The Dixie Widow

by Gilbert, Morris

  “Mrs. Wickham—would you please stay a moment.” He shot a glance at Winslow. “I have something to tell you, Captain. Could we go into the parlor?”

  Winslow stared at him hard, then nodded. “Come this way, Charles.” He led the way to the room, gestured toward a chair, and when they were all seated, said, “Let’s have it then—whatever bad news you’ve brought. I can see it in your face.”

  Taylor bit his lip. “It is bad news, sir—very bad.”

  Captain Winslow stared at him. “Is it Lowell?”

  Taylor swallowed. “Yes, it is.” He dropped his eyes, unable to look at the pain in his friend’s face.

  “Is he wounded . . . or is it worse?”

  “He’s . . . he’s gone, sir. Killed in action in Georgia.”

  Belle’s eyes filled with tears. She had not been close to Lowell, but she had grown to love his grandfather. The captain sat with his eyes closed, rocking slowly. She knelt beside him, holding him tight, feeling the grief that shook him. How she wished she could take away the pain that racked him!

  Taylor’s face was fixed in a stony expression. He had known Lowell Winslow as one of his junior officers, and felt the loss personally, though he realized it couldn’t compare with that of the grandfather’s, but he had to bite his lip to control his emotions.

  Finally, the captain pulled away from Belle and wiped his eyes. “Tell me about it, Charles.”

  “That’s why I came, Whitfield,” Taylor replied. He spoke slowly and gave the details so clearly that even Belle, who knew little of battle, understood. “We were sent on a raid to Georgia. Mosby had brought his cavalry behind our lines at Fairfax, Virginia, and nearly wiped us out! He captured a brigadier general, several other officers, and a bunch of horses.” Taylor smiled grimly and added, “Lincoln hated the loss of the horses more than the general—said he could always promote somebody to general. But the defeat hurt our morale, so I took the troop down at the command of Stanton. We were to retaliate, but we failed.”

  Winslow noted the anger in Taylor’s face. “What happened, Charles?”

  “We were ambushed!” Taylor exploded, shaking his fist angrily. “They knew we were coming, and we walked right into their trap. Earlier I had become a little suspicious because we were making no contact with the Rebels. I almost turned back, but Stanton had said we had to have the victory to counter what Mosby had done, so I went ahead. And when we rode into a valley with hills on both sides, the Rebel troops closed in! It was hell, sir! They had field pieces on either side of the valley already set up, and a whole brigade of infantry jumped into the gap in front of us.”

  “I suppose you tried to retreat?” Winslow asked.

  “We tried—but they were waiting for us,” Taylor replied, his face twisting with grief as he relived the moment. “Forrest and his cavalry held us in like a box. They cut us to shreds. I could see no other way out than to hit Forrest full force, so I called for a charge. Those of us who were able carried the wounded behind us—and that’s what Lowell did. He saw Major Whitlow fall, and he jumped down to help him. They were right beside me most of the way, both on Lowell’s horse; and when we hit the Rebels, I saw Lowell pull his pistol and fight his way through the first line. It was horrible, sir! Many of our men fell, but there was no way to stop and get them. None!”

  “What happened to Lowell?” Winslow asked quietly.

  “The horse he was riding was hit and fell. Both Lowell and Whitlow went down hard, but Lowell was up in a flash. He shot a Rebel off his horse and got Major Whitlow in the saddle. He was just getting ready to mount behind him when he took a bullet right in the heart.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes. I stopped long enough to make certain,” Taylor said. He made it sound easy, but in fact Taylor had thought he would never escape the hail of bullets that whipped around him as he knelt to examine Lowell. “He died instantly, Whitfield, in the act of saving one of his fellow officers. A hero indeed! I am recommending him for the highest award our country offers.”

  “That was like Lowell,” Whitfield said proudly. Then he cocked his head. “They knew you were coming?”

  “Yes, we know that for sure,” Taylor nodded. “We captured only two prisoners—but one of them was a lieutenant. After we fought our way clear and got back to our lines, we questioned him. He laughed at us and said they’d had exact information of the route we’d take and the time we’d be there. When I asked him how they had scouted us so well, he said that Forrest had gotten hold of a Federal War Order. It had all the details of our movements—everything.”

