Spy of Richmond

by Jocelyn Green

  “Who is this boy? What are you doing in my house?” He picked up a Grecian urn and swung it over his head. The fire in his eyes crackled with hatred and pain—and fear.

  Sophie pulled on his upraised arm, but he elbowed her back. She stumbled backward, blood trickling from her lip.

  “Get back!” he shouted to her. “In the name of heaven, cease your fighting and rebelling!”

  Abraham held out his hands as he would to a stallion not yet broken. “I’m no enemy, sir. I mean you no harm.”

  “Who is your master?”

  “I am my own.”

  Mr. Kent’s eyelids flared, and the lines of his face tensed for battle. In that instant, they were no longer two men in a parlor, but a Confederate soldier defending his home against a Yankee Negro, for surely his Northern accent gave that much away. Abraham scanned the room for a weapon with which to defend himself.

  Suddenly, white hot anger ate through Abraham’s veins like acid that he should be already sentenced to punishment, without trial or even conversation. Swiping a fire poker from its stand, he thrust it toward Preston’s chest, his aim meant for every Rebel soldier who had massacred captured Negro soldiers, for Turner, who had whipped his wife, and for every warden and guard at Libby who had treated the colored prisoners like slaves. Releasing his pent-up rage, Abraham charged the symbol of everything he hated.

  Preston parried, stumbled, fumbled, and dropped the vase with a thud on the carpet. His eyes shone with apparent shock. Panic, perhaps. A dark smile curled on Abraham’s face, pulling against his teeth. For once, the colored man has the upper hand. Palms slick with sweat, he gripped his crude lance as he drove nearer his target.

  Someone was screaming. As long as it wasn’t Bella, Abraham didn’t care. Preston tripped on the claw foot of the table, and suddenly he was on the floor, the hollow of his throat pulsing against the tip of Abraham’s weapon.

  “Please …” A whisper. “He’s my father.”

  Abraham flicked a gaze at Sophie, her face as pale as bleached linen, then riveted his attention again on the white man quivering in fear beneath him. “He deserves this.”

  Then, You are not a murderer. His own conscience, fighting to be heard amid the deafening clamor of Abraham’s fury. Do not justify his fear of colored men. But he wanted to. For moments on end, his muscles tight with anticipation, he wanted to unchain the drive he had collared for months in Libby Prison. To kill an aggressive white man the way white men killed his fellow prisoners. Weren’t the captured Negroes fathers, too? Didn’t their children mourn their daddies as much as Sophie would, or more?

  Vengeance is mine, I will repay. God’s words. Not Abraham’s.

  In a flash of staggering awareness, Abraham threw the fire poker away from himself. As it clattered on the hearth, he dropped to his knees, bowed his head, and shuddered at how close he’d come to committing murder. Forgive me, he prayed.

  “Daddy, don’t!”

  A whoosh of air. The crack of the urn shattering upon Abraham’s skull. Blazing, throbbing pain.

  Darkness.

  What have you done? Sophie stared at this man, her father, wanting to believe he was an imposter instead. She knew Preston’s views on slavery, but she had never—not once—seen him physically harm another human being, regardless of their skin color. But now that he had subdued Abraham, he was a wild bull again, stamping and snorting, as if to dare anyone else to challenge his authority in his own home. The wind lifted Preston’s thatch of greying hair from his forehead, and Sophie noticed a scar that hadn’t been there before. Were you beaten at Fort Delaware, the way you beat down Abraham? But the taste of blood crowded the words from her mouth.

  “Do you know this man?” Preston asked her, but her voice had completely left her.

  In the next moment, Lois bustled into the parlor, nearly dropping her dusting rags at the sight of Sophie’s father, and Abraham on the floor.

  “Hello, Lois,” Preston said. “Come in, please. The cat’s got Sophie’s tongue again, and I want you to help me. Who is this boy?”

  Dread coiled within Sophie as she sought Lois’s eyes, but the woman kept her gaze submissively pinned to the floor.

