“And Sophie doesn’t hate you, and neither does your father, not deep down,” Daphne was saying.
Sophie. Not Miss Sophie. The nerve. “No? How do you know? Did he ever say anything about me when I was gone? Wonder aloud where I was, how I fared?”
“Perhaps not in words, but he was clearly distraught.”
“When? Right after I left?”
A hesitation. “Of course.” Her eyes shifted.
“Daphne.” Susan smiled. “You were purchased at the Weeping Time in 1859 from Pierce Butler’s lot of slaves. Correct?”
A frown flickered over her brow. But, “Yes.”
Susan looped her arm through the slave’s, held her snugly. “I left Richmond in 1857. How would you know my father’s emotional state two years before you joined our household?”
A lump bobbed in her throat. “Miss Sophie told me.”
“Sophie couldn’t know that either. She was in boarding school in Philadelphia. You’re lying to me. Why?”
Bella tried to pull away from Susan, but Susan only held on tighter. Whatever game this was, it certainly seemed as though Susan had the upper hand. Control tasted so delicious. “Lois and Pearl mentioned you used to work in the Big House down on St. Simon’s Island. Tell me, when you set the table, how many forks and spoons and knives went to each place setting?”
“Is this a test?”
“Only if you fail it.”
She did. Susan squeezed the slave’s arm tighter. “You’re not Daphne at all, are you?”
“Who else would I be?”
“Who is your master?”
Her brown eyes smoldered, unblinking, as the wind teased coils of hair from beneath her head scarf. “God alone.”
The words barbed Susan. “Do you mean to say you’re free? Then what on earth are you doing in our—” Stunned with comprehension, Susan stopped. There could be only one reason for a free colored woman to pose as a slave in the Confederate capital. “You’re a spy!” she hissed.
The woman’s eyes went dark. Her jaw set.
Yes, it all made sense now. The quinine she’d used for Sophie could only have been gotten from the North. The locket she’d worn around her neck and the strange paper she’d spirited away from it. If Sophie wasn’t an outright accomplice, her sympathy toward the plight of slaves had made her vulnerable to giving quarter to this colored spy. Sophie would not question this woman’s activities, no one would notice her comings and goings. Slaves could hide in plain sight. No one paid them any mind unless they misbehaved. They were—invisible. Like me.
“Come on now, you’re talking crazy. Let’s get you on home.”
No. Susan would never share her home with the likes of this colored woman again. She was not Sophie’s maidservant at all. Which means Sophie doesn’t own her.
Across the alley, a door opened in a brick establishment sandwiched between a brothel and a stable. When a burly man emerged, Susan scanned the four-story building from which he came. The windows were barred. It was a slave jail. She seized upon the opportunity, hailing him over.
“Are you a slave trader?” she asked, and immediately, the woman posing as Bella tried to break free. The man caught her in the same instant, wrenching her wrists behind her back.
“Robert Lumpkin. Best in town. What have you got for me here?”
“Her pass is forged,” Susan began. “She’s pretending to be a different slave. I have reason to believe she’s a spy.”
“That a fact?” His breath smelled of tobacco and cheap whiskey. He looked her up and down. “Show me your teeth, girl.”
She refused.
“She’s got all her teeth. She’s strong and healthy, but you see, she’s a spy.”
Lumpkin cleared his throat. “You sure about that? Got proof?”
“Well, I—I’m just sure of it, that’s all! Can’t you take a lady’s word over a Negro’s?”
“Thing is, spies go to Castle Thunder, even the colored ones. Whether they’re slave or free, colored spies go to Thunder. And the wardens don’t pay them that turns ’em in, neither. I pay.” He raised his eyebrows. “This here’s a fine chattel. As handsome as they come, light-complected, and if she’s strong and healthy like you say she is, she’ll fetch a hefty sum. So I leave it to you. Try and take her to Thunder on your own, or let me take her off your hands right now, and you get a nice wad of cash in return.”
Cash. Money of her own, without selling her body in this filthy alley. It wouldn’t last forever, but it would buy her time. Without so much as a glance at the groaning colored woman beside her, Susan nodded her head. “Deal.”
