Deep South. Dread rippled hotly through Abraham’s veins. “For future prisoners?”
“And current. They mean to move us further from temptation, and away from that giant nipping puppy. Puppies have sharp teeth, you know, and Winder has had enough.”
Abraham felt light-headed. “What about the prisoner exchange program?”
“Suspended. Because the Rebs refuse to exchange colored souls for white ones.”
A muffled groan came from behind Peter’s kerchief. He’d been here months longer than Abraham. “This war just plain got to end.”
“Only if we win it.” Abraham’s voice was hoarse and distant, but his conviction was much stronger. He had not become a soldier, been wounded and captured, all without pay, for a losing cause. The North would win. It had to. “What do you think, Ford? Are we close?”
“Don’t know that, but I know this.” Robert’s eyes glowed as he spoke. “We’re not the only ones going hungry. Even the guards would blow away in a slight wind.”
Abraham nodded. “Yeah, they’re hungry. They steal from our ration supply when our rations are barely fit to be eaten.”
“Just so. Lee’s soldiers in the field are hard-pressed to get their vittles, too.” Robert cut his voice low. “But this Reb government is so mismanaged that forty thousand bushels of impressed sweet potatoes are now rotting at depots between Wilmington and Richmond.”
“Hard to fight hungry.” Peter’s tone seemed laced with hope.
“Sure is. Also hard to fight without gunpowder.”
Abraham’s eyes popped open wide. “What?”
“Colonel Gorgas of the Ordnance Bureau says their supply of saltpeter will be completely exhausted by January if they don’t find a large quantity of it soon.”
Peter’s brow furrowed, and Abraham guessed the former butler didn’t understand.
“Saltpeter, when mixed with sulfur and charcoal, makes gunpowder. Can’t have bullets, or grapeshot, or cannons, or torpedoes without it.”
“One more thing.” Robert looked casually over his shoulder. “Our source in Seddon’s office says Bragg sent a brief dispatch saying he had a prolonged contest with the Yankees for Lookout Mountain. He didn’t say who won, but all who read it assume Bragg is retreating into Georgia. So how’d I do this week? Food for thought?” He grinned.
“Oh, you definitely gave us something to chew on,” parried Abraham.
“Pass it along, then. These white boys upstairs could use the encouragement, I’m sure.”
Abraham agreed. The officers hung on every word of news that came through Robert Ford. Abraham felt a twinge of pity for them, all cooped up in that stinking building, never allowed outside even to exercise their limbs. They were shot at if they came within three feet of a window. More or less. They’d been shot at for coming within twelve feet. And the only way they ever get outside is as a corpse.
Richmond, Virginia
Thursday, November 26, 1863
Sophie stirred the logs in Daphne’s fireplace and watched the copper and gold flames leap higher before turning back to listen to her maidservant’s heart. Though it was weak, the rapid-fire pulse had begun to slow toward a more normal pace in the last week, which Sophie grasped at as a positive sign. Yet she could not deny that Daphne’s body seemed to melt away beneath her skin until her bones pronounced themselves sharply. Her cough now sounded suspiciously like bronchitis, the presence of which made sleep next to impossible. Sophie began dreaming of medicine the way the prisoners said they dreamed of banquet tables groaning beneath the weight of food. But of course, neither were likely to appear.
Flipping her braid behind her shoulder, Sophie wiped her hands on the apron covering her pink and brown gingham work dress. She’d learned to save wear on her mourning gowns by only wearing them when she left the house or when she was expecting visitors—neither of which was on the agenda today.
Quietly now, she left Daphne to her fitful slumber, closed the door behind her, and leaned against the hall beside it. Thank God that at least the fits of hysteria have ceased, she thought with a shudder. Daphne no longer seemed to be hearing babies crying in the shadows of the room. In fact, she no longer seemed to hear much of anything. Whether it was simple dullness of hearing brought on by the disease, or a more sinister cerebral inflammation, Sophie could only guess. And pray.
Rain bounced on the back porch like silver needles dropping from the sky. But it was another sound that made her squint into the storm. Hoofbeats. Carriage wheels. At this early hour?
