Harrison nodded his agreement, still struggling to refill his lungs. If the ground were not sodden with slush, he would lie flat on top of it. But if he soaked his clothes, they’d never dry out. It was an invitation pneumonia—or worse—would not refuse.
Finally, night unfurled its ruffled hem, enveloping the peninsula in darkness. Harrison and McDonald grimly stripped off their shirts, trousers, and drawers. Holding his clothes and shoes above his head, Harrison stepped into the river’s current after McDonald. Shock knifed through him. The water’s icy swirl sloshed against his naked body, up to his armpits as he forced his shaking legs to wade across and reminded himself to breathe.
Teeth chattering violently, Harrison reached the opposite bank and stiffly climbed out of the river onto ground nearly as wet as the river-bed. “We can’t sleep on this,” he muttered. Snowflakes drifted down, landing on his wet skin as he pulled his clothing back on.
“Nor in this,” McDonald said, lifting his face to the white-flecked sky. “Keep going, soldier?”
“Let’s go.” Harrison fell into step with the major, ignoring his hunger, denying his fatigue, and praying they would not both freeze to death by dawn.
Their slogging footsteps were muffled by the snow. Wind moaned through the pine trees towering above them. As the storm wore on, branches bowed beneath their pristine burdens, occasionally breaking and sending clouds of glitter to the earth.
Beautiful, Harrison mused. Deadly. The North Star, their one guiding light, had disappeared behind the snow clouds. His spine tingled with warning that they had lost their way.
“You don’t suppose we’re headed back to Richmond, do you?” They’d been walking for hours.
“I’ve been praying against that. But we must travel on, even if we go back to Richmond instead of Williamsburg, or else we’ll surely perish.”
St. John’s Church, Richmond, Virginia
Sunday, February 14, 1864
Shivering in her box pew, Sophie Kent stared, unseeing, at the stained glass above the altar, even after the service ended. The broken body of Robert Ford swam in her vision, brighter by far than the Bible scenes lit by the streaming sun. She had visited him in Libby’s hospital yesterday and was haunted by it still. Suspecting Ford of complicity in the prison breakout, during which 109 Union officers escaped, the commandant had ordered him whipped nearly to death—five hundred lashes. He bore each one without betraying a single member of the underground. Now Ford lingered at death’s door. Sophie bowed her head beneath the weight of deception and suffering and hope deferred.
“Well?” Lawrence prodded. “Are you waiting for the Almighty Himself to dismiss us?”
Looking up, she forced a smile in his direction, shrugging, as if to excuse her dazed expression. As if she had not been begging God for Robert Ford’s life, for Harrison’s safety—wherever he was—and for Abraham’s recovery from the infection that now poisoned his thigh.
“Or are you woolgathering again?”
“Thinking, Lawrence. It’s called thinking.”
The church bells rang, just as they had the morning the escape had been discovered, and Sophie shuddered. In Richmond, their clear, sonorous tones had long since ceased to be a call to worship or mark of celebration. Now the clamor brought alarm, running feet, and a trickle of hope that the Union might be successful at last.
Lawrence turned his gaze straight ahead, fastened it on the light streaming in through the vibrantly colored plates. “Yes, darling. And there’s a lot to think about isn’t there? For instance, Oliver Shaw. How interesting that he showed up at your house the night of the breakout. And yet I haven’t seen him since. Have you?”
Sophie’s skin tingled under his dissecting blue gaze. “No, not since that night.” It was the truth. Bella had sent word to a free colored man in the underground network. He came for the Kent house fugitives before dawn and secreted them away to a farm outside the city.
“Hmm.” Lawrence seemed to study her then. “The timing, so odd. Don’t you think?”
Sophie blinked, as though the connection had never occurred to her. “Oh, I suppose. He did say he’d sell his stories and then be off again to hunt for more news, didn’t he?”
“Shame,” Lawrence said, stretching his arm behind Sophie’s shoulders. “He could have covered this one.” His smile was cold and thin.
Virginia Peninsula
Monday, February 15, 1864
“There.” Harrison pointed to smoke billowing from a chimney through a sky thick with snow. “So help me God, we are going in.”
