The Black Swan

by Day Taylor

  The mortar schooners were situated about two miles below the forts. From that strategic position they bombarded them ceaselessly. The air vibrated with noise. A thick cloud of suffocating smoke covered the area, its sulphurous sting blinding men and choking them as they struggled to identify friend from foe. The flashes of the guns were their only guide.

  In New Orleans, north of the battle, the people were m the street shouting their betrayal. General Lovell's troops should have been defending their city. In the stead of three

  thousand well-led troops, Wilson's Rangers were sent to help defend the forts.

  Wilson's Rangers were riverboat gamblers organized into a unit better known as the Blackleg Cavalry. Ordinarily they were dandy-dressed players of games. As they rode down the streets, ladies handed them bouquets. The citizenry shouted approval and encouragement.

  Beau was not cheering. Inwardly he seethed. It was criminal negligence to allow New Orleans to fall to the Federals. Jefferson Davis had no concept of the importance of the sea and the Mississippi. Like Adam and Ben, Beau believed that the army that controlled the Mississippi and the ocean was the army that would win the war. To allow the Mississippi and New Orleans to fall to Farragut was something Beau hated deep inside. Along with the others he felt betrayed.

  Just short of the forts the Blackleg Cavalry was greeted by a salvo of shot. With admirable speed the regiment of riverboat gamblers snipped the distinctive buttons from their uniforms along with their dreams of heroism. They headed ignominously back to the city, to melt unseen into the population.

  The fire bells began to peal in New Orleans. Twelve strokes four times repeated. Farragut had passed the forts. The city's defenses had crumbled.

  Beau felt desperate. For once he wished he had joined the army. He wished he were in one of those forts, any fort just to be able to stop Farragut or any other damned Yankee who dared threaten his city. As it was, he felt helpless and useless when New Orleans needed him most.

  The closer Farragut came, the more chaotic the city grew. Bestirred men and women shouted patriotism, reaffirming they would never surrender, cursing the cowardly imbeciles who had allowed the city to fall, and declaring the Yankees would bum, loot, and pillage. It would be Carthage again. With typical Southern flamboyance, shopkeepers flung wide their doors, inviting the citizenry to cart away whatever they could.

  "Not one damned lick of molasses to the Yankees!'*

  With frantic greed, people fought over the spoils that lined sidewalks and streets. Some hired drays to haul loot home. Beau cringed as Barbara, her shoes covered with molasses that ran in the gutter, fought to destroy the goods in New Orleans rather than let a Yankee belly be filled.

  Beau left the destruction, dodging the flying firkins of butter, spilled coffee, tea, potatoes rolling crazily down the cobbled streets. He went to the piers, where steamers under the direction of Governor Thomas Moore were being loaded with ordnance and military stores to be taken up-river to safety.

  Beau rounded up half a dozen of his scattered crew. When he arrived at the pier, several steamers were already on their way north. He approached the government official overseeing the loading. "Load your ship with cotton," the man ordered in distracted haste.

  "My ship is the large steamer, sir! She can haul stores upriver."

  "Don't need her," the man said curtly. "Load her with cotton and set her adrift with the others. It'll slow them down a little."

  Beau felt he might choke on his own spittle. Managing only to bark out clipped orders, he joined his crew in loading the cotton that stood on the wharf onto the UllaKs decks. Quixotically, he loaded the Ullah as compactly and neatly as she had ever been.

  Beau's face was grim as they worked through the mom-mg of the twenty-fourth. Bonfires burned on the piers and streets. The hideous scent of burning ham and sugar mingled with the more acrid odor of scorching cotton. People heaped piles of provisions ready for the torch. Fifteen thousand bales of cotton would burn on the streets or be loaded in ships like the Ullah.

  After Farragut passed the fortifications at Chalmette, there was little to stop him from coming directly to the city. Beau gritted his teeth. For one horrible moment he thought he would cry. His hand trembling, he tossed the first sputtering torch onto the damp cotton on the Ullah. His men handed him others. One by one he lobbed the torches onto the old ship's decks until she was ablaze and drifting out into the current of the Mississippi.

