Beyond All Price

by Carolyn Poling Schriber

  “I still don’t understand.”

  “Patience, Nellie. You need to learn that. Let me get my breakfast organized, and then I’ll tell you as much as I know. But not in here. We can’t trust the slaves not to reveal what’s going on. Meet me in my surgery after breakfast, and I’ll fill you in.”

  Nellie subsided into a frustrated silence. The morning was not going at all the way she had planned. She pushed her plate away and stood. “I’ll be in my room. Tap on the door, or send a slave, when you have time for me,” she said.

  That was distinctly ungracious of me, she thought as she retired to her room. But maybe it doesn’t matter anymore. I’ll be leaving here soon, and they can all think as they like.

  The summons from Doctor Ludington came shortly. Nellie entered his surgery without speaking, waiting to hear what the regiment had in store for her now. She seldom came into the surgery. The doctor held his private consultations with patients there, and he usually had no need for the services of a nurse. Nellie and the doctor interacted only as they did hospital rounds together or consulted on matters of patient care or meals. Her eyes surveyed the tables of unfamiliar instruments and stacks of medical books. This was a side of the medical profession that Nellie did not know, but this was not the time to ask questions.

  “All right, “ Doctor Ludington began. “Here’s what I know. The general has ordered a massive attack on Coosaw Ferry. Do you know where that is?”

  “No idea.” Nellie shrugged.

  “Well, at the northernmost tip of this island, there is a rope ferry across the Coosaw River. The Confederates protect it with a fort and some embankments on the far side of the river. That’s how their spies have been able to get on and off the island without our catching them. Our attack will be designed to capture the ferry and take control of the fort.”

  “Wait. What’s a rope ferry?”

  “It’s just a sturdy rope strung from one side of the river to the other. The river current is strong at that location, which makes it difficult to pole or row a boat straight across. The ferryman grabs the rope and pulls the ferry across, hand over hand.”

  “So why not cut the rope? Surely it doesn’t take a whole battalion to do that.”

  “Because we want the ferry for our own use, Nellie.” The doctor smiled a bit indulgently at her evident weak understanding of military matters. “And we want the fort. It also guards the route from Beaufort to Pocotaligo.”

  “Where?”

  “Pocotaligo. It’s a whistle stop town on the main line of the Charleston and Savannah Railway. If we had access to Pocotaligo, we’d be able to disrupt rebel supply and troop movements between the two largest cities along the south Atlantic coast. It’s a tiny spot with critical importance.”

  “And this is going to happen—today?”

  “No, the attack is scheduled for the early morning hours of New Years’ Day.”

  “What?” Nellie shook her head in exasperation. “That’s a holiday for the men. What are they thinking?”

  By now, the doctor was beginning to lose patience with Nellie. “They are thinking like soldiers, Nellie. That’s something you seem totally incapable of doing!”

  “But. . . .”

  “But what?” He stood now, looming over her. “You want another ersatz holiday celebration like the one we all plodded through yesterday? You think New Year’s would be better? We’d all drink on the stroke of midnight and cheer the promise of a bright new year? Then on New Year’s Day we’d hold another Commander’s Reception, where we’d all drag ourselves through the formalities and survive the experience only by spiking the punch until it was absolutely poisonous? And that would make these homesick soldiers happy, right?”

  “Well. . . .”

  “No. What’s going to make them happy is a little honest-to-God fighting—a chance to take a shot at the enemy—a small skirmish where they can try out their equipment without too much danger of being blown to bits—a minor victory they can inflate to a major bragging right—something they can write home about—something that gives this expedition some meaning.”

  “Of course. I understand. I just thought. . . .”

  “You just thought like a woman. And if Reverend Browne had heard you, he’d be pointing a finger at you and thundering, “That’s why a war is no place for a lady!”

  “That would be better than being called a doxie someone dragged in off the street,” she replied.

  “Nellie, you’ve got to get over that incident. It was an aberration. We don’t think of you that way. But you need to be careful in what you say. It is not your job to question military decisions. It’s not even your job to understand those decisions. You do have an important role in this regiment, and you need to keep it firmly in mind. We don’t need an elegant hostess or an entertainment director. We need a firm hand on the household staff, one that makes sure we have the clothes, the food, the equipment we need—when we need it. You make this regiment function, Nellie. But don’t try to play house with your position. You are the matron of the regiment, not the mistress of the plantation. There’s a huge difference. If you are clear on what that difference is, you’ll not leave yourself wide open to the kind of attack that occurred yesterday.”

