Beyond All Price

by Carolyn Poling Schriber

  “Well, in any event, you need to get some rest. I’ll make arrangements for the corporal’s body to be shipped home. You’ve done more here than anyone could have expected of you.”

  “So he’ll go home. At least he’ll be spared the horrors of war. But poor Charlie. He didn’t want his master coming home this way.”

  The Roundheads settled into their comfortable surroundings. Colonel Leasure did his best to limit official duties to one short drill period a day, along with only two roll calls, one in the morning and one at nightfall. Company commanders freely distributed passes, so every soldier got at least one chance to go into town and see the sights. Some were content to stroll past the State House, while others nosed about the shops and taverns. Entertainment opportunities lay around every corner, although the strict moral training of the young Roundheads kept most of them from falling victim to the shadiest dealings of saloons, gambling dens, and dance halls. Some of the men took the opportunity to visit one of the bathhouses for the luxury of a long soak in warm water. They got haircuts and shaves and had their likenesses made at a local photographer’s shop.

  If there was one attraction that outweighed all the others, it was the taste of oysters taken fresh from Chesapeake Bay. Most had never sampled this common seafood, but it took only once to make dedicated oyster connoisseurs out of landlocked farm boys. Shucked oysters were available all over town for six cents a pint, and hungry soldiers could down a quart or two without spoiling their appetites a bit. Once in a while, someone sold them a bad oyster, leading Nellie, who had grown up among oyster-rakers, to encourage the men to go out and gather their own. When she could escape her sick call duties, she walked with her volunteers down to the shoreline and showed the men how and where to gather them.

  “Just don’t ever eat an oyster whose shell is already opened,” she cautioned. “It may look like you’re taking the easy way out, but chances are the little creature inside is sick enough—or dead enough—to make you wish you’d never met him.” When several of her pupils became skilled enough to rake in a real harvest, Nellie took them all back to the mess kitchen and gave the cooks a lesson in how to make an oyster stew. The respite from the sick room and the appreciation of the diners did much to bolster Nellie’s mood.

  The Naval Yard itself provided other kinds of distraction for soldiers looking for something different to do. Those who were so inclined could take small boats out onto Dorsey Creek and follow it to where it flowed into the Severn River and the Bay. Fishing was more than a novelty; it provided an excuse to sit still and soak up the fresh air and scenery. There was the Observatory that looked out over the water, and from its decks the men could watch as a fleet of ships began to assemble out in Chesapeake Bay. Even Reverend Browne waxed poetic at the view. He wrote a letter to the newspaper back home, describing how moving he found the sights:

  Since I wrote to you a number of steamers have glided into the harbor, and silently tied by the shore or anchored out in deeper water. The latter are ocean Steamers. Four of them have not come in at all, but lie at anchored outside in the deeper waters of the Chesapeake Bay. There is something suggestive of mystery, combined with the conception of wisdom and power in the appearance of these vessels in these waters, and their riding at anchor there so quietly day by day. When I arrived here there were none at all. Now I count seventeen of them from the cupola of the State House. They are beautiful objects, with their clean cut keels, their single chimney stacks, and two masts each; and there they sit like birds upon the water; they resemble to my eye, eagles upon their perch, that seem to be oblivious to every surrounding thing, but whose eyes sweep the horizon, while we know not what moment they may swoop down, and fall like thunderbolts upon their prey.

  The chaplain’s words gave voice to a underlying tension many of the soldiers were feeling, though they might not have expressed it so eloquently. Oysters roasting over an open fire or frizzing up their edges in a hot stew were all the more wonderful when they remembered the hardtack that filled their knapsacks and promised to be the only meal available on a battlefield. The sounds of fiddles encouraged a hoedown. A banjo plucking out the notes of “Hell Broke Loose in Georgia” helped the men tune out the muffled sounds of gunfire in the distance. And time to write long letters home to friends and family introduced even the wildest carouser to periods of sober introspection.

  The men were enjoying their week of liberty, but it took little to touch off a scuffle or an argument. One such incident erupted on Wednesday with the arrival of a runaway slave. An officer from Company K took the man into his own tent and then sought out the colonel for advice.

  “He’s in a bad way, Colonel—barefoot, clothes hanging in rags, and starving from the looks of him,” Captain Van Gorder explained. “Says his name’s Jeremiah, but that’s all he knows. Can I fix him up and put him to work in the camp?”

  “Uh, Captain, we don’t keep slaves in this man’s army,” the colonel said.

  “No, of course not, but the Bible says we should take in strangers, clothe the naked, and feed the hungry.”

  “Reverend Browne would be proud of you, Son, but the Bible doesn’t say you then put them to work for you. You may, of course, do what you can to alleviate this man’s suffering. See to it he gets a good meal, and while he’s eating, your men can poke about and find some civilian shoes and clothing they no longer need. You may even allow him some hours of well-earned sleep. But then, your Christian duty is to take him out of camp and see him safely on his way north.”

