His One Woman

by Paula Marshall

  It was useless, thought Marietta wearily, quite useless to continue to protest. The Hamilton Hopes were plainly going to consider it an insult to Sophie and themselves if she did not accompany them.

  ‘Very well,’ she said at last. ‘I will go with you, but under protest, mind. I think that the whole expedition is quite mistaken.’

  ‘Whoever would have thought that my brother Jacobus would have such a self-righteous and plain old maid for a daughter,’ said Hamilton Hope to his wife later. ‘Really, the woman is impossible. She is so sure of herself that she will be prating about Womens’ Rights next!’

  ‘I must own that I, too, am a little worried about going on such an expedition. It could be dangerous,’ said his wife hesitantly, but she was not allowed to continue: Mr Hope was not to be deprived of his pleasure.

  ‘Nonsense,’ he returned robustly. ‘Sophie has more spirit than both of you put together. I don’t wonder that Marietta has never married. Who would want such a rigid opinionated stick? Sophie is right. And when I think of her lovely mother!’ He sighed and shook his head.

  Marietta wished that she could have had Jack’s advice, but he had been out of Washington on business with Ezra and so had not visited the Hamilton Hopes in the week since she had been their guest. She was not to know that Jack, on his return that day, had decided to make the journey to watch the battle, not as an entertainment but because he wished to see artillery in action.

  He had asked Ezra to accompany him, but Ezra had drily replied that it was enough for him to make weapons of war without wishing to watch them in action, but if Jack thought it useful to go then he wished him well.

  ‘You are not worried about being caught up in the battle?’ he asked.

  ‘Do you think that there’s much chance of that?’ said Jack, who possessed a cheerful optimism which his father and older brothers had sometimes deplored.

  ‘Depends,’ said Ezra. ‘Battles aren’t chess games, you know. They’re not orderly things. They stray about, I’m told, and are liable to start in one place and finish in another.’

  ‘I’ll take my chances,’ said Jack. ‘I shan’t be fighting myself, and I would like to see how what we make is used. It may give me ideas for further developments.’

  Later in the war he was to look back at his foolish self in some wonder: he had learned to take as few risks as possible. He would, however, have been horrified to learn that the Hamilton Hopes were going and intended to take Sophie and Marietta with them.

  Fortunately for his peace of mind he remained unaware of their plans. He packed a meal of sandwiches and fruit in a canvas bag, together with a sketch book, pencils and coloured chalks. When he made his way to the livery stables to hire a carriage, he discovered that half Washington, or so it appeared, was determined to see the battle, and consequently the price of hire had risen to great heights.

  Russell of The Times was there, trying to make his way to the battle. He was arguing vigorously with the keeper of the stables, and finally had to settle for a sum far higher than he had originally hoped for.

  The keeper, however, knew Jack, and let him have something more reasonable, whispering behind his hand after Russell had gone that ‘damned insolent Britishers who write unpleasant stories about our great and free nation deserve to pay over the odds for anything they want’.

  Jack counted himself fortunate to end up with a buggy, a coloured boy for a driver, and a frayed-looking animal which proved to be more reliable than it looked at first sight.

  The boy was a cheerful young chap who remained optimistic throughout the ups and downs of the rest of the day. He assured Jack that ‘our side’ would whip the Rebels so thoroughly that the war would be over before it had started, and that he wanted to be there to see this famous victory.

  Jack was a little troubled by all the careless optimism flowing so freely around Washington. He thought of what Russell had privately told him and would publicly write: that the North still had no real idea of how harsh and bitter the war would inevitably be.

  He was astonished by the number of carts, carriages, buggies and wagons, both privately owned and hired, which set out from Washington in the early morning sun in the wake of McDowell’s troops.

  He had taken the opportunity to have a private word with Russell before The Times man left. Russell had told him of his reservations about the civilians who were setting out so cheerfully to enjoy what they thought was going to be a day’s fun.