Sophie paced the naked floor of her bedchamber, her rugs having been sent with her father, along with all the spare blankets in the house, to provide warmth for his threadbare regiment. Samuel Ruth’s intelligence ricocheted in her mind, shredding her gossamer-thin peace of mind to tatters. Gordon’s divisions … Fort Stedman … Petersburg … Richmond … as soon as the roads dry out … She pressed her hands to her temples, but it did not quiet the clanging in her mind.
If the Union was ready for an attack, it would mean slaughter for Gordon’s anemic division. For her father. The war could end … But would the intelligence that brought down the Confederacy kill her father as well? And must it be by my own hand?
The clock ticked away the silence, refusing to bow to her indecision. It marched steadily along, like the thousands and thousands of troops that had tramped along Franklin Street in front of her home in the last four years. How many more men would Davis send to war?
In a swish of green silk, Sophie swept out onto her second-story balcony and looked out over the city. Church steeples still gleamed and the river still sparkled, but between them, Richmond was worn out and used up. Stately iron fences that had once helped order the neighborhoods had been melted and cast into cannon. Weeds sprouted from cracked sidewalks, doors swung crazily on broken hinges, gaslights no longer illumined the night, and paint peeled and flaked from even the finest buildings. The city’s resources simply would not stretch to fix the broken, and the men who could make repairs were all in the army—or the grave.
Almost every family grieved loss. Cemeteries crawled with dark figures as women draped in mourning visited their departed sons, husbands, fathers, brothers, sweethearts. Famine carved their figures. Care lined their faces like the ruts in the roads.
The roads were drying out.
If the war was to end anytime soon, the time to act was now. The price Sophie might pay was no greater than what tens of thousands had already offered up: the lives of those they held most dear. Beloved men—and their starving families and ruined homes—would be sacrificed on the altar of “country” until this dreadful war would end. It has to end.
Knuckles white on the balustrade, Sophie bowed her head beneath enormous, invisible weight. Tears bathed her cheeks. Are you mightier than God, that the fate of the nations rests in your hands? Her conscience pricked. Of course she wasn’t. She inhaled deeply, and could almost taste the brackish scent of the James below. She would follow her convictions, and trust God for the outcome. She did not need to open her Bible to recall the words of Psalm 46. He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire. Be still, and know that I am God …
Sophie raised her head, wiped the tears from her face. Lord, she prayed. You are the Alpha and Omega. The Beginning and the End. Please, I beg you, end this terrible war. Boldly, she requested protection for her father and for Harrison, for Asher and Joel Blair, and for Abraham, wherever they were.
With the March breeze wafting in around her, she returned to her chamber and waited for Bella.
Only Bella didn’t come. Two trips to the kitchen house an hour apart only confirmed she was still gone. With Lois and Pearl’s assurance that they’d send Bella to her as soon as she returned, Sophie wandered back into her room, needled with anxiety.
Sophie had already waited long enough
to pass the intelligence about Fort Stedman’s imminent attack. But without Bella … She locked the door, then pulled the cipher from between the pages of her Bible. The faded scrawl defied her. Sixes flopped to nines and back again. The letter “b” flipped to “d.” The letter “n” grew a hump to become an “m,” and “w” halved itself into a “v.” Impossible! She’d never be able to code anything without Bella’s help. The wrong letter and number combinations could alter the entire meaning, or render it completely meaningless. She’d have to write it without the code.
Bedposts moaned on the floor as Sophie shoved the bed away from the wall. Crouching, she peeled a curling strip of rose-patterned wallpaper, exposing another patch of bare plaster. For months this had been their only paper. She prayed the scrap that now trembled in her hands would be the last piece conscripted into service.
Pressing the paper flat with one hand, Sophie carefully guided her pencil across the glue-stained surface. After reaching the end of one painstaking sentence in plain English, she sat back and studied the letters. Dismay pummeled her. The words shifted shapes before her eyes. Had she written them correctly at all? Why, she could barely read the marks her hand had made! Frustration boiling in her breast, she tore off the sentence, ripped it and dropped the shreds into the chamber pot.