Throwing a shawl around her shoulders, Sophie stepped outside in time to watch a delivery carriage pull up. The horses slowed to a halt, steam rising from their hulking bodies, and a man emerged with a tray. It was Thomas McNiven, the local baker who catered to all the fine houses on Church Hill.
“Special delivery for you, Miss Kent.” Under the portico, he offered her a platter of small cakes.
“I beg your pardon? I—I didn’t order these,” she sputtered.
“Take them,” he said through a smile which barely moved. “Or it will make my presence at your home very suspicious, indeed.”
At once, she was wide awake. Her spine tingled as she received the delivery, absolutely at a loss as to what was happening.
“Come, now. Why don’t you put those inside your house, and then come back out. I have some other delicacies you may be interested in for those parties you sometimes give.”
The hair on her neck stood at attention. After the first party went so well, she’d given one more, last week. More guests had come than to the first one, but she did not know her social activities were common knowledge.
“The longer we stand here, the more likely we are to be noticed,” he muttered. “The rain and the darkness are fair cloaks for now, but we are not invisible.”
Curiosity bested prudence. Sophie took the tray inside, then returned to Mr. McNiven and followed him to his carriage. When he invited her inside to get out of the rain, she did so. The carriage lurched into motion, and her tongue cleaved to the roof of her mouth. Had anyone seen her get in? Would anyone see where they went?
The rain drummed atop the enclosed carriage. Three blocks passed, and they turned north on Twenty-fourth, then west on Grace.
Sophie’s chest tightened, but she finally found her voice. “Whatever we’re doing, Mr. McNiven, I’m not properly dressed for it. I’m in mourning.”
His bushy eyebrows bounced. “Always wear black, then, do you?”
“Outside my home, yes.” Not to mention the fact that her blonde hair was still plaited in a braid from the night before, rather than piled on her head as usual. “Why, I look like a working-class girl!”
He nodded. “If anyone is looking for you, they’ll be looking for a woman darkly draped and formally groomed. Your appearance is perfect, trust me.”
But he did not seem sinister, this man she had known by sight for years, a man who smelled of yeast and sorghum. Still, here she was, having been spirited from her home in predawn darkness, and taken to—
The Van Lew mansion? Confusion fogged her brain as they turned into the drive and circled to the rear entrance of the most well-known Union sympathizer in Richmond. Hadn’t Elizabeth said not to be seen together? Or had Sophie misconstrued the message?
Wordlessly, Mr. McNiven peered through rain’s silvery veil. Then, “Take this, delivery girl.” He handed her a baker’s box, and he took another.
Bare head bowed beneath the showers, Sophie followed Mr. McNiven’s footsteps until they brought her into the kitchen behind the main house. She did not hear what he said as he placed his box on the table and left her, dripping, in the presence of Elizabeth Van Lew.
“It is safe to speak here,” Elizabeth said, her voice much softer than her eyes. “My servant Caroline will not repeat what we say.” Behind her, a Negro woman fried bacon in a cast-iron skillet. “Please, sit.”
Stiffly, Sophie moved to the kitchen table and sat across from Elizabeth.
“M
y heart is true,” the spinster said, “to the true government, and to our true president.” Sophie had a feeling she was not referring to the Confederacy and Jefferson Davis. Elizabeth did not bat an eye. “I would not invite you here if I did not suspect the same is true of you, given your work for the patients of Libby Prison.”
My interests are charitable, not political. But Sophie knew better than to say it aloud. If Elizabeth Van Lew had been born male, she would very likely be mayor of Richmond or the boldest member in Virginia’s legislature. Her grandfather, Hilary Baker, had participated in Pennsylvania’s constitutional convention, and served three terms as Philadelphia’s mayor. Government, it seemed, ran in Elizabeth’s blood.
Sophie marshaled her thoughts. “It’s slavery I abhor.”
“As do I. The slaves we have on our estate would be free were it not for the codicil my father attached to his will, preventing my mother from emancipating them.” Elizabeth’s face darkened. “Silly, isn’t it? They are emancipated already, according to Lincoln’s proclamation. Unfortunately for them, they live about one hundred miles too far south. For now.” Her eyes burned, and Sophie read them easily.