  ‘They should have been in the Crimea,’ he said morosely, ‘and have seen what happened there to civilians silly enough to want to watch a battle. War’s not a picnic or a spectacle to be enjoyed, whatever ignorant fools who have never experienced it may think.’

  He had already said something similar to his Washington acquaintances who had arranged to go, and they had jeered at him for being an over-cautious Brit. After that he had held his tongue. Time would show them who was right, he thought.

  Riding in the middle of the concourse which was setting out so gaily were Hamilton Hope, his wife, his daughter and his niece. It was pleasant in the clear early-morning air before the day grew hot. They had had to make a prompt start to ensure that their long journey would be safely completed, leaving time for both horses and passengers to rest before returning home.

  Marietta had decided that, if she were compelled to join what she thought of as an ill-advised expedition, she would at least try to savour the experience even if she thought it regrettable. Sophie had dressed herself impressively for the trip, as though she were going to a ball. She was wearing an elaborate white dress over a crinoline cage so large that she took up most of the carriage. Her shoes were of light kid, almost slippers.

  She jeered openly at Marietta who was wearing a plain dark dress with few skirts and no crinoline cage, as well as sturdy, sensible walking shoes. Marietta said quietly in reply to her cousin’s criticisms that it was possible that she might need to be able to walk unhampered.

  ‘We are riding in a carriage,’ said Sophie severely. ‘I do not intend to walk.’

  ‘Who knows what we might need to do before the day is over?’ countered Marietta.

  The Hopes had taken an enormous amount of food with them, enough for a banquet, and Marietta privately thought that the whole thing was most improper, never mind the fact that many others, including Senators and Congressmen as well as their wives and children, had come along on the outing similarly laden.

  The day grew hotter as they rolled along the dusty roads, and she tried not to think of all the vibrant young men who would be dead by nightfall. They were still some distance from the supposed site of the battle when they first heard the distant thunder of cannon. Although low and muted, it was insistent and non-stop.

  Nothing deterred the sensation-seekers from Washington. They pressed on towards Centerville, finding when at last they reached it that it was a small sleepy hamlet, barely a town, which had been elevated into history by the chance of the main Confederate attack being near it.

  Like many of the small towns in the district it had been looted by the very Union troops supposedly sent to protect it, but this didn’t stop its inhabitants from cheering everyone and everything which passed through, including the many civilians who had been arriving since early morning.

  Sophie looked around her. Her face, which had been one smile when they set out, had grown increasingly worried when the noise of the cannon grew louder and louder. She was relieved to discover that beyond Centerville was a hill, the only high ground in the area, and it was here that the Hope party found that the spectators’ carriages were already drawn up. Below the hill the battle was already raging, and a mob of men stood around the carriages trying to make out exactly what was happening through the trees, the scrub and the several miles which stood between them and the armies of the North and the South.

  ‘Time to get out and stretch our legs,’ said Hamilton Hope cheerfully, ‘and have a bite to eat.’

  ‘Oh, need I get down, Papa?’ wail
ed Sophie. ‘I would much prefer to stay where I am. They are saying that there is little to see as yet. I do so hope that we’ve not come all this way for nothing.’

  Marietta, despite her reservations, was curious enough to be helped down to walk to the point where most of the spectators were gathered, talking, eating and drinking as though they were at a ball or a reception. She had expected to see blood and destruction everywhere, but Sophie was right: little was visible from where they stood.

  An observation balloon, tethered to a cart, was the subject of much interest and comment, much of it ribald—but its occupants could probably see more than the representatives of Washington society who had made this long and tiring journey apparently only to admire the scenery.

  Suddenly puffs of smoke, both black and white, rose above the trees and the cannons’ roar grew louder and louder. Lines of soldiers, clad in blue and grey, appeared out of the murk below them, only to disappear again.

  ‘How very disappointing,’ drawled one middle-aged Senator. ‘It’s almost impossible to tell what, if anything, is happening.’

