Call to Arms

by Frederick Nolan

  ‘I can tell you this,’ Henry said. ‘There are places in Alabama where you can be tarred and feathered for no offence more awful than having a Yankee accent. And lots of places where it’s dangerous to speak up against slavery.’ He was in the artillery, stationed at Fort Sumter in South Carolina. He had told them it was like being on an island in the middle of a shark-infested sea.

  ‘Well, I can see why,’ Andrew said. ‘People down there can hardly not notice all the tub-thumping and flag-waving that’s going on up North. They likely see that as evidence the North wants to fight. Even around these parts there are plenty of men who look at a Yankee and see someone who hates all Southerners and only wants to encourage the slaves to revolt.’

  ‘Nonsense, boy!’ Sam said. ‘Nobody in the North wants servile revolt. But the South has to realize that abolition is an historical inevitability!’

  ‘Nothing’s inevitable, Sam,’ David said quietly.

  ‘Abolition is,’ Abby said, as if she’d had the news directly from God. David smiled. ‘Abby, do you have any idea at all how much emancipation would cost the South?’

  ‘I’ll bet you’re just about to tell us,’ Abby said, tart as a June gooseberry.

  ‘A billion dollars in slave property,’ David said, ignoring the jibe. ‘The disruption of the labor system. Outfitting the slaves to become self-supporting. Enormous social upheaval. You can’t imagine what it would all cost! Hundreds of millions of dollars!’

  ‘And how much of that bill d’you reckon the North would foot, Pa?’ Travis asked, his blue eyes glinting maliciously.

  ‘Well!’ Abby said, her lips pressed thin. ‘I never thought I’d live to hear Joanna Strong’s husband and sons talking like pro-slavers! Never!’

  ‘I’m not pro-slavery, Abby,’ David said. ‘Nor abolitionist, either. You ought to know that as well as any woman. But I’ll tell you what I am: I’m in favor of common sense, and frankly, there’s not a lot of it around right now.’

  ‘Amen to that!’ Jed chorused.

  ‘All right, then,’ Sam said. ‘What do you suggest?’

  ‘As long as slavery pays in dollars, it will flourish, Sam,’ David said, getting up from the table. ‘Like all the other evil things which flourish because of money. The only thing that will make slavery unprofitable is machinery. Multiply the amount of machinery in the South and the slaves will disappear, for the same reason that unskilled labor has disappeared from the Illinois wheat farms – because it’s unprofitable! You mark my words, Sam. The minute slavery becomes unprofitable, you’ll see the masters running away from the slaves a damned sight faster than you’ll ever see slaves running from their masters. All right, let’s go to church!’

  He lifted his coat off the hook by the door and put it on, his movements almost angry, as though he was annoyed with himself for saying as much as he had. Outside, the servants had already brought around two surreys, one for Sam and Abby, and the other for David. He always rode alone. The empty seat next to his was Joanna’s, and no one else would ever occupy it. Ruth and Andrew climbed up behind Abby. Jed, Henry and Travis had their own horses. David watched as Sam climbed heavily into his surrey, which sank on its springs as he settled into the seat.

  ‘It’s no use, David,’ Sam said. He took hold of the reins. ‘You can’t sit on the fence for ever, you know.’

  ‘Maybe not,’ David said grimly. ‘But I’m sure as Satan not climbing down until I’ve got to! Hey up, there!’

  He flicked the whip across the rumps of his pair of matched bays and they moved smoothly into a trot. They were fine thoroughbreds, as were most of the horses at Washington Farm. The Strong strain was long and studded with honors: the entire wall of one stable was lined with trophies and bright rosette ribbons. The two horses in front of him today were a pair David had hand-raised from colts. Beauty and Treasure he called them. He loved them quite as much as any human he knew.

  When they came out of church, the minister, Frank Jones, was waiting to bid them farewell and give them his blessing. He was a man of medium height, with graying hair and a perennially hopeful expression. His eyes had the sad look of someone who still believes in miracles, but knows he will never witness one.

  ‘Enjoy the sermon, David?’ he asked.

  ‘Not especially,’ David said. ‘Seems to me preachers ought not to choose texts calculated to raise people’s temperatures.’ Frank Jones had chosen as the text for his sermon Isaiah Chapter five, verse twenty: Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil.

  ‘Surely you can’t believe that God wants his ministers to shrink from what is going on around them?’

  ‘I’m not qualified to comment on what God expects,’ David said. ‘But I know how I feel.’

  ‘I sometimes wonder why you bother coming to church at all,’ the minister said exasperatedly.

  ‘I come because I promised Joanna before she died that I’d see the children went to church regular,’ David replied. ‘And that’s what I’m doing. She never made me promise to like it. Excuse me, Reverend. I see Dan Holmes over there.’

  Dan Holmes’ farm lay on the northern side of the pike, a little further out of Culpeper than Washington Farm. He was a big, fleshy man who smoked cigars and smelled of bay rum and horses and whiskey. He was blunt and truthful and David liked him a great deal.

  ‘David,’ he said, acknowledging David’s greeting. ‘See you got your whole family with you. That Andrew’s fiancé, the blonde girl?’

  ‘Name’s Ruth Chalfont,’ David said. ‘Pretty isn’t she?’

  ‘As a picture,’ Dan said. ‘As a picture.’

  ‘Hear tell she’s a Quaker,’ Carrie Holmes said. ‘Don’t she mind going into our church?’