  “Dear God!” Winslow whispered. “How could it happen? How?”

  “I don’t know, sir,” Taylor replied. “We all rejoiced when McClellan acquired Lee’s Special Order 191 with all the Confederate movements at Antietam—now we see how painful it can be when it happens to us!”

  “Have you told the boy’s parents, Charles?”

  “Yes. They took it badly, sir. His mother is distraught. Your son asked the doctor to give her a sedative to calm her. Robert asked me to break the news to you.”

  “Thank you, Charles,” Winslow said, and got to his feet. He straightened his shoulders and stood erect. “You loved the boy, too, I know.”

  “I did!” Taylor’s face reflected his own grief as he spoke. “I’ll miss him as if he were my own, Whitfield! He would have gone to the very top in the army. He was a good soldier.” He turned to go. “I’ll be back very soon, sir. I wish . . .” He hesitated, then said, “All I can do now is try to find out who leaked that order to Forrest. It won’t bring Lowell back, but it’ll make me feel as if I’ve done what I could for him.”

  Belle accompanied him to the door. As she opened it, Taylor paused, looked down at her, and said sincerely, “I wanted you to hear this, Mrs. Wickham, because I know it’s a hard blow for Captain Winslow. He needs all the support he can get. His son told me how much you’ve done for him—and how much you mean to him. God bless you.”

  Belle’s face was fixed, and she nodded numbly as he took his leave. She closed the door, then leaned back against it, pressing her hands to her mouth to hold back the sobs that rose uncontrollably. Georgia! her mind screamed. For the instant Colonel Taylor had related the story of the special order that had gotten into Confederate hands, she knew! The cavalry raid—that was part of the orders I copied and gave to Ramsey! She recalled them clearly, almost word for word. Sick at heart, she knew there was no room for doubt, no matter how she sought for it.

  She recalled the night she left the house of Henry Wilder, running through the streets with a copy of the secret orders. The night had been dark, but not so black as the sense of guilt and the foreboding of doom that had gripped her heart—and never left! She had fled like a guilty murderer fleeing the law, and she remembered how the preacher’s words had thundered in her breast: Thou God seest me!

  Since then she had no peace, and now, leaning against the door with great sobs rising to her throat, Belle knew she would never feel clean again. She hadn’t thought of the implications of her work with Huger; always it had been some pins on a map, or a newspaper headline that mentioned troop movements.

  But Lowell Winslow was not a theory. A vision of his cheerful face at the ball in Richmond flashed before her. How handsome and full of life and hope! How generous and kind to ride to the heartland of his enemies to save the life of an-other! She pictured him as he had been the last time she saw him alive—in the parlor where his grandfather now grieved. The colonel had taken her hand and wished her a good time at the opera, saying, “You’ve been a godsend to us, Belle!”

  Then she thought of his body lying in the dirt, bleeding his life away, far from home and kin—and it was her fault! Though others had died, her mind was consumed with only one. If she lived to be a hundred years old, she would never be able to blot out the memory of Lowell Winslow’s death.

  Slowly she forced herself to stop weeping. Wiping her tears, she moved toward the parlor, hating the thoug
ht of facing the old man who sat there with a precious part of his life cut away. She moved stiffly, her limbs not coordinated, and when she saw him bent over with his face in his hands, she almost wheeled and fled. But she forced herself to enter, and went over to sit beside him.

  They said very little, but several times he patted her hand and said, “I’m glad you’re here, Belle.”

  ****

  The interrogation room was located on the third floor of the Capitol building, at the end of a dim hall. The room itself was a windowless space ten feet wide and fifteen feet long. It contained one table with four places for seating around it, and one straight-backed, armless chair at one end of the room, faced by a series of lamps with mirrors behind them. These lamps, when lit, cast a harsh light directly in the face of anyone sitting in the single hard chair.