Gong! The grandfather clock struck a blow against Sophie’s spirit. Gong! Gong! Time was running out! Gong! Gong! Gong! Desperately, Sophie turned to the window. Gong! The Van Lew mansion was but four blocks away. Gong! Clouds shuttered the moonlight. Gong! Gong!
Finally, the chiming ceased. Ten o’clock. Perhaps not too late for a caller, if she hurried. Lips pressed together, Sophie hastened down the stairs and out the back door.
By the time she returned from her clandestine errand, her heart needed to be coaxed to sleep over the span of the next hour. Only after the clock resounded its twelve strokes did she finally surrender to slumber.
But slumber brought no peace. In her dreams, she soared like Icarus above the horror unfolding below. The sulfur breath of battle rose in a thick yellow blanket, blocking the sun. Muskets popped, cannon boomed, and strong men screamed like schoolgirls. Blood mingled with the last patches of snow, until the ground was corded and puddled with pink. Frantically, Sophie swooped down among the unraveling men, searching for her father among the fallen. Then she saw him, slumped over a fence he hadn’t cleared. Flying to him, she turned him over.
But it was Harrison who stared vacantly back at her. With a cry, she captured him to her bosom, and tried to fly away to safety. But her wings, like those of Icarus, had melted away from the heat of battle. She could no more save him than she’d been able to end the war.
Susan had barely finished her morning cup of coffee when a knock pulled her to the front hall. Out of habit, she patted her hair and pinched her cheeks before opening the door.
Mrs. Blair stood before her, pale and drawn. “They’re gone.” Strands of brown hair fluttered listlessly in the breeze.
“What? Mrs. Blair?” Sophie approached from behind, a frightful, wrinkled mess in yesterday’s gown. Why, it looked as though she had slept in that frock!
“Come in.” Susan shut the door behind her as the older woman shuffled inside.
“Gone,” she said again. “Eunice. Dorcas. Timothy. Simon. All my servants just—disappeared! After being part of our family for more than twenty years!”
“Oh my heavens,” Sophie whispered, and led Mrs. Blair into the parlor to sit. It was the third time slaves ran away from a Church Hill home this year. All over the city, it was the same story. One that Susan had planned to use to her advantage—but could not have dreamed it would be this easy.
Lines formed between Mrs. Blair’s eyebrows. “Oh, whatever will become of them now?”
Susan looked pointedly at Sophie, waiting for her to make some remark about the slaves finally being free, and how wondrous that was for God’s whole wide world. But she didn’t.
“We raised our servants up properly in our home, teaching them the Bible and how to pray—which is more than those abolitionists can say they’ve done for the African race! Just what will become of all these Negroes suddenly bursting upon their freedom? Where will they live, if not with their masters? Who will give them clothing and food whenever they need it, or nurse them back to health if they are ill?” She covered her face with her hands and wept.
Sophie murmured something in Mrs. Blair’s ear that Susan couldn’t hear. Her arm wrapped around Mrs. Blair’s shaking shoulders and held her fast, though Sophie was an abolitionist herself. How very odd.
“They don’t even know their letters!” Mrs. Blair cried. “How do they expect to fend for themselves when they don’t even know how to read!”
Susan stepped closer, seizing the opening. “Are you sure? Sometimes servants will surprise you. Or perhaps, they ran off with someone better equipped to guide them. Someone who can read.”
Sophie met her gaze, her eyes so rimmed with red Susan wondered if she had slept at all. She frowned. “Did—did Daphne ever come home last night? Do you know?”
Susan swallowed. “I was going to tell you. She ran off, too.”
Mrs. Blair’s gaze swiveled between Susan and Sophie.
“What—what do you mean?”
“I mean she’s gone. She saw an opportunity to strike out for her freedom—or perhaps to be a Moses to her own little band of runaways—and she took it.”