“Hang it, Caldwell! They’re likely looking for fugitives and just itching for some kind of reward!” McDonald’s lips were blue, a reflection, Harrison suspected, of his own. Snowflakes rimmed his eyelashes without melting.
They’d covered seventy-five miles by foot, Harrison guessed, tracked by dogs, soldiers, and citizens. Fatigue pulled at him like quicksand, blood crusted his feet, and hunger tore through his middle. “We didn’t dig four tunnels with rats running over our faces and sewage oozing around us just to die in some field outside Williamsburg.”
“We don’t know where we are.” McDonald looked at the sky. “You’re guessing.”
“We’re about to find out. Follow my lead.”
Harrison trudged up to the door of a modest stone house and knocked, McDonald next to him. When a white woman opened the door wearing indigo-dyed homespun, Harrison affected his best Southern accent.
“Beggin’ your pardon, ma’am. But could you spare us some vittles? We just escaped from Yankee custody near Norfolk, and sure did scrape the bottom of our barrels a while back.”
Her eyes widened, then misted with apparent sympathy. “Scoot on in here now, and let me see what we can rustle up. How does ham, eggs, hoecake, coffee, and buttermilk sound to you soldiers?”
“Like a whole lot of heaven, don’t it, Tibbs?” Harrison elbowed McDonald. “Don’t mind Tibbs here. He’s a mute. But he sure can pick off them devil Yanks.”
“Well, Tibbs, that’s all that matters, now, isn’t it?” She beamed at him, and Harrison stifled the almost foreign sensation of laughter now bubbling in his chest.
As they ate, their benefactress sat across from them and described exactly where nearby Yankee units were located. “So’s you can avoid ’em on your way home.”
Harrison grinned at McDonald’s stunned expression. “Thank you kindly, ma’am, and much obliged.”
By nightfall, they were safely behind Union lines.
Kent House, Richmond, Virginia
Tuesday, March 1, 1864
Outside the kitchen house, the pewter sky wept as Bella placed a cool rag on Abraham’s fevered brow. Lois and Sophie were in the main house, but Pearl, Emiline, and Rachel all sat at the table, rolling bandages from strips of petticoats and old linens. Terrified country folk had poured into the city yesterday, warning of Union marauders north of Richmond. The tocsin sent five battalions of the home defense brigade rushing to the front, while women and the infirm readied for an onslaught of injured men.
“Won’t be long now,” Bella whispered, her voice blending with the drumming rain outside. As much as she had wanted to plot their escape from Richmond, Abraham was in no condition for the journey, especially not in this cold, wet weather. This raid—the one Sophie had learned of from Miss Van Lew weeks ago—could be their deliverance.
The Union plan, as understood by the Richmond underground, had been a bold one, to put it mildly, from the start. With fewer than four thousand troops, they intended to attack from the North, free all twelve thousand Union prisoners at Libby and Belle Isle, and together set fire to the city and capture Confederate leaders. If the Union believes the prisoners strong enough to aid the soldiers, then Harrison hasn’t published his story yet. She trusted he’d at least mailed her letter to her daughter Liberty.
The broken-down condition of the Yankee prisoners wasn’t the only thing the Union didn’t know. A Rebel clerk named Erasmus Ross had told the underground that Turner had
planted kegs of gunpowder in the basement, enough to blow up the prison and all its inhabitants, which he vowed to do rather than let them fall into Yankee hands.
Bella stared out the window now. Flames cracked like whips in the fireplace over the steady breathing of slaves preparing bandages for soldiers who would not come.
And then, thunder. Dishes rattled, windows shivered. Bella looked at Abraham, whose eyelids fluttered open. He locked eyes with her. “Artillery,” he rasped. “Mile distant.”
Bella paced the cramped quarters of the kitchen house, wringing her hands, listening, waiting.
“You gonna wear out my floor, child, plus you making me dizzy,” Pearl said.
Bella eased to the floor again by her husband’s side. “Well, Abe? Ready to be shed of this place?”
A smile tugged at his lips. “Been ready for some time.”
