behind him. He wore his major’s tunic with the top unbuttoned. It was hot even at this early hour. His foraging cap, cavalry yellow and gold, dipped rakishly over his right eve. He wore no gloves, although a pair was folded over his belt.
“Do you have a sheath in there?” Mars pointed to a knife handle sticking out of Nash’s left boot.
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Let’s hope you don’t have to use it.”
A mounted Lutheran pastor by Mars’s side offered a brief prayer before the battle. The pastor ended his appeal with the words “and may God take care of our women.”
Nash muttered, “Our women can take care of themselves.”
Mars trotted to the head of the column. The men moved slowly until they came to Sudley-Manassas Road. Although the bombardment was closer now, Geneva thought it was only two or three miles away. Having never been in a battle before, Geneva had no experience judging distance from the sound of artillery.
They rode into broad fields; Stuart and his aide-de-camp rode at the head of the brigade. Mars rode at the head of his unit, about five hundred men. The confusion in the hastily organized army as to how many men made up a company, a regiment, and a brigade didn’t bother Mars. Whatever the numbers were, he’d command them.
Mars told his men to dismount. They languished for hours, listening to the battle grow steadily fiercer. Stuart, livid that he might be missing something, sent off spasms of couriers. Mars, equally distraught, paced.
At 11 A.M. Mars begged Stuart to let him take a small force and scout the terrain. Their maps had roads and streams marked, but no elevations. J.E.B. Stuart, pleased with his old friend’s spirit, nonetheless informed Mars he’d already sent out such a party.
By noon, Stuart, impatience personified, mounted and rode off himself. Mars angrily threw his hat on the ground, then aware that every eye was trained on him, sheepishly picked it up and dusted it off.
When Stuart returned, the noise behind him was metallic bedlam. The smoke twirled up in black and deep yellow columns. Geneva stared at this sight, not comprehending what it meant. The dust from thousands of marching feet, feet she sometimes heard but didn’t see, made her eyes tear.
The temperature was already in the 90s. She untied her kerchief and wiped her face. It was grimy and she hadn’t fired a shot yet.
Nash, next to her, was conspicuously silent as he read and reread the Bible. Two hours passed, and Geneva realized Nash hadn’t turned the page.
Banjo played solitaire. He enjoyed an imaginary conversation with his deceased wife. He prayed to her each night before falling asleep, and now he found himself talking to her in broad daylight. When he thought of goodness, he thought of her. He had difficulty imagining Jesus, but he could imagine her gentleness, kindness, and understanding. He figured that was as close as he would get to the exalted Christian virtues. He found himself suddenly fervent, and he prayed, “Sweetheart, if I die, it won’t be so bad because I’ll see you again.”
The air was now blue and sulfurous. The men and horses coughed. Mars harassed Stuart once more. Jubilant, he returned to his men.
Benserade called out, “Mount up. Dress left.”
For one quivering moment all five hundred men, stone quiet, stared at Mars. With a big smile, he shouted, “Remember your wives and children. If you don’t have a wife, remember mine.” The men cheered him.
Geneva’s heart pounded. Instinctively she reached for Nash’s hand. He touched her hand, but dropped it quickly. She wasn’t afraid. She only wanted to touch Nash, to reassure him. His face was gray. Banjo smiled through his stubble. He was ready.
The troops moved at a light trot. It was about one in the afternoon. They passed fields, a tiny orchard, and the guns grew closer.
They moved toward their left and ten minutes later passed the hospital station. The yellow flag with the large green H hung limply in the stifling heat. Inside, Colonel Jeffrey Windsor was already overloaded with wounded and dying. The screams of the wounded chilled Mars’s regiment, even in this inferno. Outside the hospital station, a huge pile of limbs, at least two feet high, shocked the onlooking cavalrymen. Jeffrey sweated, cursed, and cut. Spattered in blood from head to toe, he looked like torture incarnate. Each time an arm or a leg was tossed on a pile, a cloud of flies buzzed up like an evil umbrella and then gracefully settled down to their feast. The stench assailed Geneva’s nostrils, yet she remained calm, quite at peace with herself. Nash’s teeth started to chatter.
Everywhere signs of tobacco were in evidence, either to calm nerves or to kill the smell. Cans of Nature’s Ultimatum, Diadem of Old Virginia, Wedding Cake, and Sumner’s favorite, Darling Fanny Pancake, caught the light before being thrust back into breast pockets.
&n
bsp; They passed wounded men straining to get to the field hospital. Someone said they were Fisher’s men from the Sixth Infantry of North Carolina. Fisher was dead.
She saw her first casualty, a man with his side blown away. He was turning black. She thought the temperature must be near one hundred. Any hotter and the dead would fry instead of rot.
They trotted into woods to hide their movements. Geneva heard bullets, and once she thought she felt a whizzing by her temple, a little streak of air. But she dared not give it a thought.
What did rivet her attention was the odd slapping sound—wicker, nicker, wicker—that the cannonballs made. She imagined she could hear them revolving in the air.
As they came out of the woods, suddenly there was the conjugated power of artillery and rifles. Nash’s teeth chattered uncontrollably. Geneva, heart pounding, felt only the urge to go forward, to fight. She felt no fear. Banjo’s face was thoughtful, but he didn’t look afraid. Mr. Poist, slightly ahead of her, chewed his tobacco furiously.
The breathtaking sight of men in flaming red pantaloons thrilled Geneva. They were the Zouaves, infantry who went into battle wearing a Turkish costume that provided excellent target practice for the Confederates. Fighting alongside and equally conspicuous in bright red trousers were the Fourteenth New Yorkers. Geneva laughed out loud.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her first Federal. He couldn’t have been more than twenty years old. Whether he was handsome or not, she didn’t know, for his entire lower jaw had been shot away. He walked mechanically in no particular direction like a bizarre windup toy.
“Charge!” Mars bellowed.
Geneva put the reins in her left hand and squeezed Gallant’s flanks. Yelling at the top of her lungs, Geneva Chatfield Hart joined the carnage. A sheet of flame leapt up before her as Zouaves fired. Men and horses tumbled. Between clouds of smoke she could see Mars ahead of her by perhaps twenty yards, his saber drawn, riding his animal with the grace so peculiar to him.
High Hearts Page 17