Spy of Richmond

by Jocelyn Green

  “You can read, thank you.”

  Bella closed her eyes. Rachel’s voice mingled with the snapping fire and Pearl’s soft tread, as she rustled about her domain.

  Abraham had been right to enlist, Bella decided. For Rachel, Pearl, Emiline, Lois, and every other soul still in captivity, whether they lived in constant fear of the lash or with mistresses who taught them to read. Grudgingly, she realized that even white folks like Sophie were not truly free, when their opinions alone were enough to land them in prison and lose their property. It wasn’t right.

  “For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required,” Rachel read.

  Lord, You’ve got me stuck in Richmond like a fly in molasses. Now what do You want me to do?

  Libby Prison, Richmond, Virginia

  Wednesday, December 9, 1863

  Harrison’s skin was more freckled than ever, and it had nothing to do with the sun. Vermin bites speckled his lean limbs and torso. Scratching, bleeding, and scabbing beneath his clothes was proving to be a cycle without end. It was the same way for every inmate in Libby, and considered not at all uncouth to scratch oneself even while kneeling here, at the evening prayer meeting, where a sense of the holy mingled freely among the lice-ridden captives.

  “The whole secret of making it endurable consists in having something to do. Something to do, something to do at stated hours, making one forget where he is, is the secret,” a fellow prisoner had told Harrison. But if this was a secret, it seemed that most of Libby’s prisoners were in on it. This hour-long prayer service occurred every evening, with singing always following. Chaplains took turns speaking on Sunday mornings, too, but the activities for the prisoners didn’t end there.

  Using a few textbooks donated by a generous Southern soul, the officers taught and attended classes on arithmetic, algebra, geometry, philosophy, history, theology, medicine, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, French, army tactics, and—by far the most popular—phonography, the system of phonetic shorthand. Just since Harrison had arrived, there also had been a Lawyers Tournament and a Bone Fair, where bones inmates had carved into rings or other trinkets were judged by a committee.

  On Tuesdays at ten o’clock, the Lyceum—dubbed the Lice-I-see-’em—Association held lively debates on varied topics. Last week, they had discussed the resolution “that men ought not to shave their faces.” Yesterday the debate revolved around the statement, “that the Fear of Punishment has a greater influence upon mankind than the Hope of Reward.” At the end of each session, the following week’s topic was announced so men had time to prepare their speeches.

  “Mr. Caldwell.”

  Harrison looked up to find the chaplain looking at him intently. “Yes?”

  “I asked how we might pray for you tonight.”

  “Uh—” he laughed nervously. “I’d like to get out of here. Or has that one already been taken?”

  Laughter rippled through the crowd, and Harrison joined them, though he was in earnest.

  “Of course we continue to pray for deliverance from this place, if it’s God’s will.”

  If? Harrison thrust the word from him, even as manners told him to nod his head. How could it be God’s will to stay here? Ludicrous.

  Soon they bowed their heads in prayer, then lifted their voices in an a capella doxology. When the prayer service ended, the group morphed into a singing circle accompanied by split quills, combs, tin plates, and cups. They led off with a stirring rendition of the “Battle Cry of Freedom.” Harrison had heard it sung in countless army camps, but never with more passion than when it came from the mouths of prisoners.

  The Union forever! Hurrah, boys, hurrah!

  Down with the traitors, up with the stars;

  While we rally round the flag, boys, rally once again,

  Shouting the battle cry of freedom!

  Between stanzas, Rebel guards shouted at them to stop, but the prisoners replied with even more boisterous singing than before. Eventually, a cluster of folks on Cary Street shouted up at their windows the Confederate version.

  Our Dixie forever! She’s never at a loss!

  Down with the eagle and up with the cross

  We’ll rally ’round the bonny flag, we’ll rally once again,

  Shout, shout the battle cry of Freedom!

  By the time the singing circle had exhausted their repertoire, Harrison had barely any voice left.

  Apparently, the “all’s well” chaplain did. He pulled Harrison aside, and introduced himself as Eli Putnam. “You’re a journalist, aren’t you?” he prodded.

  Not at the moment. “That’s right.”

  “Perfect.”

  “Why so?”

  Eli smiled. “Let’s take a turn about the rooms, shall we?”

  Harrison agreed, grateful for a chance to exercise his long limbs.