  The men of Company K were more than willing to rally around the runaway. Some of them, to be sure, were mainly curious because they had never seen a black man. One young soldier who came bringing a good used shirt stood slack-jawed when he caught a glimpse of the slave’s back criss-crossed with scars. Others, who had been raised in abolitionist families back home, volunteered to go into town and seek out someone who might know the safest route through the slave-holding state.

  “There’s a community of free blacks in the Uptown area of Annapolis,” the colonel advised. “If you can make contact with somebody there, they’ll know where he should go.”

  All might have gone smoothly, if it had not been for the arrival of the slave’s owner, pursuing him with the fire of vengeance in his eyes. He strode into the Naval Yard shouting, “Y’all harborin’ runaways here? Get outta my way. I want my nigger back!”

  “Halt!” ordered the private who was mounting a cursory guard duty at the gate. “You can’t come in here.”

  “The hell I can’t! I’m Clyde Pickens, and that there Jeremiah’s my nigger, and I mean to have him back. I know he came this way. He was seen.”

  The commotion brought the Roundheads swarming. A shouting, angry man meant a fight, and they were more than ready for one. While eight of the largest men from Company K surrounded the slave and hustled him out the back door of the barracks, the others ran to join the growing crowd. Captain Van Gorder led the way.

  “Damn Yankees! Where is he? I’ll have your hides, you miserable bastards.”

  “Excuse me, Mr. Pickens,” said the captain, smiling with a smile that had no touch of humor in it. “Are you saying this man you seek belongs to you?”

  “Damned right he does, and I’ll have him flogged for trying to get away.”

  “Oh, but first, I think you’ll have to prove he belongs to you. That’s a concept we just don’t understand, Sir. Does he have your name on him somewhere?”

  “You bet he does —written in the scars on his miserable back.”

  “Sign your name with an X, do you?” shouted someone from the crowd.

  “On a slave’s hide, I do!” By this time the soldiers had surrounded the man and were closing their circle ever more tightly to prevent his escape.

  “Ah, but we’ll need something more,” the captain continued. “A bill of sale, perhaps.”

  “Yeah, I got one of them somewheres. He’s my nigger, bought and paid for.”

  “And that bill of sale
is signed by whom?”

  “I don’t know. Some slave trader, I guess.”

  “Not God himself?”

  “What?”

  “I’m afraid, Sir, we believe only God can own a man’s soul. Without his written word, we can’t help you.”

  “God damn you all to hell! I’ll get Gov. Hicks to take this up with your commander. He’ll see to it you are all punished for your impudence.”

  “You do that, Sir. I’m sure the governor will be happy to explain why he’s not about to take on several thousand armed soldiers. In the meantime, you’re free to go. There are no slaves here, and your nigger, as you call him, left here long ago. Go on, now. Scat, before we decide to mark your own miserable hide with our own peculiar Union brand.”

  Slowly the soldiers drew away, opening a gap that pointed the slave owner straight back at the gate. As he backed toward it, they kept pace with him, their voices keeping up a continuous angry murmur of threatening epithets. Their blood was boiling, and it would take some time for them to settle down.

  “Show’s over, men,” announced the colonel as he walked into their midst. “You did a fine job. That fellow will not be able to show a single mark to prove he was treated badly here. But maybe he’ll remember Federal soldiers are not to be taken lightly.”

  “We shoulda strung him up,” grumbled one hotheaded soldier.

  “No, Sir,” Col Leasure replied. “That would have put us on his level. We’re better than that. But he’ll remember this lesson. Being humbled and ridiculed is often more painful than physical injury. Keep your anger under control until you’re in a real fight.”

  “Is Jeremiah safe?” someone asked.

  “Yes, he’s in the hands of his own people, who will deliver him to the next way station along their trail to freedom. Now let’s get back to work. I think perhaps an extra drill might serve us well. It won’t be long before we’re given real marching orders.”

  The Roundheads settled back into their routine, but tensions were even tighter now. When another dispute arose two days later, tempers flared with little provocation. The day started auspiciously enough, with Colonel Leasure and most of his staff being summoned to inspect the transport ship on which their regiment was to travel. That was a signal to everyone it was time to prepare for the next move. All around the quarters of the Hundredth Pennsylvania, other regiments were packing up. From the Naval Yard, the Roundheads watched as the Twenty-First Massachusetts and several other regiments marched past on their way to the steamers. The young Pennsylvanians awaited their turn enthusiastically.