So had Bella. Daphne’s directive to stay until Sophie was all right weighed lightly on her. Sophie seemed to be managing her grief, her household, and her spy work just fine lately. The young woman was stronger, perhaps, than Daphne had realized. That scar on her wrist in the shape of a knife’s edge—it could have been from anything, though she never had the nerve to ask. Besides, Bella was so on edge for Abraham, and so lonesome for Liberty and her own freedom, she was light-headed with anticipation. Finally, the end was in sight. If only we knew what happened to Harrison …
“We’ve got a wedding to plan when we get home,” Bella said, joy rippling pleasantly over her uncertainty.
“Or maybe Liberty’s got it all planned out.”
“I expect she might.” After all, Bella had been gone almost three months, rather than the three weeks she had planned. “In that case, I’ll just let her tell me all about it, and get started on a wedding quilt for her and Silas.”
Closing her eyes, the booming artillery swept Bella back to Gettysburg, when the fighting last summer had invaded their homes and changed their lives forever. The sounds of battle had terrified then, and now, here in Richmond, it was a symphony of hope. Soon enough, she’d be home again with her family, in a land already healing from its wounds. Perhaps a fresh blanket of snow covered the scarred ground already, and kept any foul vapors locked tight within the frozen earth. Oh, how she longed to go home. To Liberty. To freedom.
Suddenly, Bella turned toward the window. “No.” She rose up from the floor and hurried outside into the rain to listen.
The artillery had stopped.
Cold seeped into Sophie through the cupola glass, and yet she pressed closer, willing the strains of the contest to crescendo.
Footsteps murmured up the stairs, bringing Bella to Sophie’s side at the window. “No smoke,” Sophie whispered, and sensed Bella deflate.
From every direction, the view was as ordinary as it had ever been. No Rebel troops beating a hasty retreat back into the city. No bluecoats at their heels. Nothing but rain pounded the city. “Another failure.” Bella’s tone was flat. Spent. “We cannot wait for another raid, another Union debacle. Abraham and I have got to go on our own. Now.”
Sophie grabbed Bella’s hands, and saw her own apprehension reflecting in Bella’s shining brown eyes. She also saw Daphne. “Bella, I beg you, have a care. Abraham isn’t well enough.” After losing Daphne, she could not bear the thought that now Bella and Abraham would put their lives at risk, as well.
Water streamed in rivulets down the pane behind Bella. “You are not our keeper.” But her tone was gentle, sympathetic to Sophie’s obvious logic.
“Fischer is gone, and Captain Russell never enters the kitchen house. As long as Abraham remains there, you have nothing to fear.”
“We aren’t free here. You’ve been kind as can be, Sophie-girl, but our season here is at its close. We need liberty the way our lungs need air.”
A jagged lump shifted sharply in Sophie’s throat. “Of course. But if you leave now, you’ll never make it.”
“Two weeks, then.” Bella’s voice left no room for argument. “Time enough for Abraham to heal.”
“All right.” Sophie released a breath. “I’ll make arrangements with McNiven and Rowley for March 14.”
Fortress Monroe, Virginia
Saturday, March 12, 1864
Towel thrown over his shoulder, Harrison Caldwell swirled shaving soap on his face, then carefully drew the razor against his stubble. With thirty-two days between him and his imprisonment, the sharp angles of his cheeks and jaw had softened somewhat, and his muscles had begun to build again with proper nourishment and exercise. Not a day passed that he did not thank God that he’d been one of the lucky ones.
Of the 109 officers who escaped, two drowned crossing the Chickahominy in the wrong place, and forty-eight were recaptured. Colonel Thomas Rose was taken by Rebel soldiers dressed in Union jackets. Harrison could not imagine his devastation as they threw him back into Libby’s dungeon.
After Harrison arrived at Fortress Monroe with Union cavalry escort, he spoke with General Butler personally about the prisoner exchange program and conditions at Libby. Then, true to his original intent, he wrote an unparalleled story about Libby Prison and the escape, and sold it, ironically, to the New York Tribune. His report, and other eyewitness accounts from other escapees, had prompted a groundswell of Northern outrage over the Rebels’ treatment of war prisoners. Under pressure from the public, Congress appointed a Joint Select Committee on the Conduct of the War to investigate conditions in the prisons. At the same time, the United States Sanitary Commission began its own inquiry. Harrison could not have hoped for a better reception.