  “Lois,” Preston continued. “Your sister, your son, and your daughter are all gone.” Esther, whom Sophie could have saved. Joseph, the little boy who was auctioned off before he became a threat to the master who could not abide a colored male in the house. Fran, Susan’s maidservant who was sold away when Susan vanished. “I hear that times are tight. I wouldn’t be opposed to selling Emiline or Rachel—you choose—for some extra cash. Unless, of course, you tell me who this intruder is.”

  Sophie could not breathe. If she tells the truth … yet how could Lois keep silent, when her own daughter would be the cost?

  “He—he a blacksmith. Freeman.”

  “A blacksmith. I see. And just what was he doing here?”

  The back door slammed. Footsteps came tumbling through the hall. Bella appeared in the doorway. Stiffened.

  “Daphne. Do you know anything about this man here?”

  Sophie’s heart lodged in her throat as Bella gasped and knelt by her husband.

  “Abraham!” She scooped his head onto her lap, dabbed his forehead with the corner of her apron, murmured in his ear.

  “Ah. Lovers. I’m sorry, Daphne. Apparently, my daughter did not enforce all of our rules in my absence. But I’m home now, and I will not abide a colored man on the property.”

  A knock on the front door echoed in the hall. Eager for the interruption, Sophie managed to answer it.

  “Hello, darling.” Lawrence kissed her cheek. “You look ill! Are you?”

  She shook her head as she closed the door behind them both. Lawrence followed the sound of Preston’s voice, Sophie behind him.

  In the parlor, a stiff spring breeze chilled the sweat beading at Bella’s hairline. “A blacksmith, you say?” Captain Russell asked. “Daphne, does he work at Tredegar?”

  She shook her head.

  “But he’s free. Yes?”

  A nod.

  “Where is his pass?”

  Bella locked eyes with Sophie. His papers, and Bella’s, would be coming in the morning with the men who would spirit them away to freedom, at the cost of six thousand Confederate dollars. But right now, he didn’t have one.

  “No pass, then? Mr. Kent, according to the law, this man should be sold back into slavery.”

  Tears streamed down Bella’s face as she gripped the husband who was already slipping away from her. “You’re a freeman,” she muttered. “Free. You’re free.” As if repeating the truth could prevent him being sold into the slavery he fought against.

  “Daddy, no—”

  “He was found on your property,” the captain continued. “He belongs to you. If you have no use for him here—”

  “I don’t.”

  “Daddy, w-wait!”

  “You’re free.” Bella heard nothing else, saw nothing else, but Abraham. Then she saw nothing at all, as darkness numbed the ripping away of her hope.

  Tredegar Iron Works

  Sunday, March 13, 1864

  Sooty smells of coal and iron nudged Abraham as much as the jarring of hammers on anvils. Head throbbing, he wondered how he’d gotten to his blacksmith shop in Gettysburg already—and why he wasn’t at his house for a spell instead. Had he been ill for the entire journey home from Richmond? I don’t even remember the agents coming for us. Deeply, he inhaled, too disoriented to indulge in relief just yet.

  “Abraham.” A man’s voice. Unfamiliar. Abraham squinted at him, but the sun streaming in through the window at his back rendered him no more than a silhouette. “They said your name was Abraham. You coming round?”

  Pushing himself up on his elbows, Abraham shook his head to clear the haze.

  “Good. They also said you were a blacksmith. And Lord knows I have need of that.”

  Nodding, Abraham looked around as he swung his legs over the side of the cot. The su
n-streaked room was filled with them, and the cots were filled with Negroes. A barracks? Am I with a colored regiment at Camp William Penn? “Where am I?”

  “Home.” The man gestured to the doorway, and Abraham followed him outside. “Welcome to Tredegar Iron Works.”

  Abraham’s limbs turned to lead even as knots of defeat ripened in his stomach.

  “I’m Joseph R. Anderson, the owner.”

  “Of Tredegar.”

  “And of you.”

  No. Not this. Brick smokestacks loomed all around Abraham, like sentinels over the Confederacy’s ironmaker. His spirit railed against them. If I am made to work here, I might as well be forging the shackles of slavery!

  “But I think you’ll find the arrangement very agreeable here. Food and clothing provided, of course. My supervisors don’t whip the laborers, except for theft, drinking, card playing, direct disobedience of orders, that sort of thing. I much prefer positive incentives, and so does my workforce. You’ll work ten hours per day, and for every day you work beyond the required twenty-four per month, you’ll receive seven dollars and fifty cents cash to spend or save as you like.”

