American Dreams Trilogy

by Michael Phillips

  “Your mother is well, misses you terribly, but is of good cheer. I do not know if a letter from her own hand is capable of conveying the depth of her love, but it is there and I know you treasure it. We are too busy with the work of the place and the flow of ‘guests,’ to worry overmuch about our troubles, which, in truth, are very few.

  “You are constantly in our thoughts and prayers. We love you.”

  Seth set down the letter and exhaled a long sigh that expressed many things. Hearing from home always made him thoughtful, a little melancholy, but also filled him with a quiet and peaceful joy mingled with sadness. And word of Veronica made him feel strangely sad in a way he could not explain.

  Forty-Five

  On an isolated road in the hills of North Carolina, a strange-looking wagon rumbled along. Around a bend ahead of it, a troop of Negroes plodded in the same direction, looking like they had been walking all night, or perhaps for several nights. They were bedraggled, hungry, and exhausted.

  As the wagon came into hearing of the pilgrims, a few glances behind were sufficient to scatter them into the trees beside the road. The driver of the strange vehicle continued on, then reined in his two sturdy equine manservants. He could hardly keep from smiling at the sounds of rustling in the undergrowth.

  “You can all come out!” he called, then waited in silence.

  “Better come out and greet a friend,” he said, “than have the dogs set on you! You’ll never make it another twenty miles without my help.”

  Again it was silent.

  “There’re search parties about looking for you. I ran into one of them about an hour ago. If you’re from the Mulholland plantation, they will find you eventually.”

  He saw another rustling and movement of bushes and brush. Out from it a tall lanky black man emerged and climbed out onto the road. Professor Southcote stared down at the man a moment from his perch high atop the seat of his strange-looking wagon.

  “A word of advice, friend,” he said at length. “You’d best keep your people off the road, or else listen a little more carefully. This region is crawling with vigilantes looking for people like you.”

  “We’s mighty tard, suh. We din’t hear you comin’.”

  “Well you’d better listen, or next time you won’t be lucky enough to find a friend in the road. Where are you bound?” Southcote asked as a few more timid black faces emerged from their hiding places.

  “Anywhere we can git ter freedom, suh,” the first man replied, apparently their leader.

  “How long you been on the road?”

  “A few weeks, suh. We had ter hide out a spell after gittin’ away from da plantashun. Den we got an da road an’ headed norf.”

  “At this rate, you’ll never make it without getting caught, man. You’ve still got all of Virginia to cross, and winter’s coming.”

  “We gots ter make it, suh. We gots ter make it fer da chilluns.”

  “What’s your name?” asked Southcote.

  “Diggs, suh… Macon Diggs.”

  By now Southcote realized that there were four young faces staring up at him with big round white eyes in the middle of frightened black faces, along with four more adults in addition to Diggs. He shook his head. There were too many… and they kept coming, more every month. They had no idea how far it was, no idea what it took to elude capture. They were so ignorant, yet so hopeful, so determined. The lure of freedom outweighed everything.

  Suddenly Southcote’s reflections of what seemed the hopelessness of his mission were interrupted by a sound in the distance—a sound he knew all too well. He cocked his ear to listen.

  “Riders coming… and this way!” he shouted, jumping down off his perch with an agility marvelous for one of his build. Before his feet hit the ground every one of the runaways had scattered and were rapidly disappearing into the wooded undergrowth.

  “Wait!” he called after them. “Diggs—get your people back here… hurry!”

  With wonderful trust for one he hardly knew, and displaying great judge of character, the man called Macon Diggs gave a whistle and a shout, with the result that by the time Weldon Southcote had reached the back of his wagon and had removed an odd-shaped iron bar from somewhere and had inserted one of its ends into a hole at the base of the bed, nine black faces were clustered closely around him with wide, curious, but fearful eyes. The fact that they now heard the galloping horses too, and coming closer, was clear indication that, though they hadn’t the slightest idea what he was doing, they were willing to place their lives in his hands.

  “Turn this, Diggs,” said Southcote, indicating the iron lever, “just like an auger. Be quick about it.”

  The black man took hold of the bar and began to turn, while Southcote stepped to one side and began to shove against one side of the wagon.

  Gradually an awesome spectacle unfolded before their eyes… two halves of the tall, merchandise-laden wagon began to separate. The more Macon Diggs twisted his auger, and the more Walter Southcote pushed and shoved and coerced the gears of his cunning machinery, the wider yawned the door into the hidden interior of his traveling hideaway.

  “That’s enough—get in, everyone!” he yelled. “I think it will hold you all. If not, you’ll have to crowd together.”

  The children needed no persuasion. Quickly they scrambled up and into the little cleverly constructed human cave. And now for the first time did the children, followed by Mr. Diggs and the others, see that there were already five or six blacks sitting inside wondering what was happening no less than themselves. Crowding together, and cramming into every available nook and cranny, children on laps and held tight to mothers’ breasts, within seconds the strange contraption began to close as it had opened.