  Colonel Henry Wilder had been present at the questioning of several men, but always seated on the dark side of the room. Now he sat in the single chair with his eyes half-blinded by the lamps. The rest of the room was dark, and he was unable to see how many men were present.

  He had been arrested at his home by two men in civilian clothes. These he had recognized immediately as members of Allan Pinkerton’s force—the Secret Service. He was not allowed to speak to anyone, but was locked in a room in the Capitol for twenty-four hours. They had not mistreated him, but by the time two privates came to get him at nine o’clock in the morning, his nerves were completely unstrung and his legs so weak from fright that he stumbled on the steps leading to the third floor. “Careful, Colonel,” one of the privates said, steadying him, “you’d break your neck if you fell down these stairs!”

  He had recognized the room, and the terror that had gnawed at him ever since his arrest overwhelmed him as he was seated in the single chair. One of the men lit the lamps, then blew out the overhead light so Wilder could see nothing but the glare of the mirrored lamps. He sat in the thick silence, so frightened he thought he’d lose his breakfast. Finally the door opened, admitting a shaft of light, and he heard a voice say, “Wait outside.”

  Wilder recognized the sound of soldiers’ boots, then the door closed. He peered into the light, shading his eyes with his hands, and said in an unsteady voice, “I demand to know what this means! I am an officer of the United States Army, and I have the right—!”

  “Colonel Wilder—you are in a very critical position,” a voice said, and Wilder recognized the voice of Allan Pinker-ton, the head of military intelligence. “You have only a minute chance of extricating yourself from the charges lodged against you—and none at all unless you cooperate fully with our investigation.”

  “But, sir!” Wilder gasped, “I haven’t even been told what the charges are!”

  “Just answer my questions, Colonel,” Pinkerton said. “There is, as I say, one small chance that you may be able to clear yourself. My associates are convinced that you are guilty. They have pressed me to bring you before a court-martial immediately. However, I have taken it on myself to give you one opportunity to avoid the disgrace of being dishonorably discharged—and the prison sentence that will follow.”

  “Sir! I’ll do anything to clear myself!” Wilder cried out, panicking. “Ask me anything!”

  “Very well. You drew up War Order Number 204 for the secretary of war, did you not?”

  In spite of his fright, Wilder’s remarkable memory did not fail. “Yes, sir, I did.”

  “Can you repeat the general nature of the content of that particular order?”

  Wilder rattled it off, not in general, but in concrete specifics, going into great detail about the movement of Grant toward Vicksburg, the shifting of Rosecran’s army, and the cavalry raid planned for Georgia.

  “Very good, Colonel,” Pinkerton said, admiration shading his voice. “Now, think before you answer this question. Take your time, and consider that your career may rest on your answer.” He paused and then asked slowly, “Who, besides you, had access to that order before it was given to the officers in charge of the operation? Think carefully.”

  Wilder sat still as a stone, his mind racing back to that time. He thought of the conferences he had with Edwin Stanton and others as the plan was put together. He thought of how he had taken the notes made from those meetings home and worked on them several nights. He had an extraordinary ability to remember dates as well as figures and words, and suddenly a thought exploded in his mind that was reflected on his face.

  “Ah? You’ve thought of something?”

  Perspiration burst out on Wilder’s forehead, and he passed a trembling hand over his face. Twice he tried to speak, and finally he managed to say, “Sir, there is one person who might have seen those orders—but I—I can’t possibly give you the name.”

  “That’s your choice, Colonel,” Pinkerton said coldly. “I take it, then, that we must go the route of the court-martial?”

  “No!” Wilder burst out. “I—I’ll tell you about it—but I beg you, don’t let this get into your report.”

  “Give me the facts, Colonel. You have no bargaining power. However, I will say this: If you have been victimized, we have no interest in destroying you. You are a valuable man to the secretary. But we must have the guilty party.”

  Again Wilder passed his hand over his brow; then his lips tightened and he burst out, “It was that Wickham woman—the Dixie Widow!”

  Pinkerton whispered something that Wilder couldn’t hear. He went on. “But how could the woman have gotten to the papers if you didn’t give them to her?”