  “We used to have our own paper, the Libby Chronicle. Various contributions were cut from other papers and pinned to brown sheets that served as the only copy of each edition. The prospectus was based on the idea that ‘A little nonsense now and then, Is relished by the best of men.’ But it wasn’t just nonsense and amusement in those papers.”

  His interest piqued, Harrison nodded as they passed a man lying motionless on the floor, eyes closed, though at his side was a fellow who whistled loudly a bright, cheerful tune, presumably to keep up his comrade’s courage, or his own.

  “The Chronicle also published news, as well as rumors, poetry, notices and reports of special events, admonitions to induce good behavior, and meditative reflections. Some of the pieces were devotional thoughts written by the editor.”

  As he spoke, they neared a ring of men engaged in conversation like soldiers around a bivouac fire. Beyond them, a bearded fellow studied a textbook by the pale light of a distant candle. Laughter turned Harrison’s attention to a pair of soldiers playing jacks with small bones. “Wait, wait. Did you hear this one: Why is our soup in Libby like the stuff of which dreams are made? Because it is a body without substance!”

  Chaplain Putnam laughed. “That joke was printed in the Chronicle’s first issue last August. As you can guess, the publication of each new edition proved the highlight of the week. Chaplain Louis Beaudry, who served as editor, read the entire edition aloud to a spellbound group of men every Friday. But after only seven issues, Louis was released—thank God—and the paper dissolved. Louis smuggled the issues out with him, and since then, no one has taken up its torch here again.”

  Harrison pinched something off his neck, then slapped his hands against his trousers. He could see where this was headed. “I’m honored that you’d think of me, but I won’t be here long. Just as soon as Meredith gets to my letter, it will be all sorted out, and I’ll be released.” He’d written to General Meredith, the Union Officer of Exchange at Fortress Monroe last week.

  The chaplain smiled at him but did not say what was surely on his mind: How vain that hope. After all, the Tribune correspondents Browne and Richardson were yet held captive in Richmond, despite their parole papers. Harrison’s confidence flagged. “I sound ridiculous, don’t I?”

  “Have you considered, Mr. Caldwell, that you are not here by accident?” The chaplain smiled.

  “I’m not here on purpose, if that’s what you mean.” A mirthless smile tilted on Harrison’s face.

  “Not your purpose, perhaps. But God’s.”

  Harrison stiffened. “And what am I being punished for?” Even if his motive to find a rabble-rousing story was a greedy one, his intention to help Bella was sincere.

  “You misunderstand. What if He brought you here because you are perfectly suited to encourage the men through the Libby Chronicle? Think about it, won’t you? Take your time.”

  Harrison agreed. After all, in Libby Prison, time—and vermin—was all he had.

  Capitol Square, Richmond, Virginia

  Thursday, December 10, 1863

  A stiff, cold wind stung Sophie’s cheeks as she sat on the cold granite steps at the base
of the George Washington statue. On his lunch break, Lawrence Russell sat beside her. As he unwrapped a square of fresh, warm gingerbread, the spiced steam curled around the smile on his face.

  “Heavenly,” he sighed. “Pearl is the best.”

  Sophie forged a smile from iron lips as he clearly enjoyed his first bite. She missed Daphne dreadfully, her grief compounded both by guilt and the fact that Bella was a constant, living reminder of her twin. If Bella resented Sophie, she’d be justified. Yet she stayed, most likely because she had no other place to go.

  Captain Russell knew none of this trauma. He—and Sophie’s neighbors—still assumed Bella was Daphne, a mistake better left uncorrected. No doubt the captain would have Bella thrown in the slave pen if he knew she’d infiltrated from the North, and that her husband was a Libby prisoner. He followed the rules of the Confederacy to the letter.

  Sophie buried her hands in her muff, and absently grazed the ridge inside her right wrist with her left thumb. The rules were exactly what she wanted to discuss today. “So … did you hear anything yet? From your friend, the exchange officer? Mr. Ould, is it?” If there was a way to sound casual while asking a Rebel officer about the fate of a Union spy—for what else would you call a Northern reporter gathering information—Sophie Kent didn’t know it.

  Captain Russell frowned. “You haven’t forgotten about him, I see. I must confess I don’t see why you’re so concerned about this Mr. Caldwell’s plight.” That Mr. Caldwell was already known to the captain as Oliver Shaw was completely lost on him, thank goodness.