  Beau watched her become a giant ball of flame, great bursts of cotton exploding from her decks into the suffocating haze of smoke. As much as he wanted to, he couldn't look away from her until he saw her hit by shot from an unseen vessel. The planking of her spar deck and one of her stacks flew high into the air. The Ullah shuddered as she was broadsided again. Then she listed gently, still burning, a fiery beacon in the haze.

  Feeling empty and sick at heart, Beau didn't wait to see Farragut's fleet. He returned home. Sissy, eleven and full of the wonders of a world that hadn't touched her yet, looked frightened, her eyes darting from the smoke-smudged face of her brother to that of her pale, strained mother.

  "I saw Barbara at the docks," Beau said wearily. "She told me when she came in. She said you had to fire your ship. I'm sorry. Beau. I know what the ship meant to you—all of you boys."

  "It couldn't be helped. Adam or Ben would have done the same. What hurts is that the Ulla^ went for nothing. New Orleans was already lost. It was such a waste—the cotton and food, and the ships."

  "What is lost to us is gone. There's nothing you can do now."

  "I think I'll go wash up .. . and talk to Barb. She'll have to curb these feelings of hers. There'll be Yankees everywhere. They won't tolerate her saying whatever she pleases."

  Beau's mother sniffed. "Defenders of the Constitution they call themselves. Barbarians! Uncouth barbarians 1"

  "Not all Yankees, Ma. One of the men who got Adam and Ben and me started with the Ullah is a Yankee. I'd never be ashamed to bring him home or have it known that I'm his friend."

  She said nothing, but her eyes damned all Yankees. Beau went slowly from the room. Sissy tagged along. "Will they come, Beau? Will they rob and—^"

  "I don't know. Sissy. A lot depends on who commands the troops. If he is an honest man, I doubt we'll have trouble." He pulled her pigtail, then disappeared into his bedroom. He lay down and was sound asleep in minutes.

  As Beau slept, David Farragut was having his own problems. Soon after one o'clock he entered a virtually defenseless city. The battle was won, but the New Orleanians set about to show this Yankee conqueror how empty victory could be. They refused to surrender.

  They flaunted Conferedate colors, they sang Rebel songs, they shouted invective against the bluebellies, they spewed hatred and defiance, daring Farragut to do something about it.

  What Farragut had gained was responsibility for a city

  aflame with spirit of the Southern cause. Farragut finally threatened to bombard the defenseless city, hoping to extract from New Orleanians an admission of defeat. But, a wise man, he did nothing. He, like they, awaited the ground forces.

  General Benjamin Butler arrived on May 1, 1862, and took the beautiful St. Charles Hotel for his headquarters. As greedy and dishonest as he was incompetent and disagreeable, Butler had the misfortune of looking his part He was a short, overweight man with heavy jowls and a red-veined face. One eyelid drooped noticeably, and if "Cock-eyed Ben" chose to alter his sullen, irritable expression with a smile, even that was crooked.

  Immediately upon arrival he set about making himself the most hated man in the South. The St. Charles's gold table service shortly disappeared. For that coincidence he was dubbed "Spoons" Butler. For more serious offenses, he was called "Butler the Beast."

  A man less impressed with himself might have won the cooperation if not the hearts of New Orleanians. They were a people who lived by a code of honor, their lives governed by graciousness. Butler offended them at every turn as he set about to humble them. As mi
litary commander he took what he wished and did as he wished. He was supreme. All he lacked was recognition of that supremacy by the people.

  General Butler had handbills made with his picture on them. His unlovely face could be seen everywhere in New Orleans. Then he issued orders that would humble the people and bring order to "his" city.

  All persons over eighteen were required to take an oath of allegiance to the Federal government or surrender their property and leave the city.

  No citizen was permitted arms. Butler's soldiers were to search the homes of the citizens for weaponry. Any slave offering information against his master regarding the possession of firearms was freed.

  "The wretched beast!" Barbara spat as she tacked rosettes of Confederate colors to her dress. "He can strut and posture, but he'll never stop a Southerner from being a Southerner!"

  "Antagonizing him won't help," Beau said quietly. Barbara was changed and hardened since losing Morgan. The word Yankee or Union or Federal set her eyes to blazing. He just hoped she wouldn't insult the wrong Yankee.