  Anderson’s voice droned on as he strolled through the plant, Abraham following. The massive complex, puffing and screeching between the canal and the James River, boasted a spike mill, rolling mill, locomotive shop, foundry, boring mill, carpenter shop, machine shop, boiler shop, blacksmith shop, brass foundry, armory rolling mill, gun foundry, cartwheel foundry, and more. Three large buildings provided worker housing for slave laborers owned by the ironworks, while white laborers came in daily from their own homes. A hospital offered medical care on the premises. And guards patrolled the perimeter.

  “You’ll start tomorrow, Abraham.” Anderson fixed his intense but not unkind gaze upon him.

  Tomorrow. The day he and Bella were to make their escape. Clenching his teeth, Abraham resolved to keep looking for another way out and prayed Bella would leave without him.

  Kent House, Richmond, Virginia

  Monday, March 14, 1864

  “Bella!” Sophie’s voice dragged Bella back to wakefulness. “You were supposed to go! Abraham would have wanted you to go home, we don’t know when there will be another chance!”

  A trace of alarm trickled through Bella as she roused herself from the pallet by the door. In the firelight, Sophie was wild-eyed, her hair rebelling against its braid and spilling over the shoulders of her dressing gown. “I missed it? But I was right here, I would have heard, I would have woken up!”

  “It’s five o’clock. They should have been here an hour ago. Unless something went awry …”

  The ladder creaked as Lois climbed down its rungs. Shuffling over, she sank onto her heels, tears glistening in wobbly tracks on her face. “I’m sorry, child. I know you wanted to get home. But my babies ain’t never had their taste of freedom yet. Figured it was time they had their turn.”

  Understanding penetrated into Bella’s hazy mind. “The tea.”

  Lois nodded. “Told you it would help you sleep.” She’d laced it with laudanum, and sent Emiline and Rachel with the agents instead. “I lost too many loves. I had to send my girls away to freedom. Missy Sophie, I know you’d never hurt us, but your daddy is another story. I had to do what I could for my girls. They got their whole lives ahead of them.”

  Bella exhaled and nodded. She knew exactly what it was to send a child away for her own good. Hadn’t she done it herself? “I understand.” Bella’s ache to see Liberty now was nowhere near what Lois’s ache must have been for Rachel and Emiline to be free. “Then I guess my place is here, until Abraham can be free with me.” The idea of leaving Abraham in bondage would not have set right with her.

  Lois nodded, wiped her nose, and went back up the ladder to bed.

  Sophie sat on her heels, clearly stunned.

  “Listen,” Bella said. “As long as we’re here in Richmond, we’ve got work to do. God does not abandon the work of His hands. Now. Dawn’s coming soon enough. We best get ready for the day.”

  Kent House, Richmond, Virginia

  Monday, March 14, 1864

  Something rippled through Sophie’s middle as she swept down the stairs for dinner. After six months of mourning, she had finally shed her stiff, black dresses. Tonight, she wore a lavender taffeta gown with square neckline and triple flounces of lace trimming her three-quarter length sleeves. Nervously, Sophie patted her hair in its chignon at the base of her neck.

  Preston, Lawrence, and Harrison rose as she entered the parlor, trying not to think of the horrid scene that had played out there just yesterday afternoon when Abraham was taken away. Madeline Blair had accepted Sophie’s invitation to join them for dinner tonight, and her smile now revealed just how delighted she was not to be dining alone. Even though her own two sons were not home yet, she seemed genuinely thrilled that Sophie’s father, at least, had returned.

  “What a vision,” Lawrence said, but it was Harrison who startled her with the tenderness in his gaze. She hadn’t had a moment alone with him since he’d arrived at Rocketts yesterday. Questions burned to be asked.

  “Shall we?” Preston led the way to the dining room.

  Lawrence seated Sophie, then himself, beside her, while Preston did the same for Mrs. Blair. Harrison sent her a smile from across the table, and her blood warmed in response. It was not at all how she’d imagined seeing him again. But then, she hadn’t allowed herself to indulge in that sort of fancy at all.

