by Lois Leveen
Mr. Watson shook Wilson’s hand. “I believe I may know what you mean. I received items from this area and forwarded them to Jones and Bowser, from time to time.”
Bet clucked her tongue, impatient at all this talk she couldn’t understand. “Our first matter of concern is finding Mr. Watson some proper attire. And then figuring out how to get him back home.”
I could hem up a pair of Wilson’s pants well enough to fit our guest. But how we’d get him and his wife across the lines to Pennsylvania, I couldn’t guess. Nor could I imagine how they’d feel returning home, when so many of their neighbors would still be gone. Folks born free but made slaves by war. My worry over how spying in the Gray House threatened me seeped into a new dread terror, as I realized how vulnerable negroes were, even in their own houses in the North.
I was so distracted at the Gray House that week, Hortense reprimanded me at least three times a day, and Queen Varina had a slap for me nearly as often. I could barely maintain my composure come Thursday, when Aunt Piss called on her. But it was fury more than fear that had me shaking as I walked home that evening.
“It’s over two hundred miles to Chambersburg.” I heard Bet’s harangue the moment I stepped inside. She was lodging Mr. Watson at her house while McNiven tried to locate his wife, Mag. “Fort Monroe is less than half the distance. And with my pass—”
Wilson cut her off. “Your pass isn’t going to get the Watsons any closer to their home. Maybe you haven’t noticed, but Fort Monroe is southeast of here. Chambersburg is due north.”
I held to the bottom of the stairs. The ugly things I’d learned that afternoon haunted me so, I suddenly wanted to flee. Flee from war and worry and death, from the horror of it all. But where could I possibly escape all horror, with things as bad as they were? I forced myself up to our parlor to deliver the latest news.
Bet, who sat facing the landing, caught sight of me first. “Mary, tell Wilson that what matters is getting the Watsons to Union territory as soon as possible.”
“We need to get these people home, not to some army camp.” Wilson turned to me for confirmation.
“I don’t know that it matters whether you take the Watsons to Chambersburg or Fort Monroe, or just keep them in Richmond. Seems there’s no place safe for us.” I swallowed down a mouthful of bile. “They’re killing negroes in the North, right in New York City.”
“New York?” Bet was incredulous. “No rebel troops are anywhere near there.”
“It’s not the rebels who are doing it. It’s the Yankees.” I shivered over the pleasure Aunt Piss took in relating the details to Queen Varina. “All week long, they’ve been beating and burning and killing. Rioters set fire to a colored orphanage, lynched colored men in the street. They’re angry at being drafted to fight for a bunch of slaves, so they’re murdering every negro they can find.”
Wilson sank back into his chair, but Bet teetered forward on the sofa’s edge. “This cannot be,” she said. “Your source must be mistaken.”
I reminded her I’d had the same damn source for a year and a half, bringing news of Confederate battle plans, and she never thought to question it. “Just because you don’t like what I’ve learned now, doesn’t make it any less reliable.”
“There is no need to snap at me.”
“No need?” Wilson repeated. “And what need is there for whites to harass colored folks, North and South? To deny us a single half-acre of this country in which we might be left peaceably to ourselves?”
Bet didn’t dwell long on such questions. “All I know,” she said, “is that Henry Watson is relieved enough to have word that McNiven is bringing his wife back to him. And it’s our responsibility to find a way to ensure their passage to freedom.”
Freedom from slavery, maybe, but clearly not freedom from harm.
Bet bent to upturn the hem of her skirt. Tucked inside was a folded bit of paper, an old letter that had been turned sideways so a new message could be written over it. The method was common enough, with paper in short supply throughout the Confederacy. But when she passed me McNiven’s missive, I marked how queer the content was.
Friend Eliza,
Between the Denizen o’ Paradise and the Mad is One, made to hail a man for who the Main brought Missery. Henry will be finding his dear Mag in a place o’ Strength. If the name o’ the Riverway is the first and the place o’ the man is the last, what son and will son maun be arrived and the happy Mag awaiting.
Yours,
Thos. McN.
“Why doesn’t he tell us where they are, when they’ll be back?” I asked.