  Sophie and Aunt Serena Hope had joined them from the carriage. Aunt Serena had brought her opera glasses with her, and occasionally passed them to Marietta and her daughter, but little more could be seen with them than without them. After a time some of the men offered learned—and patronising—explanations of the course of the battle to the women, although how accurate they were, since little could be seen, Marietta found it hard to tell.

  Sophie was no happier out of the carriage than in it. She could hardly have said herself what it was that she had expected to see, but, as was common with her, she soon became bored.

  Marietta, on the other hand, was trying to understand everything about her. Among the growing crowd of spectators were foreign diplomats, as well as many of her Washington friends, who had made this hazardous trip. Unlike Sophie, they were determined to enjoy themselves even though, in their ignorance of the unseen death and mutilation below them, they found the whole experience anti-climactic.

  Sophie, indeed, complained bitterly that so far she had seen nothing but puffs of smoke and trees, as well as a few men vanishing into the distance. ‘If it were not for the trees,’ she sighed, ‘we might have had a better notion of what was happening.’

  Marietta, however, was grateful at not having to witness the gory details of the actual fighting, and could only wonder how Sophie, who screamed at a bleeding finger, would react if the battle drew near enough for her to make out the shattered limbs and the broken bodies which must surely lie below them.

  What none of them understood when they opened their hampers and picnicked on the grass was that the battle was beginning to move towards them while the Northern troops fell slowly back.

  Jack and Russell were now on the edge of the battle area itself, which was being fought around Bull Run stream, or Manassas as it was sometimes called. Russell had led a horse with him and was determined to get into the thick of things, particularly since various senior officers had confidently informed him that ‘our side is whipping Johnny Reb’ when his experiences in the recent Crimean War led him to believe that quite the opposite was happening!

  Jack, being an innocent in these matters, had no idea who was in the right, but he was worried that the noise of battle was growing nearer and nearer when, if the North was winning, it ought to be diminishing. What surprised him, as it surprised the watchers on the hill, was how aimless it seemed to be. He had, quite wrongly, visualised something neat and tidy taking place. Instead, all was haphazard: parties of men ran across his line of sight; occasionally a troop of horsemen emerged from the grey and black smoke—only to disappear again.

  A little time later Russell disappeared, too. He mounted his horse and rode off into the thick of things in order to have something tangible to put in his despatch. When, in the early afternoon, it became quite plain that the battle was drawing nearer and nearer, Jack ordered his horse and buggy to be ready for a rapid departure. He was beginning to suspect that Russell had been right and that the rebels were winning.

  Above him the spectators were still in a state of innocent optimism, believing that the battle was almost won. They were joined by a group of senior officers who assured Hamilton Hope that all was well.

  ‘We shall shortly have them on the run,’ one of them said importantly, ‘and after that, the way to Virginia and victory will lie clear before us. It won’t be long before we can all go home.’

  Everyone around him began to cheer, quite unaware that at that very moment the Southern troops had broken Northern resistance, and that the home army was retreating across the turnpike road which they had crossed to get at the Rebels’ batteries. Instead, it was the Northern batteries which had been captured and consequently a massive general retreat had begun; a retreat which neither General McDowell nor his officers could control.

  Once started, the retreat took on a life of its own. Shell-shocked officers and men began to make for the rear, carrying all before them: caissons, supply wagons, the commissariat, medical carts and orderlies, everything streaming madly back towards Centerville and the hope of safety.

  The spectators from Washington lay directly in their path and were quite unaware that a massive retreat, involving the whole Union Army, had begun. At first they merely saw small groups of men walking listlessly away from the action, heads hanging. An odd wagon careered by. So far the battle had seemed so inconsequential that no one realised exactly what was happening.

  Suddenly a group of men, mixed up with every different kind of conveyance, came towards them at the run, shouting, ‘Git, darn yer, git. We’re whipped, we’re whipped.’