  “Not a peep out of any of you!” said Southcote as he now cranked his iron bar in the opposite direction. “Squeeze in tight.”

  Slowly the light faded from their view. Again Southcote was left alone, thinking that it would be a miracle if he could secure the latch. The thing had been designed to hold six, and by his count—though he had lost track!—there were something on the order of fifteen inside his empty wagon shell at this moment.

  He had just managed to clamp the sides together, run back around and climb onto his bench, and give his horses a whack with his reins, when eight riders came into view galloping toward him.

  They stopped and he reined in as if he had been moving along at a constant pace for an hour or more.

  “You seen any blacks along this road, old-timer?” asked the lead rider.

  “Can’t say I have, mister,” replied Southcote. “But if you and your men have just a minute to spare, I have a product that I am more than certain would be of great benefit to you and add years to your lives besides.”

  He rose, turned around, and from somewhere in his assortment of goods produced a bottle, which, turning back to face them, he held aloft. “Now, gentlemen, if I could just have a moment of your valuable—,” he began.

  Already Malone Murdoch and his posse were disappearing in the distance.

  Southcote watched them a moment, with a keen gaze from beneath the brim of his well-worn top hat, then muttered a few words, uncorked the bottle in his hand, took a long healthy swig, sat back down, and once again prodded his horses into action.

  Forty-Six

  Word began to spread around the New Haven docks about midway through the day of December 20, just five days before Christmas. By quitting time everyone in the city knew. Seth bought an extra edition of the paper, rushed into print, on his way home. Its headlines emblazoned the news that would change the course of a nation’s history:

  “South Carolina Secedes From Union!”

  Seth opened the paper where he stood beside the street as people bustled about him talking about the astonishing developments. The rest of the announcement continued in print so large as to cover most of the front page:

  “Passed unanimously at 1:15 p.m., December 20th, 1860. An Ordinance to dissolve the Union between t
he State of South Carolina and other States united with her under the compact entitled The Constitution of the United States of America.

  “We the People of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, that the Ordinance adopted by us in Convention, on the twenty-third day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, whereby the Constitution of the United States of America was ratified, and also, all Acts and parts of Acts of the General Assembly of this State, ratifying amendments of said Constitution, are hereby repealed; and that the Union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under the name of The United States of America, is hereby dissolved.”

  In disbelief, Seth folded the paper under his arm and hurried home. The look on Cynthia’s face when he rushed in said well enough that she too had heard the news. She ran straight into his arms.

  “Oh, Seth!” she exclaimed. “I’m so afraid!”

  “Have you heard from Jeffrey?” he asked.

  “He’s not home yet. I only heard the news an hour ago.”

  Seth set down his things, then showed her the paper. Cynthia read it, slowly shaking her head in disbelief.

  “I just don’t see how they can do it,” she said. “It’s… it’s so wrong!”

  “Don’t you wish we could talk to Mom and Dad right now.”

  “Oh, wouldn’t that be wonderful!” sighed Cynthia. “I would so like to know what they think! And just to be with them.”

  She paused and drew in a deep breath. “That’s one thing I miss,” she said thoughtfully, a faraway look coming into her eyes, “one thing I don’t like about growing up. Sometimes, I don’t know… I just want to be a little girl again. As much as I love Jeffrey and wouldn’t trade our life for anything… you know, there’s part of you that misses childhood. It was so safe, so happy.”

  “We couldn’t have had a better place to grow up,” nodded Seth. “I feel that way too. And I am still just a kid compared to you, old sister!”

  “You look like a man to me. You’ve grown up so much since I saw you last… and now doing a man’s work on the docks!”

  “I don’t feel like a man,” said Seth. “Sometimes I feel, just like you said, like a little boy and I want to go back to being ten or twelve. But… I don’t suppose you can ever go back, can you?”

  “I guess not. And now I wonder if the country will one day look back and wish it could go back to more peaceful times. Seth, what’s going to happen!”

  “I don’t know, sis… I honestly don’t know. But,” he added, pointing to the paper on the table, “it can’t be good if things continue like this.”

  Christmas five days later was bittersweet at both homes in New Haven and Greenwood. Though Cynthia and Carolyn did their best to make the day festive and gay, the miles of separation could not but cast a cloud of melancholy over the celebration of Christ’s birth.

  The packages so lovingly sent and so excitedly received at both ends, and the gifts they contained, while the cause of much mirth and happy laughter, could not replace the presence of loved ones so dearly missed at such a special family time.

  Seth’s presence buoyed Cynthia’s spirit, yet the uncertainty of Jeffrey’s future added an invisible weight she could not dismiss from her heart. And though preparation for the great annual celebration at the big house for the entire Greenwood family kept Carolyn busy in the kitchen with Nancy, Maribel, Mary, and several other of the black women, in the quietness of her heart she was missing her daughter and oldest son more sorely than ever.