“I knew your mother,” she went on. “I know you went to school in Philadelphia—my alma mater—and came home with a loathing for slavery, as I did. I know you have had rows with your father about it, as I did with mine. I know you feel compelled to aid the Union prisoners.”
None of this was untrue. “Does this brand me disloyal?”
“Your father’s captivity at Fort Delaware protects you to some degree. So does the fact that you’re being courted by an officer in the Ordnance Bureau—the very same bureau that creates the weapons being used against the Union. Well done.”
Sophie’s face flamed. She had not intended to use Captain Russell as a shield indefinitely, but their relationship had flared into something brighter than either had expected. But neither was she at peace with herself for growing attached to a man who upheld slavery with his job and personal convictions.
“I’m doing what I can for the prisoners here.”
“It is chaff.”
Sophie blinked, stunned. “I beg your pardon?”
“What you’ve done, what I’ve done, what Lucy Rice and Abby Green and others have done, is but chaff compared to the need that exists. Don’t misunderstand. Your sacrifice is noted, as is the risk you’ve taken to visit them. But can you not see they are dying just the same? These men are dying via systematic starvation, a fate never before doled out to the worst criminals. Their treatment goes against the articles of war, and it goes against humanity. It would be more merciful to put them in front of a line of cannon and blow them all to pieces.”
“Yes,” Sophie whispered, unable to hear any more. Frustration boiled in her veins. Daphne was dying on account of Libby Prison, and Sophie had spent a tidy sum of her father’s money feeding Union prisoners while they yet died in droves. “I don’t know what else to do.”
“Come now. I had it on good authority you had a sight more imagination than that. Think, Mr. Thornton.” A thin smile curled on Elizabeth’s face as she used Sophie’s old pseudonym. “You’re smart as a whip, Miss Kent, and far more daring than you realize. Now think.”
Sophie’s spine straightened. A cold ember in her chest slowly warmed. She met Elizabeth’s frank gaze as her own convictions, once hidden, broke loose from her lips. “Our larders won’t save them. Their only hope—” she glanced again at Caroline. “Their only hope is to be free.” Surely merely forming the words was bravery. Or treason.
“Would you help them?”
Sophie flinched. Help them? It was tantamount to sedition. A sentence to Castle Thunder if caught.
In her hesitation, Elizabeth spoke again. “We can’t fight slavery ourselves. But they can.”
Dr. Caleb Lansing surged in Sophie’s mind. He was just one man, but as a surgeon, if he were free, he could help heal countless bodies and send them back to their regiments. And he could give a true account of the condition of the prisoners to U.S. authorities. Here, in Libby’s hospital, he was only going through the motions without proper tools or medicine. Yes, he was able to make diagnoses, but beyond that, his work could be done by Sophie or any other compassionate soul. He was wasting away himself—and to lose a doctor was to lose many more who were desperate for his help.
“I’ll help Caleb Lansing.” You’ll be breaking the law, her conscience hissed. But she blew the thought away like thistle down.
Elizabeth nodded. “I have a plan, and you will be the linchpin.”
Eastville, Virginia
Thursday, November 26, 1863
Bella’s feet plunged through the scrubby coastline hugging the Chesapeake Bay. The night was scarcely dark enough for safety, but she and Harrison could wait no longer for chance of a moonless sky. A raw wind swirled around them as they followed the sable guide who had secreted them in his cabin last night. At last, Cherrystone Lighthouse came into view, and they were one step closer to Richmond.
Faithful souls had led them from station to station along the Underground Railroad, burrowing through the border state of Delaware, then through copperhead Maryland, until they were here, in the county seat of Virginia’s Northampton County.
“You see that figure there?” Their guide, Randolph, said. “That’s Marshall. He smuggles passengers and mail through the lines in his canoe. Best pilot I ever saw. Just keep a low profile as you get in. Safety awaits on the other side. You’ll be fine.”