“Caldwell,” an officer called, breaking Harrison’s reverie. “Butler’s asking for you. He’s outside.”
Rinsing his razor in the wash basin, Harrison swiped a hand over his smooth face and dried it with his towel before shrugging his shirt on and tucking it into his trousers.
Outside, General Benjamin Butler’s small black eyes shone above the heavy bags drooping from his lower eyelids. “How about a walk?” Though Butler’s paunch strained his brass buttons, Harrison suspected the stroll had more to do with Harrison’s craving for fresh air than the balding general’s need for exercise.
Falling into step beside the bulldog of a man beside him, Harrison inhaled the salty breeze while seagulls squawked over Hampton Roads.
“Still writing stories?” Butler asked.
“I am,” Harrison replied. “There are more stories here, among your soldiers, contrabands, and the missionaries teaching them, than there are in Philadelphia. I hope you don’t mind me staying on for a bit longer?”
“I don’t want you back in Philadelphia. But I don’t want you here anymore, either.”
Harrison frowned. “Beg pardon?”
“Need you back in Richmond,” Butler growled. “As a spy.”
His feet froze. “You can’t be serious.”
“Nobody’s looking for you. Besides, who would recognize you there? Other prisoners won’t see you. Erasmus Ross is on our side. Even if you see Dick Turner, I’m certain he wouldn’t recognize you now. You’ve lost that gaunt look, you’re not spotted with lice—and didn’t you tell me even your hair grew back a different color?”
Harrison ran his hand over his head. “But you have spies. Aren’t you working Elizabeth Van Lew and her network?”
“I need more. And you have a natural gift for it.”
“All due respect, General, but how would you know a thing like that?”
“I learned much from you, remember.” He motioned to a nearby park bench, and they sat on it, staring out over the impressive fleet of Union ships harbored in the bay. Down toward the water, two men were loading sick or wounded soldiers onto a horse-drawn railroad car to take them to the hospital.
“You spied when you infiltrated the South to write the Weeping Time story,” Butler was saying. “You invented an alias for yourself, Oliver Shaw, that carried you and your colored companion through Rebel lines to get South, and then through a party with Confederate offic
ers, plus a chance meeting with a Rebel captain the very night of the escape. Your story about being a Rebel prisoner escaped from Norfolk was so convincing a secesh woman directed you to our units.” The general paused for breath, stroked his mustache downward. “You see, Caldwell. You have no problem getting the information you want, and using it to your advantage. Do what you do best. Write for a newspaper. Get the information the Union wants and use it to our advantage.”
Possibility burned in Harrison’s belly as he considered Butler’s words. They spelled trouble, sure enough. And don’t I always head for trouble?
“Aside from your accidental foray into Libby Prison, you’ve been writing about the war as an observer,” Butler said. “It’s time to put those keen powers of observation to use in a more direct way for your country. Help end this war.”
Colonel Rose’s warm handshake and parting words rushed back to Harrison. You’ve proven yourself to be one of us—an observer no more. Now onward, to finish the race set before us, yes? And now this colonel languished in chains, in an absolute misery of rat-infested darkness while Harrison tasted the mist of the sea on his lips. Bella and Abraham were stuck as well, and Sophie … Sophie was already risking her life to spy. In Richmond.
“I’ll do it.”
“Glad to hear it, Mr. Shaw.” A rare smirk slanted on General Butler’s puffy face. “Your passage is already arranged. That blasted Robert Ould refuses to exchange prisoners with me. But we’ll see what happens when I send him six hundred Rebel prisoners of war. With those boys in sight of their homeland and Richmond cheering for their safe return, will he turn them away then? He’d be mobbed for it, or worse. No, he will accept the boys I send him and give us our own in return. Mark it well.”
“And I’ll be on the ship with them.” Harrison nodded. Truly, it was perfect. In the mad rush of prisoners returning home, no one would notice him at all. If they did, they would hail him a hero without a second thought. With a little dirt on his face, and some tattered clothes, he’d fit right in. “When do I leave?”
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