  "Beau, why are you so willing to accept Yankee rule? If you weren't my brother, I'd call you a coward for what you said."

  "I'm no coward, but I'm no fool either. A lot of women parading the streets wearing Confederate colors and bonnets won't harm General Butler. It won't help the South either."

  "How little you know I" she said bitterly. "It's an expression of our spirit." She touched her heart. "Men may ride off to war. They may shoot the guns and load the cannons, but women are the ones left with burned-out houses and the graves to be dug and filled and the fatherless children to raise. Whether you accept it or not. Beau, it is our behef in our men, our spirit, our willingness to sacrifice that will defeat men like Butler. He can shoot us, imprison us, starve us, but he can't stop us believing and hating all the Yankee stands for!"

  "The outcome of the war will be determined by guns and battles."

  She snorted. "How easy for a man to say. Look to the streets, Beau. Battle hasn't defeated our women! And those who obey Butler are not real Southerners. Our men are fighting for the cause."

  Beau didn't argue. She was partly right. The women were Butler's worst headache. They defied him. They insulted his men. Should a soldier come near, the women pulled in their skirts, making a show of their fear of contamination. From open windows Confederate songs rang out. Never had the spirit of Dixie been so vibrantly displayed as it was in New Orleans that spring and .summer.

  Butler was livid. He issued Order Number 28, aimed at the women. No one was permitted by action, word or gesture to insult a Federal soldier on pain of imprisonment. Women were forbidden to flaunt Confederate colors or sing Confederate songs.

  Soon his order was tested. A woman was sentenced to Ship*s Island for laughing during the funeral of a Federal officer.

  The women were furious. Butler's pictures disappeared. He lived in constant irritability. His men were busy day and night trying to discover what had become of his pictures.

  In one of the few times during the month of May that Beau, his mother, and sisters could laugh, he told them

  about Butler's difficulties. Though Butler's order was aimed primarily at the ladies of New Orleans, it most annoyed the prostitutes, and they put up a resistance of their own design.

  Beau sat comfortably in the parfor savoring the story. "Butler has been going mad trying to discover what dastard stole his likenesses. Then, I heard, one of his less intelligent officers, relayed a vile rumor to the general." Beau paused, took a long sip of brandy, and leisurely ht a cigar, his eyes dancing as they met Sissy's.

  "Beau, stop teasing and tell us I" Sissy shrilled.

  "Well, it is rumored that ... the ladies of the evening did some confiscating of their own."

  "His pictures!" Sissy concluded excitedly.

  "Yes, and it is furtiier rumored that, being imaginative young women, they pasted the pictures ..."

  "Where, Beau? Where?" Sissy prompted, edging Hearer.

  "In the bottom of their tinkle pots."

  Barbara began to laugh, softly at first, then as hard as Beau had ever heard her laugh. "Oh, Beau, is it true? Have they really?"

  "We'll know by morning," he said mysteriously.

  As Barbara laughed at the general's expense, his foot soldiers were suffering in acute embarrassment, marching through the streets of the red-light district, knocking on every door and demanding to inspect every chamber pot in the house. Those bearing General Butler's illustrious image were confiscated and taken back of the St. Charles Hotel, where General Butler personally smashed each one with a heavy hammer.

  News of the night's work reached every house by the following morning. New Orleans had something to laugh about. But no one was fooled, least of all Beau. The women had made a fool of "Cock-eyed Ben," but he had the power to crush them. Searches of private homes would increase.

  So would confiscations of private property. One man had already lost his entire stable of prize racehorses, ostensibly for military purposes, but actually to be sent north to Butler's own stables. Butler had brought his brother, A. J., into the city. Between them, nothing was too small to tempt their greed.

  Beau knew it was a matter of time before the LeCIerc home was searched. Mavis and the house servants would

  say nothing, but what of the field hands? Who could be sure a slave wouldn't believe a hollow Yankee promise of wealth and "freedom" when all his master could offer was another year of cutting cane.

  Beyond that uncertainty was the stubbornness of his mother and sister. They insisted on keeping their loaded muskets within easy reach.