  Sophie raised her eyebrows. “Oh, it’s not so very difficult to understand. He’s a journalist, just like Father.”

  “Speaking of, I wonder how Mr. Shaw is getting along. Oliver Shaw? Have you heard anything? I stopped by the Southern Examiner office the other day and no one there knew anything about him. Odd. I’d hoped to invite him to dinner with Hayes and Graham.”

  A bracing breeze ruffled the hem of her skirts, and she hugged them to her ankles, vowing to be less flappable. “N-no, nothing. But this Mr. Caldwell—he’s from Philadelphia. In fact, his mother taught at the boarding school I attended there.”

  Captain Russell took another bite. Lifted his gaze toward the capitol building, gleaming starkly in the sun. “Then he should have stayed there. Whatever his errand, he had no pass. I’m sure he knew the rules as well as the consequences of breaking them.”

  Sophie tucked her chin into the soft fur collar of her pelisse before looking up again. “He’s a civilian. I—I don’t understand why he’s in a military prison. Wouldn’t it serve the purpose just as well to ship him North and be done with it?”

  Captain Russell’s eyes narrowed into icy blue slits. It was the cold, Sophie hoped, and not anger that reddened his cheeks above his beard. “You do defend him rather fiercely.”

  She smiled sweetly, forced a tinkling laugh from her lips. “You, of all people, should know that what appears to be treason in me is only simple charity. I d-don’t pretend to understand military protocols and strategies, Lawrence.” It was the first time she’d called him by his Christian name, and she could tell it affected him.

  “Don’t upset yourself, dear.” His smile warmed his face as he patted her hand magnanimously. “Besides, your charity won’t do a lick of good. I’ve heard from the prisoner exchange officer. He is unmoved.”

  Her heart sagged. “What did he say?”

  “Verbatim?” He sighed and withdrew a letter from his pocket. “I thought you’d prefer that. Here.”

  The paper crinkled in her hand as she read:

  WHEN WAS THE RULE ESTABLISHED THAT NON-COMBATANTS WERE NOT TO BE RETAINED? DON’T THE UNION ARMIES OCCUPYING CONFEDERATE TERRITORY IN VIRGINIA AND TENNESSEE HOLD HUNDREDS OF NON-COMBATANTS? WHAT PECULIAR IMMUNITY SHOULD THE CORRESPONDENT OF THE TRIBUNE HAVE OVER AN OLD GRAY-HAIRED GRANDFATHER WHO NEVER SHOULDERED A MUSKET OR FOLLOWED IN THE WAKE OF AN ARMY?

  So they knew Harrison was behind the Weeping Time story, for it was printed in the New York Tribune. But was there no caveat?

  IT SEEMS TO ME THAT IF ANY EXCEPTION BE MADE AS TO ANY NON-COMBATANTS, IT SHOULD BE AGAINST SUCH MEN AS THE TRIBUNE CORRESPONDENT, WHO HAS HAD MORE SHARE EVEN THAN YOUR SOLDIERY IN BRINGING RAPINE, PILLAGE AND DESOLATION TO OUR HOMES. I HAVE NO COMPASSION FOR SUCH, EVEN IF THEIR MISERIES WERE TEN-FOLD GREATER. YOU ASK WHY I WILL NOT RELEASE HIM. ’TIS BECAUSE THIS SORT IS THE WORST AND MOST OBNOXIOUS OF ALL NON-COMBATANTS.

  She handed the letter back to Lawrence and glanced at the harsh winter light now stabbing through the clouds. All hope for Harrison’s release ebbed silently away.

  A carriage rumbled by while the captain wadded his napkin. “It’s high time you rein in that runaway sympathy of yours, anyway. It has already taken you where you shouldn’t go.”

  Sophie blinked back the frustration stinging her eyes as Lawrence smiled condescendingly.

  “Leave the military matters to the men, will you?” His break over, he stood and helped her to her feet. Turning her hand over, he traced the lines in her palm with his fingertip. An unpleasant shiver rippled over her. “A woman as soft as this was never meant to have a hand in war. Besides, there’s nothing you can do.”