  Preston said grace for the meal, and Lois and Bella served the best Pearl could offer on their Wedgewood china: pork and baked beans, sweet potatoes, stewed apples. These days, it was a feast for a conquering hero indeed. Thankfully, her father had recovered from the news that Rachel and Emiline had run away. At least enough for him to engage in pleasant conversation at dinner.

  “What do you hear from your boys?” Preston asked Mrs. Blair. “Hard to believe they’re all old enough to fight for their country already.”

  Joel isn’t, Sophie thought. And he certainly isn’t old enough to die for it. But she held her tongue and smiled encouragingly to her favorite neighbor.

  Mrs. Blair lifted her chin. “Last I heard, there was a great revival among Lee’s boys, and mine. Preaching nearly every night, and baptisms, too. ‘Times are hard, but we trust God to bring us through it,’ Asher writes. And didn’t the psalmist say that ‘Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord’?”

  “Indeed, Psalm 33, verse twelve. A great comfort for all of us,” Preston said. “How is your youngest getting along?”

  “As fine as any of them as far as I can tell. You’ll forgive me for being terribly proud of all my boys.”

  “Now that’s a pride that’s fitting.” Preston raised his glass. “To all our boys in the field, and their mothers at home.”

  Sophie lifted her glass along with Harrison and Lawrence in admiration of Mrs. Blair’s tremendous courage and prayed God would bless her for it.

  “Hear, hear,” echoed around the table.

  Mrs. Blair’s face bloomed poppy red, and her hazel eyes glazed with tears. “To our boys, God bless and keep them,” she said, and they all drank, though it was only water and not champagne in their goblets.

  “Well, I have news of my own,” Preston said around a bite of pork. “I visited the Examiner office today, and they say they will have me back. I can start tomorrow.”

  “Don’t you need time to rest?” Sophie asked.

  “Rest? In a time like this? There’s far too much work to be done, and I’m fit enough to do it. Only—my eyesight isn’t what it once was. Strained it beyond redemption in those dark cells at Fort Delaware. Which means, I could use a scrivener, of sorts.” His eyes gleamed. “What do you say, Goldilocks? You used to want to be writer, if I recall.”

  “I still do.”

  “Then come with me. Take notes as I interview my sources, and dictation as I write the stories. It’ll be a better education than anything you had in Philadelphia, I wager. I m
ight even let you write a story yourself if you like.”

  Sophie’s fork clattered on her plate. She pressed her napkin to her lips, almost in disbelief. Mastering herself, she smoothed the linen in her lap once more and flashed her father a smile. “I’d love to!”

  “Bravo,” Harrison said, beaming, and Mrs. Blair murmured her approval.

  “Yes. Now Mr. Shaw, I did some digging around for you as well today. But I’m afraid none of the papers are hiring a staff writer these days. I consider myself fortunate to get my former position back.”

  Harrison nodded, then took a drink of his water. “It’s as I expected.”

  “Perhaps another line of work would suit? You’ll be conscripted if you don’t find an occupation which exempts you. A clerkship? Richmond is rife with those. Russell, what do you think? Know of any openings?”

  Sophie watched a hint of color creep into Lawrence’s cheeks. “Not in my bureau, I’m afraid.”

  “But the War Department,” Sophie tried. “Didn’t you say this afternoon that Mr. Hayes, in the War Department, had taken so ill he’d decided to recover in the country?”

  Lawrence pierced her with his gaze. He cleared his throat. “I did.”

  “Oh?” Harrison casually cut his meat. “And what is involved with a clerkship?”

  “You write correspondence for the Secretary of War,” Preston said. “And when mail comes to him from any quarter—whether from a poor country widow or President Davis himself—you read it, then write on the back of the envelope a summary of the contents. Then the Secretary will make a note to indicate how he’d like you to respond. You write the letter, and he signs it.”

  Harrison’s eyebrows raised. “I do believe I could handle that.”

  “Without a doubt. I’ll write you a reference straight away. What do you say, Captain? Will you write one, too? I personally vouch for this fellow, so have no qualms whatever on that account. I’m sure it takes two references to get the job. But we must be quick about it, before someone else vies for the same. Agreed?”