  "Americans have the right to defend themselves," his mother said. "And we are Americans, Beau. We fought for this land a hundred years ago. No white-trash Northerner can make me give it up."

  "I'd rather die than allow that beast to know he'd made me afraid for one moment," Barbara added.

  Strategically they were wrong. Still, he admired them. He admired many of the women of New Orleans. In them was a fierceness of spirit that couldn't be ignored. Their weapons were their tongues, the look in their eyes, the unmistakable censure in their attitudes. Small weapons when compared to Enfield rifles. Parrot guns, and cannons, but for all that, he thought theirs might be more enduring. Generations of Southerners had suckled at their breasts, been guided by their soft Southern voices whispering fierce words of honor and lessons of Southern pride. It would be these same softly fierce voices who taught generations of the future. It was a force no Parrott gun could boast.

  By the beginning of June they were lulled into a sense of security. The soldiers had never come. No LeClerc had been forced to pledge allegiance to the Federal government. No one had attempted to harrass them or search the house. Beau began planning to return to Nassau.

  He sent a telegram to Zoe informing her he would be in Wilmington at the end of June. She would give the message to Adam.

  His sea chest was packed. He'd already ordered Joachim to hitch the dray he'd drive to Wilmington. At noon Barbara and his mother prepared ham.

  "A toast to the most beautiful women in New Orleans." He raised his glass lovingly to his mother, then Barbara, and last Sissy, who grinned into the crystal goblet, the first wine she'd ever been allowed.

  They smiled, accepting his compliments, when Mavis rushed to Mrs. LeClerc's side. "Dey's here! Oh, Miss what we gwine do? Dey's come!"

  "Who's here?"

  Beau was on his feet, his face tauL "The Federals. Stay where you are. Don't make a sound."

  Six blue-uniformed men milled in the hallway. At a glance Beau knew this was not the normal call. There was no ranking officer. They had all been drinking. He was certain the search was something the six of them had thought up themselves, but there was nothing he could do to stop it

  "Who're you?" One man asked, singling Beau out. "I wuz tor three ladies live here." His accent was harsh. Northern, clipped.

  "I'm Beau LeClerc. This is my home."

  "Ah'm Beau
La Clair. This is mah home," the man mimicked, then burst into a loud guffaw, "WeU, now, Beau La Clair, I s'pose you know this here city is part of the U-nited States of "America agin, don't you?"

  "No sir, I do not. The state of Louisiana by will and consent of her people is part of the Confederate States of America."

  "By Jeez-zuz, the way this guy'talks. Hey, fellas! Lookie here. We found us a real live Reb traitor." The man moved nearer to Beau. The smell of whiskey was strong and sour. "I want to hear you pledge allegiance to the t/-nited States of America right now, Reb."

  Beau hesitated, quickly licking his lips. "I can't do that, sir. I'm a loyal citizen of—"

  The rifle butt smashed into his mouth so quickly. Beau hadn't seen it coming. Blood and teeth gushed from his mouth.

  "The pledge of allegiance, Reb!" He swung the rifle into Beau's stomach. Beau went to his knees. "Well, boys, this fella ain't gonna co'perate. Gen'ral Ben'll be sure 'nuf happy to know we got us s'more Reb propitty." He kicked Beau. "Tell him, Jake."

  As Beau tried to rise, Jake clubbed him back to his knees with the rifle. Two men began to fill potato sacks with family silver and heirlooms.

  Beau lunged for another man as he made for the dining room. Jake kicked him viciously in the head. Beau groaned and fell to the floor.

  Jake, unconcerned, recited Butler's order that anyone over the age of eighteen not taking the pledge of allegiance to the Federal government would forfeit all property and

  leave the city. 'That means now—tonight, Reb. I see you here tomorrow, and you're a dead Reb, you unnerstan'?" Beau lay motionless. The man prodded him with his foot "He unnerstan's."

  "Hey, look what we got here," a man yelled from the dining room. "Don't mind if we help ourselves, do you ladies?" He settled into Beau's chair.

  "Be my guest. It's hemlock," Mrs. LeClerc said.