  Their traditional family time alone on Christmas Eve the night before, with only the three of them, had been painfully quiet. Thomas had seemed more gloomy than ever. Nothing they did, it seemed, could please him. Any gift they gave, whatever words they spoke, were met with a shrug of the shoulders. The evening ended, Richmond and Carolyn together on the couch in front of the fireplace, Carolyn leaning against Richmond’s chest, his arm around her shoulders. Tears softly fell from her aching mother’s eyes for the son and daughter who were together but so far away, and for the son so close, alone upstairs in his room, and yet also so far from their hearts.

  Events did, true to Seth’s words to his sister, continue to slide in a direction that in the end could only result in confrontation.

  Seizing the four-month opportunity when the government in Washington floundered with a lame-duck president, and while President-Elect Lincoln watched powerless from his home in Illinois, the states of the South followed South Carolina’s lead. On January 9, Mississippi voted to secede from the Union. Florida did so on the tenth, and was quickly followed by Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, and Texas.

  Suddenly nearly a fourth of the country had broken away.

  Wasting no time, and continuing to act before Lincoln or the congress in Washington could stop them, representatives from the seven breakaway states met on the fourth of February in Montgomery, Alabama, and formed a new nation called The Confederate States of America. Former senator and secretary of war Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, who was not even in attendance, was elected president of the new nation’s provisional government.

  Jefferson Davis left his home to take up his new duties in Montgomery on February 11. Abraham Lincoln left Springfield, Illinois, for his new duties in Washington, D.C., on February 12. They were two presidents bound for two very different destinies.

  As Lincoln made his way to the capital for his inauguration, all eyes from both “nations” turned their eyes in his direction. How would the new president respond to the events that had taken place since the election?

  He would not be an impotent observer much longer.

  What would Lincoln do?

  And how would the Southern states respond?

  Forty-Seven

  The first action of the seceding states was the attempted takeover of federal lands, buildings, forts, and other property within their borders. For the most part control of these installations was turned over peaceably. Where those in charge or command were loyal to the South, they remained. Otherwise officers loyal to the Union left their posts and returned North to await orders. In the few instances where federal installations were seized or captured by force, there were no injuries or exchanges of gunfire.

  In South Carolina, however, the mood from the outset was tense. In order to avoid the unnecessary shedding of blood in an atmosphere where all South Carolina, it seemed, was ruled by hotheads eager to start a tragic and needless war, six days after South Carolina’s secession the handful of federal troops stationed at Fort Moultrie in Charleston, removed themselves to unmanned and unfinished Fort Sumter, located in Charleston Harbor, where, they hoped, they would be left in peace until the crisis blew over.

  As a symbol of their belligerence and resolve, six thousand South Carolina militiamen with artillery capable of bombarding the fort, took up positions on the land in a semicircle around Fort Sumter and demanded that Major Anderson surrender the fort. But the commanding officer, Major Robert Anderson, was loyal to the Union and would not give up his post without orders to do so. On January 9, a ship attempting to bring him supplies was fired upon and forced to turn back. From that moment, the sixty-six soldiers inside were separated from the outside world, and cut off from provisions and supplies.

  Weeks passed, then a month, then two. The small Union garrison at Fort Sumter remained hunkered down and isolated, surrounded by cannons and guns and South Carolina hotheads eager to open fire. Throughout both the Union and the Confederacy, all eyes watched to see how the standoff would end. Tensions rose.

  Lincoln reached Washington, D.C., under threat of assassination, and all the capital turned out on the fourth of March for the inauguration of the new president. After being sworn in, Lincoln spoke directly to the seceding states of the South in his inaugural address. He promised not to interfere with slavery where it already existed, but again he insisted that no state had the right to secede from the Union, vowing to hold,
occupy, and possess all federal installations.

  “In your hands, my dissatisfied countrymen,” he went on, “and not in mine is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict, without being yourselves the aggressors…. We are not enemies but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

  With President Lincoln and the new government at last installed in the capital, the anxious waiting seemed about to end. Major Anderson’s troops at Fort Sumter were running low on provisions. The fort either had to be evacuated and turned over to the Confederacy, or else it had to be provisioned with new supplies.

  Many of Lincoln’s advisors and new cabinet officers argued in favor of abandoning the fort. Meanwhile, at the Confederate capital in Montgomery, the advisors of Jefferson Davis were clamoring for him to strike a blow for the Confederacy and order an attack on the fort.

  Both sides continued to wait.

  “Dear Mother and Father,” Carolyn read aloud as she and Richmond sat at the kitchen table, each with a cup of tea, midway through the morning of March 11, a week after Lincoln’s inauguration.

  “The country, it seems, or what is left of it, has a new president at last. I am glad to know, for the present at least, that he is your president in Virginia too.

  “How long do you think he will be Virginia’s president? The news here is full of speculation about what states will join the Confederacy.