“It is odd, I’ll warrant you.” Bet peered at the note. “But of course for Henry Watson the main has been misery, to be kidnapped by slave-mongers and have his wife sold away. I suppose that is why Thomas describes him as between mad with grief at losing her, and in paradise at the news that she is found. At least we know she has remained strong through her ordeal.” She pursed her lips into a smile. “And perhaps the last bit means that Mag is enceinte, and Henry may have a son before long.”
I tried to imagine a colored lady telling McNiven she was expecting, if her own husband didn’t know already. It hardly seemed likely. Just as unlikely as McNiven waxing poetical just to write such a circumlocutory note, given how spare with words he always was. But I knew I wouldn’t be able to puzzle through what it all meant with Bet about.
“It’s getting late, and Mr. Watson may be worrying on your absence. Why don’t you go home? There’s no need to settle on a route until McNiven and Mag return.”
She nodded and stood. “Yes, surely Thomas will tell us what we are to do.”
I suspected he already had. And so I pondered his note as I lay in bed that night, rearranging the words in my mind just as I had Timothy Smith’s first message in Mr. Emerson’s Essays. But McNiven hadn’t struck out any words or letters, hadn’t underscored any either. The words were all set down regularly, no marked clue to reveal a hidden meaning. All set down regularly, I repeated until sleep began to overtake me. Except for that one odd spelling.
I was full on awake in the next moment, imagining the Scotsman pronouncing for whom the Main brought Missery in his heavy brogue.
I shook Wilson from his slumber. “Maine and Missouri.”
“Ohio and Oregon,” he answered. “What kind of game are you playing now?”
“When Maine became a state, they brought Missouri into the Union, too. One came in free, one slave, to keep the balance in Congress.”
“Thank you for the history lesson. But couldn’t it wait until morning?” He rolled over, turning his back to me.
Henry Clay was the man for whom the Maine brought Missouri, I knew that thanks to the thoroughness of Miss Douglass’s history instruction. Clay brokered Congress’ passage of the Missouri Compromise back in 1820. And he shared a given name with Henry Watson. But what could McNiven intend for me to make of that?
I pictured the whole of the note again. Main. Missery. Denizen of Paradise. Mad is One. Strength. Riverway. All capitalized, these words were the oddest bits of the message, which meant they were the ones McNiven had chosen most carefully. Adam and Eve were the denizens of paradise, so I started puzzling over all the Eves and Adams I could recall. And before too long I thought of John Adams and John Quincy Adams, presidents both.
Then came Mad is One. Madisone. Madison. James Monroe held the presidency between John Quincy Adams and James Madison. Back when the Missouri Compromise was passed.
One more reason to damn Henry Clay to hell, confusing me like that. But I didn’t dwell on him, now that I had Monroe in my mind instead.
In a minute I was shaking Wilson again. “I’ve got it now.”
He groaned, pulling the summer coverlet over his head. I pried the blanket loose. “Mag is waiting at Fort Monroe. You’re going to bring Henry to her.”
He blinked awake. “You’re worse than that damn Bet, you know that? At least she only acts crazy, not clairvoyant.”
“I’m
no mind reader. More of a sign reader.” Like Mama, I thought proudly. I explained about the place of Strength being the fort, right from the French. About Monroe being President between Madison and Adams, during the Missouri Compromise. How his Christian name, James, was also the name of the river at the mouth of which stood Fort Monroe. And that Henry was the Watson who would arrive to find Mag waiting, and my own husband was the Wilson who would take him.
“Am I having some peculiar dream right now, or is all of this really happening and making sense to you?” he asked when I finished.
“You’re crotchety when you wake up, you know that?” I kissed him. “But you best get what rest you can. You’re going to have to figure a way to ride out farther than usual tomorrow, to bring Henry Watson all the way to Fort Monroe.”
Which meant I was going to fret about him even more than ever. As though fretting over Aunt Piss’s investigation, the plight of the rest of the Chambersburg negroes, and now the slaughter in New York wasn’t worry enough.