  “I—she was a guest in my house,” Wilder gulped. Finally he said, “I may as well tell you, sir—she’s a woman of no morals. She’d been chasing me for some time, and I finally asked her out a few times. Then, one night, she asked if we could stop by my house for a drink. Well, frankly, I was suspicious of her from the beginning, so I thought it might be possible to find out what she was like. So we went to the house and I tried to get something out of her.”

  “You didn’t believe her story about being a converted Rebel?”

  “Of course not!” Wilder shook his head emphatically, allowing a downcast expression to show. “But she’s clever! Oh yes, I’ll give her that.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, sir, we were having a drink, and she asked for a glass of water. I went to get it, and she drugged my drink!”

  “Did you taste the drug?”

  “Why, no, sir, but it had to be that way . . .” Wilder hesitated. “I was out in no time—I mean just passed out!”

  “You’d been drinking. You were just drunk.”

  “No! I’d only had a couple of drinks, I swear it! And I have a good head for liquor—ask any of my friends!”

  “We have,” Pinkerton spoke up dryly. “And they agree with what you say. So you were drugged. When you woke up, was the woman there?”

  “No, sir!”

  “Did you check your papers?”

  Wilder hesitated. “Yes, sir,” he answered. “They were all there—but I know now that she must have copied them and passed them on to the Rebels.”

  “Why didn’t she take the papers themselves?”

  “Why, then I’d know that she had done it. I suspect she wanted to get more information out of me.”

  Abruptly the bright lights dimmed, and with a shock Wilder saw the secretary of war standing beside Pinkerton. He was glaring at Wilder with an angry look. “What a fool you are, Wilder!”

  “Sir, I—”

  “Pick up the woman at once,” Stanton commanded.

  “What about the colonel?” Pinkerton asked.

  “He’ll have to testify against the Wickham woman.”

  “Yes, sir, I’ll do that with great pleasure,” Wilder agreed, relief flooding him. “I’ll nail her for you, sir!”

  “And after the trial, you can have what you’re always complaining you never get!”

  “Sir?”

  “I’m having you assigned to active duty under Grant,” Stanton stated with a hard look in his
eye. “The average life of his company officers is about two months. Sorry there won’t be any women down there in the lines at Vicksburg for you to dally with.” He turned on his heel, ordering, “Keep him under house arrest until after the trial, Pinkerton. And get that woman!”

  ****

  Less than an hour after Pinkerton left Colonel Wilder, who was reduced to a fit of hysterical pleading, he walked up to the home of Captain Whitfield Winslow and rapped on the door. Soon a woman dressed in black appeared. “Yes? Did you wish to see Captain Winslow?”

  “Are you Mrs. Belle Wickham?”

  “Why, yes, I am.”

  Pinkerton pulled a paper from his inner coat pocket, handed it to Belle, who stared at it uncomprehendingly. “What is this?” she asked.

  “It’s a warrant,” he said, keeping his narrow eyes on her face. “I arrest you, Belle Wickham, on the charge of treason. And I warn you that anything you say may be held against you!”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  HOME TO RICHMOND

  The Calcutta docked at New York at dawn, and Davis Winslow was the first passenger to step off the gangplank. He shouldered his way through the crowd waiting to meet the ship, tossing his bag into the first cab he saw. As they drove through the city, he paid no heed to the cherry blossoms filling the air with its fragrance. He had left England the day he got the news of Lowell’s death, and had made record time on the fastest ship making the New York run. Now arriving at his destination, he was reluctant to enter the house. He went up the walk with a heavy heart and gave the brass knocker a solid rap.

  The door opened, and his mother cried, “Davis!” He dropped his bag and held her, shocked at how thin she was and at the ravages that had destroyed the smooth lines of her face since he had last seen her. She clung to him as never before. Finally she lifted her face and kissed him. “Come in, dear!” she whispered.

  His father came down the stairs at that moment, pulling on his coat. The jaunty assurance in his manner was gone. Robert had always greeted his sons with a firm handshake, but this time he put his arms around Davis and held him close. “My boy—I’m glad you’re home!” His voice was husky.