  Nellie could think of no adequate response to that argument. She simply stood, bowed her head in agreement, and left the office. Once back in her own room, however, the fury overtook her again. “What happened was not my fault!” She threw her hands in the air and snarled at the little white kitten who was sleeping in the exact middle of her bed. “Get off of there,” she demanded, completely forgetting the cat was deaf and had no idea she was shouting. Awakened by the movement in the room, the kitten opened her mismatched eyes widely and then blinked them slowly in the universal cat language that said, “I love you.”

  “Don’t try to soften me up,” Nellie said. “I’m not in the mood to share a cuddle session. I want to kill something.” Her movements still jerky and harsh, Nellie headed across the room, only to bump into the small table by the settee. A fragile figurine landed on the floor with a satisfying crash, and Nellie glared at it for falling. “I don’t care what wonderful things the General has planned,” she told the kitten. “I’m out of place here. Doctor Ludington made that clear again, although he probably didn’t intend to. I’m leaving as soon as I can pack my things and find transportation.”

  “Mew.”

  “You? What about you? You’re just a cat. Glory will take care of you.”

  “M’am?” Another voice interrupted. “Did I hear something break?”

  “Oh, Maudy. Uh, yes, that figurine fell from the table. Sweep it up, please, before the kitten cuts a paw and bleeds all over the room. And then find my travel valise for me.”

  “Yes’m. What dat be?”

  “The valise? It’s my hand satchel. I had my personal belongings in it when I arrived. Now I need to pack them up again. I’m leaving immediately.”

  Maudy was shaking her head. “It prob’ly be in de storage room in de lower floor. I’se not ‘llowed in dere.”

  “Then find someone who is, Maudy.” The slave girl scurried off, and Nellie resigned herself to something of a wait. To keep busy, she turned to the mundane chores of her day, checking the house slaves to be sure they had straightened the rooms and then heading out to the cookhouse to discuss the meals of the day with Bessie.

  After the events of Slave Yule, Nellie expected a bit of warmth and comfort from her new-found friend, but the kitchen atmosphere was distinctly chilly. Nellie didn’t need to see Maudy slipping out the back door to know that word of her intention to leave had spread ahead of her. Bessie stared at her, lips clamped shut in a harsh, disapproving line. She shook her head slowly, as she was wont to do over the misbehavior of a slave child. Then she pointed at the makeshift table in the corner. “Sit you’self down over dere. I has some sassy-fras tea abrewin’ an’ we needs to have a little talk.”

  “I came to talk about today’s menus, Bessie,” Nelli
e replied, matching the coldness in the cook’s voice, “not for a social visit.”

  “Dis not a social visit! Wha’s dis Maudy tell me about you packin’ up and leavin’?”

  “I’m quitting my job here, Bessie. Some of the officers have made it clear they don’t approve of my presence, and I’m obliging them by leaving.”

  “Not ‘some’ officers, girl. Jist dat mean ol’ preacherman, an’ who care what he think.”

  “Well, I care. I’m tired of being accused of things I’ve never done, tired of trying to please a whole houseful of strong-willed men the way I had to do at home, tired of having all the responsibility and no respect.”

  “So, what’s you gonna do? Run away, like some little black-assed slave girl?” Nellie recoiled in shock at the older woman’s language, but Bessie’s glare never wavered. “You so stoopid, you think you jis gonna get out on’na road an hitch a ride to de promised land?”

  “I’m leaving as soon as I can arrange proper transportation, Bessie. I’m not ‘running away’.”

  “Yes, you is, sho’ ‘nuf. I knows when a body be runnin’ away from what she cain’t face. But I didn’t ‘spect to see a white woman doin’ it.”

  “What’s color got to do with it? Stop throwing that in my face.” Nellie was once again primed for a fight.

  “Runnin’ away be somethin’ a black woman do when she cain’t take no more ‘buse. But she run away ‘cause she don’ have no other choice. And even when she be a’ runnin’ fo’ all she be worth, she know deep in her heart she ain’t got a chance to make her life different. She jis’ runnin’ from one bad choice to another. You be a white woman. You free. You gots choices. You kin choose the life you wants to live. But you doesn’t reach dat life by runnin’ away like some little black-assed slave girl.” Bessie finished her argument with a defiant toss of her head that dared Nellie to contradict what she had said.

  Of course, Nellie did exactly that. “I’m not running away.”

  “Yeah, you is. You skered, an’ mad, an’ hurt. If you ain’t runnin’ away, tell me where you thinks you be goin’.”

  “I’m going back to Hilton Head. From there I’ll take passage on a northbound steamer to—well, to New York, or Boston, or wherever it’s heading.”

  “Yeah? Den what?”

  “Then I’ll look for work.”

  “What kind o’ work?”

  “I don’t know—whatever someone needs.”

  “See dere? You not runnin’ to anythin’, not even a town. And you don’t know what you be gonna do when you gets dere. Dat’s called runnin’ away in my eye.”