  There it was again. The wind, Sophie told herself, hugging a pillow over her head. The trees. But was the tapping really coming from outside? An intruder would be less frightening than the thought that she was hearing what was not there. That the sounds she heard were all in her mind. That her mind was not sound after all.

  Logs crumbled in her hearth, and she jerked in her bed, breathless from the strain of both listening and trying not to hear a sound. On the other side of the wall was the spare room. The tapping grew in strength and urgency, until it rang like a clapper between her ears. It’s them. It’s Mother. With her mind’s eye, she could clearly see the closet that led to the hiding place.

  Hiding night travelers in the spare room had been the special mission of Eleanor, Sophie, and their slaves, right up until the time Eleanor fell ill. Neither Susan nor their father knew about the room’s existence. It was the first important secret Sophie had learned to keep. It was the first time deception, even among family, became a normal aspect of life.

  It was also the first time she felt important, despite her halting speech. Her childhood stammer mortified her so much that she preferred filling her mouth with special treats from Pearl, rather than with words. She felt awkward, burdensome, and mute, until she learned to read and write. Then the words flowed through her. She feasted on ideas and language rather than food and found that writing satisfied her craving to have a voice. Eleanor fed her the contraband novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin even though it was almost too much for her to digest at her age. Then, in spite of the stammer, or perhaps because of it, she drew Sophie into her secret plans with the Underground Railroad. “I need a helper who knows how to be quiet,” she’d said. Which Sophie did.

  Until she had a reason to speak up.

  She was thirteen years old, and while her stammer had all but faded, she was adept at keeping quiet and going unnoticed. It was why Eleanor trusted her to bring food up to the fugitive slave family in the hiding place while she and Sophie’s father hosted the party downstairs.

  Sophie had already pushed open the false back of the closet when footsteps in the hallway warned of someone’s approach. But I locked the door. A key scraped inside the hole. Scrambling inside the hiding place, she pushed the false back securely into place behind her and prayed that whoever was bursting into the room right now, sputtering and breathy with laughter, would not notice the mess on the floor and the mysteriously open closet doors.

  In the dingy yellow glow of lantern light, Sophie brought her finger to her lips. The husband and wife nodded, their wide eyes gleaming. When the newborn baby opened its mouth and screwed up his tiny face, his mother quickly brought him to her breast to quiet him. From the other side of the closet, a lilting giggle pricked Sophie’s ears. Susan. If her seventeen-year-old half-sister di
scovered this space, she’d tell their father, who would send this trembling family back to their owners and board up the hiding place for good.

  “Wait, stop!” Susan laughed, and Sophie imagined she was pushing an admirer away with one hand while her other hand held fast his lapel. “What’s all this? Such a mess!”

  “Your servants need a stronger hand if they rifle through a closet and don’t even trouble themselves to pick up again.”

  Sophie couldn’t breathe.

  The baby, however, squirmed, clearly unsatisfied with his mother’s milk. The laudanum. Noiselessly, Sophie plucked up the bottle Eleanor had placed here for this purpose, and dosed the baby before his wail could give them away. It worked. The baby’s head lolled back on his mother’s elbow, and she rocked him back and forth, though Sophie suspected it was more for the mother’s sake now than the baby’s.

  “Oh, look at this! My mother’s wedding dress! No, don’t look!” Susan cried. “Turn around, go stand in the corner like a good boy and no peeking until I say so.”

  Shock coursed through Sophie then as she realized what her sister was doing.

  “Blast!” Susan laughed. “Shelby, come back please, I need a hand. Your hands.” Another giggle. “Unfasten the buttons down my back, but keep your eyes closed. Are they closed? Oh, I don’t trust you! Here, let’s tie this on as a blindfold. That’s better. Now we’re playing Blind Man’s Bluff—but don’t worry—I want you to find me.”

  Shame flamed in Sophie’s cheeks at the muffled sounds that followed. In moments, Susan had apparently stepped into her mother’s wedding gown, for she was asking Shelby to fasten her up so she could remove his blindfold. But Shelby obviously wasn’t eager for Susan to be fully clothed. It was a scandal too scorching, almost, to be believed.

  Whether Shelby ever buttoned the wedding gown, Sophie couldn’t tell. Her ears popped as a bottle of wine uncorked. Goblets clinked as the two drank to each other a sham wedding toast, and then—Sophie covered her ears for the rest.