Wilson and Henry Watson left early Friday morning, while I was gone to my day’s labor. Coming back to our three empty rooms made my heart ache, and after passing the night alone, I was nearly relieved to have the distraction of returning to the Gray House come Saturday.
As soon as the nursemaid Catherine took the four Davis children down to breakfast, Hortense ordered me to make up the nursery. Crossing to the servants’ stair, I caught sight of Aunt Piss pacing nervously in the entry hall.
As I drew back from the doorway, Queen Varina came down the curving center stair. “Secretary Benjamin, what are you doing here at this hour? I’m hardly ready to receive visitors.” Meaning she still wore her morning dress, and she’d barely finished her breakfast cakes and coffee.
“Dear Mrs. Davis, I wouldn’t think of paying a social visit at this hour, even to so charming a hostess.” Agitation tinged his words. “It is rather serious business with your husband that brings me so early.”
Queen Varina nodded with importance. “Let us step into the library, and the president will join us in a moment.”
“That will not be possible. I am afraid this is a most delicate matter, and it demands complete confidentiality. My report must be for President Davis’s ears alone.”
Never one for being excluded, Queen Varina hardened her voice. “Then you ought to go upstairs and see him in his office. Good day, Mr. Benjamin.”
I hung where I was until I heard Aunt Piss’s footsteps on the main stairway, then made my way up the servants’ stair. Once I was sure he’d disappeared into Jeff Davis’s office, I inched into the waiting room.
“I don’t see the need to make a scene,” Aunt Piss was saying.
“It is a point of honor for the accused to be allowed to face the accuser,” Davis answered.
The notion of such a confrontation sent me scurrying toward the nursery. But before I could duck inside, Davis stormed out of his office and called, “You there, come here.”
I turned to him, my heart so full in my mouth I could barely force out a “Yessuh.”
“Go upstairs,” he ordered, “and fetch Burton Harrison.”
I mounted the stairs to the third floor, muscles up and down my legs twitching with fear. Knocking at Harrison’s bedchamber, I repeated the summons.
Then I stole back down to the nursery, wondering if I should try to slip away. Bet could secret me in her mansion until Wilson returned with the pass to her farm. But by then Davis would have gone to McNiven about his wayward slave, and who knows how many intelligence operations would be endangered.
I wouldn’t flee. I couldn’t save myself, if it put everything I’d worked for, everyone I worked with, at risk. I would stay and spin some tale to convince the Confederates that McNiven knew nothing about the espionage.
Standing before the nursery window, I looked south past the Gray House yard to the makeshift military prisons and hospitals that dotted Butchertown. The war had already cost countless lives. The realization curled rope-heavy around my throat, that mine might well be next.
Hearing Harrison pass into Davis’s office, I cupped an ear against the nursery’s communicating door and listened to Davis’s clipped command. “Tell him, Secretary Benjamin.”
“As you know, Mr. Harrison, the security of our military depends on eternal vigilance. To that end, a man with my responsibilities in the government must bear the burden of some rather indelicate matters. It is certainly not something I relish, but for the good of the Confederacy—”
Davis had no patience for Aunt Piss’s pontification. “Dammit Benjamin, out with it.”
“Mr. Harrison, for the past week, you have been under investigation for suspicion of espionage.”
“I?” Harrison’s bewilderment matched my own.
“Certain information reached our enemies that appeared to come directly from this office, so suspicions naturally arose.” Aunt Piss’s usual sycophancy crept back into his voice. “My investigation has cleared you of any wrongdoing, just as the president and I knew it would.” Davis coughed violently, causing Aunt Piss to add, “I apologize for any insult to your honor.”
“As I have nothing to hide, I take no offense at the investigation,” Harrison said. “Who is the true culprit?”
My heart pounded so heavy, I barely made out Davis’s answer. “Secretary Benjamin seems unable to find him. Do you know of anyone else who is privy to my correspondence?”
“No one, sir. Neither friend nor foe could reach this floor of the house unobserved.”
“Then the turncoat must be in the War Department. Benjamin, I trust your investigations will take you there henceforth.”
“I already have a trap in place to expose the scoundrel,” Aunt Piss replied.