Sophie pushed up off the sofa, twisted her hands together as she paced the room. “But why would she do that? Are you sure? Maybe she’s in trouble …”
“Trouble? What kind of trouble could she possibly be in, unless it’s the kind she causes herself? Besides, she confessed in her own hand. Now do tell me, Sophie, since when did Kent slaves know how to read and write?” It was a gamble, of course. But Susan suspected that spies would have to know their letters to be effective. “I would have brought it for you to read, but I knew that would be useless, so I didn’t bother.”
Mrs. Blair rose and grasped Sophie’s hands. “Your servant knew her letters? Do you think—would she have tempted mine to run with her?”
Sophie dropped her gaze to the floor. “I don’t know what to think.”
Outside Fort Stedman, east of Petersburg, Virginia
Saturday, March 25, 1865, 4:00 a.m.
Beneath a moonless sky of thick black ink, Harrison Caldwell pulsed with suspense. In the nearby woods, tree frogs trilled, while damp smells of thawed soil and last year’s rotten leaves tweaked his nose. His tattered homespun uniform chafed both his body and his mind. I will not fire upon my country.
A twig snapped beneath his bare foot as Harrison advanced with hordes of Rebel soldiers similarly shod, save precious few with shoes. Their objective: Fort Stedman, and Batteries X and XI, which flanked it on the North and South sides. If the Confederates could capture this fort and its artillery, they’d move north and south along Union lines to clear neighboring fortifications. This would make way for the main attack, which would lead to the main Union supply base of City Point, which also happened to be Grant’s headquarters. Almost half of Lee’s infantry—nearly twenty thousand men—had been ordered to the fight. Rebel success right here, right now, could break the Union siege on Petersburg, and prolong the war indefinitely.
The battle also promised to bring Harrison close enough to desert into Union lines.
Harrison bumped into the soldier in front of him, halted, and tugged his slouch hat forward on his head. So the games begin. His palms grew slick against the rifle he shouldered. Ahead of him, cloaked in predawn darkness, parties of Rebel sharpshooters and engineers masqueraded as deserting soldiers. Faint Southern drawls probed toward Yankee pickets in as fine a piece of play-acting as Harrison had ever paid to see.
Then, dimly, shouts. Grunts. What Harrison could not hear, he could certainly imagine: fists striking flesh, and rifle butts slamming foes, desperation strengthening each war-weary Rebel. The stomach-turning surprise of Yankee picket
s realizing they’d been expertly fooled. The sharpshooters and engineers had overwhelmed the Union pickets without firing any shots to give themselves away. Harrison’s nerves pulled as tight as his muscles as the thwack of axes against obstructions clapped his ears.
Now Harrison and the infantry that enveloped him advanced. Ahead of them, if the plan held, three groups of men swarmed the Union works to capture Battery X and Fort Stedman.
Time’s measured march collapsed as Harrison charged blindly ahead on calloused soles among men possessed. Suddenly, the earth shuddered as Union twelve-pounders blasted canister shot, their flashes illuminating the fight. The cannons’ wind blew Harrison’s hat from his head, while the roar drowned every other sound. Their position revealed, the Yankee cannoneers were silenced after only a dozen rounds, as the Rebels threw them over the works and into the ditch. Only then could Harrison hear the shrieks of those who’d been in the artillery’s path.
Harrison rushed forward. If I can just get close enough … Progress slowed as he and a mass of Rebels breached the perimeter of sharpened rails, and came before the moat directly in front of the fort. Above Harrison, muzzles sparked as Union defenders poured leaden rain straight down on the attackers.
Sweat slicked down Harrison’s chest and back as men moaned in fear, or pain, around him. Soldiers who had endured four years of privation and battle died in a moat, at the hands of an enemy they could not see, for a cause that they could not win. The living stumbled and scrambled over those who fell, searching frantically for a place to get into the fort.
Finally, an opening was found, and Confederates streamed into the fort, bringing bedlam with them. Yankees and Rebels locked together like hissing copperheads, writhing in their rough and tumble fight. Muskets flashed, steel clanged, and cannons roared back to life at the hands of the Confederates.
Out of nowhere, a fist pummeled Harrison in the jaw, and he wheeled toward his invisible opponent. “I’m for the Union!” he said. Another blow split his lip like overripe fruit, and a trickle of blood warmed his chin.
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