  Then a small incident marred the excitement of the day and threatened to sour some of the men on the camaraderie of military life. General Isaac Ingalls Stevens had arrived at the Naval Yard earlier in the week to take command of his brigade, which included the Roundheads, the Fiftieth Pennsylvania, the Eighth Michigan, and the Seventy-Ninth New York Highlanders. Before his promotion to brigadier general, Stevens had been the commander of the Highlanders and was popular with them. But in the assumption of his larger command, he seemed to forget that, for the rest of his brigade, he was still an unknown entity. Stevens had consulted Colonel Leasure about a location for his administrative headquarters, and Leasure had directed him to an empty but spacious brick building. On Friday, Stevens was joined by the man he had selected as the brigade’s Quarter Master, a certain William Lilly. But as Lilly was about to move his staff and belongings into the building, an ambulance arrived carrying a smallpox patient.

  Stevens and Lilly shrank away in horror at the sight of the man. “Get him away from here,” Stevens shouted. “You’ll infect us all.”

  “I’m sorry, Sir,” the ambulance attendant replied, “but this is the quarantine house where we house all smallpox patients. Didn’t anyone tell you?”

  Stevens was a small and tidy man, but capable of flying into a rage that sent brave men cowering before him. “God damn that Leasure,” he shouted. “Come with me, Lilly.” And the two men stormed into the Roundheads’ regimental headquarters. “Where is Colonel Leasure’s room?” Stevens demanded.

  “Upstairs and to the right,” the private on duty replied, “but he’s not there.”

  “Nor will he ever be!” Stevens shouted. He aimed a kick at the door, and gestured to the men who had come to see what the commotion was all about. “Clear out the colonel’s things,” he ordered. “I want this room.”

  “I don’t think we can do that, Sir, not without the colonel’s permission.”

  “By God, I give the permissions around here.”

  “Perhaps if you wait a bit, he’ll return from his inspection trip and you can discuss the move with him.”

  “Jesus Christ! Are you all deaf? Move him out,” I said.

  “But where are we to put his things?”

  “You can send them to Hell and the colonel with them, for all I care. Just do what I say. Of all the blasted bloody fools I’ve met today, you’re the worst. Do I have to blow you all up to get your attention? Get your butts in gear, soldiers.”

  As the men stacked the colonel’s things in the hall, Leasure himself mounted the stairs. “What’s going on?” he asked curiously.

  A clamor of voices shouted at him, so it took a while to sort out the full story. Leasure was surprisingly composed. He turned to Mr. Lilly, who was stomping about impatiently. “I’m sorry about the confusion, Sir. Please convey my apologies to the general. With all due respect, however, you do not want to make your headquarters in this room. You’d be pestered at all hours by men who did not know about the change.” He turned to look for his son Geordy.

  “My aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Leasure, will show you to another suite of rooms at the end of the hall. I’m sure you’ll be more comfortable there.”

  Reverend Browne had been observing the altercation from the sidelines. “I never heard such profanity, Daniel,” he said. “How can you tolerate such behavior?”

  “The army is not your typical social gathering, Robert. And I’ll wager you’ve heard worse language in your time. The general has a great deal on his mind, and naturally the stress of being responsible for the lives of 4000 men weighs upon him. Don’t judge him too harshly.”

  “So we tolerate his indignities?”

  “Yes, Robert, that’s exactly the way of it.”

  “I’ll bow to your command, Daniel, but it’s an unhealthy start to our relationship with the man. I suspect many of us will be a long time in forgetting the unpleasantness we’ve witnessed here today.”

  Colonel Leasure shook his head. “In the days to come, my friend, you’ll look back on this scene as a bastion of serenity.”

  ggg

  7

  Aboard the Ocean Queen

  General Stevens’ Second Brigade needed two days to load all of its soldiers and staff onto their transports. The general’s staff, along with the Eighth Michigan and the Seventy-Ninth New York Highlanders filled the Vanderbilt. The Roundheads and half the Fiftieth Pennsylvania boarded the Ocean Queen, while the remaining 500 men of the Fiftieth Pennsylvania were assigned to the smaller Winfield Scott. The Ocean Queen was a two-masted side-wheeler passenger ship. Built in 1857, purchased by Vanderbilt Lines, and rented to the War Department in 1861, it boasted three decks above the water line and two decks below. The ship was originally designed to carry 350 passengers in first- and second-class cabins. The first-class cabins on the upper deck had, for the most part, been left as they were, but the lower decks were crowded with bunks to accommodate up to 1500 passengers. Stacked four high, with as little as two feet between them, the bunks were eighteen inches wide and separated from the next tier by an aisle that could let only one person pass at a time.

  Nellie was relieved to learn she and the other women were to be housed in one of the first-class cabins. She was less pleased when she made her way to the cabin and found the other women had taken over the space with all their accouterments. As she opened the cabin door, the women’s excited chatter stopped abruptly, and they s
tared at Nellie with barely concealed hostility.