But they were not fine yet. Bella’s breathing sounded loud in her ears. Still in Rebel country, her body was tense and ready to fight or run at the first sign of a slave catcher. Her ears were tuned, straining to hear the baying of bloodhounds. She had hidden among sand and brush in the dark before. But then, there had been no escape, for she had been trapped on an island off the coast of Georgia. Still, at the age of sixteen, she had waited for days in the swampy quagmire, waiting for a miracle that never came. By the time she had returned to the plantation, she was half starved and more than half mad. Though it was twenty years ago, the fear, the anger, and the pain all came rushing back to her in vivid color. Once her path had led her to the North, she swore she’d never go south again.
“Looks clear—go now,” Randolph said, but her limbs would not obey. Bella’s mind said Go! But her heels dug deeper into the sand.
Harrison grabbed her hand, and jerked her into action. Together they ran, half crouching, to the canoe, and fairly leapt inside the dugout. Once Marshall had collected his fee from Harrison—coffee and greenbacks—he pushed off into the water’s inky expanse.
No one spoke. A short distance into the bay, Marshall rested on his oars, scanning the water for signs of hostile craft. The clouds were thin and scattered, the stars peeping dangerously through the dark, ragged curtain overhead. Wind blew strongly from the east, chopping the water that rocked them.
Bella saw nothing unusual, and apparently neither did Marshall, for he hoisted his sails. As they rapidly filled, the little vessel sprang forward like an arrow from the string. Skimming over the waves, the sharp prow cut into the water, dashing clouds of salted spray onto the passengers. Bella turned up the collar of her cloak, and tightened the green scarf around her head. They sped due west like this for fourteen miles.
“We’ll find them, Bella. It will all be worth it when we do.” The wind snatched greedily at his words, but the conviction in his voice was clear. Though she could barely distinguish his features, she imagined his lips pressed together as they so often did when he was set on a course he’d determined to see through. Truth be told, Bella was grateful to have him on her side this time. Harrison Caldwell was as relentless at pursuing as Bella was at escaping, and with the added advantage of being a white male.
A comfortable quiet settled on them as Marshall turned the boat southwest by west for ten or twelve more miles, then due west again to their destination. By the time they reached Gloucester Point three and a half hours after leavin
g Eastville, they’d sailed thirty miles in three and a half hours—and crossed the Rubicon.
The boat slowed as it neared the landing, and Bella shuddered before the cold unknown.
“Who comes there?” a sentinel hailed.
“Marshall—mail boat!”
“Stand, Marshall, and give the countersign!”
“No countersign,” was the reply, and Bella’s stomach flipped. Would they be turned away because Marshall didn’t know the countersign? But Randolph said we’d be safe!
The sentinel called out: “Sergeant of the Guard, Post No. 1!” Bella caught Harrison’s gleaming eyes.
Another voice, farther away, cried: “Who’s there?”
“Marshall,” said the first sentinel, “with mail boat and passengers.”
“Sentinel, let them pass.”
Quietly, Bella gave vent to her relief, exhaling slowly. Before she could rally her nerves, Harrison cupped her elbow and helped her out of the rocking craft.
“We’re safe,” he told her.
Safe. Safe. She chanted the word in her mind until she actually believed it. They slept in their clothes in a rude cabin, surrounded by Union soldiers just outside. Truly, she had never been safer.
The next day, Harrison and Bella sailed a short distance to Yorktown, and from there set out by foot across the peninsula. If she had to cover every mile one step at a time to reach her family, she would do it without complaint. But time mocked her as it dragged on. Bella could only pray they would make it to Daphne and Abraham in time.
Ten miles later, they reached Grove Wharf only to learn the next steam packet would not depart for Richmond until Monday. It was all Bella could do not to cry.
Richmond, Virginia
Monday, November 30, 1863
Eyes squeezed shut, Sophie Kent tried to focus on her silver locket, cool and still against her pounding heart. The faces of her mother and father inside were smooth, clean, and bright with life. But she could barely breathe. She could not shut out the image of dead Union officers surrounding her, their swollen lips pulled back in deathly grimace. How long has it been? Is he coming? She twisted her hands together, then immediately dropped them. That wringing of the hands had been her mother’s fretful habit. And Sophie was not her mother.
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