  Suddenly, helplessly, Nellie dissolved into tears. Deep sobs racked her body. She was making wailing noises she hadn’t known she could make. Bessie sat down beside her, not touching but letting her comforting presence make itself felt. Eventually the storm subsided, and Nellie lifted her streaked face. Dashing the last tears away and scrubbing at her dripping nose, she spoke in a soft, shocked voice.

  “I think I’ve been running away from things all my life. I’ve just never faced it. I ran away from home without knowing the man who offered to take care of me. I joined him in running from sheriffs when his gambling debts got out of hand. I fled from him when he started to take out his own frustrations on my battered face. I hid from him in a dirty tenement, and then ran away from it when the drugs and outlawry threatened to swamp me. I was still running away when I joined the Roundheads. I don’t know how to do anything except run away.”

  “So stop. Quit runnin’.”

  “I don’t think I can. The lives I’ve led have made me what I am, and no matter how hard I try to hide the past, someone like Reverend Browne manages to see through the disguise.”

  “Like I says before. You be a white woman. You’s got choices. Start by not acting like a black-assed slave woman.”

  “But I can’t. . . .”

  “’Course you can. Choose to stay here and do de job we’uns all needs you to do.” When Nellie stared back at her with doubt in her eyes, Bessie smiled and added, “At leas’ fo’ a little while. Stay an’ find out if things don’ git themselfs better. If dat don’ work, if you cain’t be a strong white woman, I be gonna teach you how to be a good runaway black woman. If you wants to be successful, you has to know de way to use dat fear to make you strong.”

  The next few days were too busy for Nellie to think about anything other than work. Most of the staff officers came home by late afternoon, but Colonel Leasure had ridden off with General Stevens to survey the terrain over which the regiments would have to pass. He returned on Saturday, and like the other officers, immediately threw himself into the logistics of the coming attack. Nellie’s days were filled with shouted orders, demands for more ammunition, more food supplies, more individualized orders going out to the various Roundhead companies. She became adept at allocating the foodstuffs and medical supplies, as she filled the men’s haversacks with everything they might need to survive this short battle. She even found time to smile at herself a bit as she remembered the days, not all that long ago, when she had not even known what a haversack was.

  Deployment began on the night of December 30th. General Stevens took his main force of the Eighth Michigan, the Seventy-Ninth New York, and the Fiftieth Pennsylvania out first, marching them in a long loop, carrying them across the river on gunboats, and then ordering them to crawl though the tangled woods to take their positions behind the fort. Flatbeds moved the rest of the men into place. Two companies of Roundheads and two companies of New York Highlanders followed a similar loop on the other side of the island to take up their positions at Seabrook Plantation. The Navy steamed its gunboats toward the ferry, staying out of a direct line of sight from the fort.

  Three companies of Roundheads spread out to guard the approaches to the city of Beaufort. The rest, along with Colonel Leasure, marched directly to the island terminus of the ferry, ready to attack the fort from the front, once the rear assault had been launched. All they had to do was wait until it was time to light up the sky with their own version of a New Year’s celebration.

  The Second Brigade began its move at 1:00 a.m. on New Year’s Day. By dawn they had the Confederate posts in their gunsights. The troops swarmed into the fort and over the batteries that defended it, overwhelming the small force of defenders, who had no choice but to flee into the woods. The landing parties joined the main force at the fort, and all was secured by 11:00 a.m. The army took time to repair the damage that had been done to the ferry and leveled the fort and its outlying batteries. Then triumphant after their first engagement, they marched back to Beaufort on January 3rd.

  As Nellie watched their return, she was relieved, of course, but also amused at the way the soldiers seemed to be rubbing their hands in glee. The brigade as a whole had suffered only one death and fourteen wounded, none of them among the Roundheads. It had been a glorious way to celebrate, and Doctor Ludington’s predictions had been right. No holiday would ever mean more to these men than the one on which they got their first taste of enemy fire and the even sweeter taste of victory.

  ggg

  17

  Changes in the Weather

  The first two weeks of January defied the usual definition of winter. Temperatures in the 70s, deep blue skies, and flowers bursting forth from bushes all over the island suggested May rather than January to Pennsylvania natives. Spirits were still high over the battle at the Coosaw River ferry, and, for perhaps the first time since arriving in South Carolina, the soldiers moved about their duties with broad smiles on their faces.

  One bright morning, Nellie recognized the young sergeant who arrived with a set of papers for the colonel. “You’re Jim McCaskey, aren’t you?” she asked. “I remember you from the night of the hurricane.”

  “Yes, M’am.” Young McCaskey caught himself as he was about to snap into a salute. “I didn’t expect you to remember me.”