  Men were throwing their weapons away in order to make their flight from certain death the more rapid. Some of them, hampered by the spectators who still did not fully understand what was happening, shook their fists at them as they passed, cursing them for their presence, for being in the way of their retreat from the intolerable which lay behind them.

  The spectators, realising at last that the supposed victory had turned into a rout, ran towards their carriages, shouting to the drivers to point them towards home and prepare to leave at once.

  Marietta’s party had been sitting at some distance from the Hopes’ carriage when the unthinkable began to happen. They dashed towards it; Hamilton Hope was the first to reach it. He climbed in and, taking the reins from the driver, began to wheel it rapidly in the direction of Washington, shouting to the others to hurry up and jump aboard.

  Marietta, already prepared, pushed her Aunt Serena into the carriage, before turning back for Sophie—only to discover that she had mislaid her bonnet, taken off when the sun had moved away from them, and was hunting about for it.

  ‘Leave it,’ exclaimed Marietta impatiently. ‘We’ve no time to lose,’ and when Sophie wailed ‘No’ and ran away from her, she seized her hand and began to drag her towards the carriage and safety. She was hampered in this not only by Sophie’s crinoline cage, which restrained her movements, but also by Sophie’s determination to take her time since she was more annoyed by Marietta’s urgency than by the approaching danger.

  So much so that, although Hamilton Hope was shouting to them to hurry, they were still outside the carriage when a wagon, out of control, careered by with soldiers hanging out of it. Its driver was purple in the face and desperate, and on seeing that the Hopes’ carriage was directly in its path he shouted, ‘Out of my way, damn you,’ and brought his whip down, hard, on the flank of the nearest Hope horse.

  With a shrill neigh the horse bolted, taking the carriage with it, instantly to be carried away in the midst of the struggling mass of men and wagons. Within seconds it was lost to Sophie’s and Marietta’s sight, its driver unable to return to help or to collect them.

  Sophie began to scream, only for the sound to be lost in the thunder of the retreat gathering pace around them. Marietta, terrified that the pair of them would be trampled underfoot, tried to push Sophie off the
road. Behind them the bellowing guns had moved up, and were now firing directly at them. Sophie screamed again when a shell landed among the crowd of men and conveyances in their rear, leaving the dead and dying sprawling on the road.

  Marietta, indeed, tried to keep her head while Sophie progressively lost hers. There was no question of regaining the Hopes’ carriage, and chivalry had died in the sauve qui peut of the general retreat. Holding Sophie firmly by the hand, she pushed and shoved her way through the cursing mob, trying to avoid being run down by men on horseback, and by men driving carts and carriages of all description.

  In the general panic no one made any attempt to assist the two helpless women: it was doubtful, indeed, whether anyone actually registered their presence. In the end Marietta forced the pair of them off the road in an attempt to reach the open fields beyond, where they might not be trampled in the rush.

  Sophie’s screaming, alternated with sobbing, was now continuous but somehow Marietta managed to drag her to the edge of a cornfield through which parties of frantic soldiers were running in an attempt to escape from the dreadful battle which had been raging since dawn.

  As soon as they stopped Sophie sat down, shouting at Marietta, ‘Whatever you say, I can’t run any more. I can’t, I can’t. I shall wait here until Papa comes for me.’

  ‘You must carry on walking,’ said Marietta, still panting from the effort of trying to save them both. ‘If you want to escape death or dishonour—or perhaps both, since your father is, by now, far ahead of us and unable to turn back. You will find it easier to run if you take off your crinoline cage and gather up your skirts.’

  Far from calming Sophie, this useful advice set her screaming again. The tears running down her face, she demanded her father, her mother, anyone and anything which would deliver her from this nightmare.

  Exasperated, Marietta said, as reasonably as she could, ‘Since there is no one here to save us, Sophie, we must try to save ourselves and we shan’t do that by crying and lamenting. We must try to be practical.’