Just don’t expect to spring that trap any time soon, I thought. As my hammering fear subsided, I turned to make up the Davis children’s room.
It was so late I was nearly abed when McNiven came knocking. “The Confederates’ suspicion is raised upon us,” he told me.
“Their suspicion may be raised, but not upon us.” I related Aunt Piss’s accusation of Burton Harrison, and Davis’s insistence that the espionage was in the War Department. “They’ll look there a long while and never find us.”
He frowned, his mouth disappearing in the downturned curve of his mustache. “The intelligence maun pass out o’ Richmond somehow, and that is how Benjamin now looks to uncover it. ’Tis the reason I sended for Wilson these two days past.”
“Wilson needed to bring Henry Watson to Fort Monroe.”
“The Watsons were only a part to the whole, or I might hae brung Henry out myself today. There was a trap to be waiting for any what rode along Osborne Turnpike yesterday. I had to get Wilson to Fort Monroe afore then.”
In all my worry for myself, I hadn’t ever thought my husband might be in danger from Aunt Piss. I might have saved his life if I’d realized it—or cost him his life because I didn’t.
“But he’s safe now?”
“Ay. ’Tis you I worry over. Crowded as Richmond be, a vacant storefront right on Broad Street surely will be attracting notice, so I hae arranged with Robert Ballandine from Leigh Street to let the shop. One colored barber or another will not make a difference to them what come for a hair-cutting or a shave.”
Wilson’s shop was more than his livelihood, it was his pride and his joy. There weren’t too many businesses Richmond negroes managed to keep for themselves. I couldn’t imagine my husband consenting to have another man take up his barbering tools, even for a few days, and I told McNiven so.
“ ’Twill be more than a few days afore Wilson is returned from Fort Monroe. None ken the countryside so well as he, from moving baggage these many years. Better than a company of scouts to the Union command, he is.”
He was still more than that to me. But it didn’t matter what we were to each other. Didn’t matter that we hadn’t even said a proper farewell before he’d gone.
My husband wasn’t coming home, not any
time soon.
Loneliness stung me so hard, I could barely pay much mind as McNiven instructed me on how to secret my daily reports in our alley, where they would henceforth be collected.
The next evening, the massive rosewood table in the Gray House dining room was crowded with military officers and government officials, along with their wives. Food shortages had grown so severe in Richmond that even those who cursed Jeff Davis behind his back, blaming him for the bad fortunes of the Confederacy, didn’t refuse an invitation to dine in his home.
The talk was mostly of Vicksburg and Gettysburg, the two-week-old Confederate defeats. But while I served the guests a sad little spice cake made with sorghum syrup in lieu of sugar, the raven-haired Mrs. Chesnut steered the dessert conversation to a new topic. “What about this business in our own South Carolina? I find it most shocking.”
Her sallow-faced husband didn’t bother lifting his eyes from the plate I placed before him. “Our forces at Fort Wagner repelled the Union attack. No shock to that.”
“But that regiment from Massachusetts,” Queen Varina said. “Who would have thought the Federals could stoop to such a thing?”
Colonel Chesnut snorted. “Doesn’t surprise me in the least. This Shaw fellow, his father is the worst kind of Yankee. An abolitionist and a Unitarian. Just the type to send his son on a fool’s errand like that.”
Any time the Davises and their guests cursed abolitionists, I paid careful attention.
“From what I’ve heard of the attack,” observed a scrawny chief from the postal bureau, “the 54th acquitted itself quite bravely.”
There was a rustle of disapproval from Queen Varina and Mary Chesnut. One of the military men leaned back, peering through his spectacles to address the bureaucrat. “Do not confuse ignorance for bravery. Darkies are simply too dumb to know any better than to run headlong into death. The reports we heard of these troops terrorizing women and children, burning civilian possessions in Darien last month, prove they are all of them brutes.” He paused to suppress a belch, then waved his fork for me to bring another serving of cake. “Our men wiped out nearly half the Massachusetts regiment, once they presumed to meet us on the battlefield. As for Captain Shaw, he got what he deserved, shot down dead among the niggers he and his abolitionist kind adore.”