  ‘Hell, no, Carrie,’ David grinned. ‘She knows all us Strongs is heathens.’ The boys were mingling with the crowd of worshippers grouped around the little square in front of the church. Sunday morning was a good time for catching up on all the local gossip, even a little sparking while the older people talked.

  ‘Hear tell young Jed was over to Harper’s Ferry during the late excitement,’ Dan said. ‘Seen the hangin’, they say. That right?’

  ‘He was posted there end of November.’ David said. ‘Apparently there was a lot of talk about a rescue. Turned out that’s all it was – talk.’

  ‘Maybe he’ll come over for supper,’ Dan said. ‘Tell us about it.’

  ‘If Carrie’s planning on cooking a ham any time soon, might be I’ll mosey over there with him,’ David said.

  ‘Big of you,’ Holmes grinned. ‘Why are you so good to me?’

  ‘I guess it’s on account of I know you don’t get a lot of excitement, Dan,’ David grinned. ‘After all, a man your age got to take it easy—’He dodged, grinning, as Holmes took a mock swing at him.

  ‘You heading back directly?’ Dan asked.

  ‘Soon as everyone’s ready.’

  ‘Looks to me like you might have some difficulty prisin’ your boy Jed away from little Janie Maxwell,’ Dan grinned, jerking his chin towards the group of young men clustered around the Maxwell girl. She was tall, slender and elegant and dressed in the height of fashion. Her mother was determined that Jane would be a belle, just as she had been. Hannah Terrill Maxwell was the granddaughter of French aristocrats who had fled Santo Domingo during the slave rebellion of 1794. Socially she considered herself quite a cut above most of the other families around Culpeper. They said she had been a beauty, although when you looked at her persimmon face and the bitter lines around her eyes and mouth, it was hard to imagine. David lifted his hat to her and was favored with a frosty smile. Not for the first time he wished he could be a fly on the wall of the Maxwell house long enough to find out what happened when the blinds were drawn. You always figured you knew something about the life of your friends and neighbors. You always learned, much later, that you’d never known a damned thing.

  ‘Trade holdin’ up?’ he heard Dan say.

  ‘We’re selling everything that can walk,’ he
told his friend. ‘There’s enormous demand for good animals. How about you?’

  ‘At least we’re not paying for April’s seed with last October’s harvest, like some I know,’ Dan said. ‘How was your Thanksgiving?’

  ‘All right,’ David said. ‘But the boys were away. It wasn’t very festive.’

  ‘Where was Andrew?’

  ‘He was in Washington, visiting the Chalfonts.’

  ‘He still take the same view of all this fighting talk?’

  ‘He does. He says nobody who’s ever seen warfare could want it. Says it’s hotheads who think of battle as something glorious who’ll get us fighting, not men who have actually experienced it.’

  ‘Jed feel the same way?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He’s been at the sharp end, too.’

  ‘Aye,’ David said. It wasn’t his job to defend Andrew’s viewpoint or Jed’s either. They could do so quite adequately themselves. He got out his pipe and made a performance out of filling it with tobacco.

  ‘You think I’m wrongheaded, Dan, don’t you?’ he said. ‘You think I’m stubborn.’

  ‘A bit,’ Dan said.

  ‘A man is entitled to make up his own mind,’ David went on. ‘To decide if he’s for something, against it or neutral. He oughtn’t to be harangued into a decision by priests and politicians.’

  ‘I know how you feel,’ Dan said. ‘It’s going to be a hard line to hold, that’s all. It’s going to be hard to stay out of it.’

  ‘I don’t mind it being hard,’ David said. ‘As long as folks just let me be. All I want to do is raise my horses, mow my hay and raise my crops. I’ve got sons I’d like to see settled down with families of their own. I don’t want war, Dan, and I don’t want anything to do with those who are clamoring for it.’

  ‘Jed’s in the army,’ Holmes observed. ‘What will he do?’

  ‘He can make his own mind up,’ David replied. He realized that he did not really know what Jed would do if there was a war. Take his orders, do what they had trained him to do, he supposed. He looked across the street. The group of young men was still clustered around Janie Maxwell: Jed, Travis, young Tom Cosgrove, even vapid Henry. Andrew was standing to one side talking to Ruth. Jed was talking animatedly to Janie Maxwell. She was as pretty as a six-week foal, he thought, and she knew it. Off to one side, Janie’s two brothers, Paul and David, stood glowering protectively.

  As David watched he saw Paul Maxwell say something to Jed. Janie Maxwell pouted as Jed’s attention left her. He saw Andrew move to Jed’s side, laying a hand on Jed’s arm. Paul Maxwell looked darkly angry and he was saying something that made Jed’s head come up. David saw Ruth Chalfont’s eyes widen, and then, suddenly, shockingly, he saw Paul Maxwell’s hand move. He saw Andrew’s head turn as the slap hit him and he thought, Oh, sweet Jesus Christ, there’ll be a killing over this!

  Three – The Story of Jedediah Strong

  1859-60

  ‘Well, Miss Jane,’ Jed was saying to the Maxwell girl. ‘You’re lookin’ prettier every time I see you.’

  ‘Why Jedediah Strong!’ she said. ‘You ole heartbreaker, you!’ She dropped her eyes momentarily and then looked up again directly into his. It was a trick her cousin Amabel from Atlanta had told her about. She said it never failed to make a beau fall for you. Course, she wasn’t at all sure that she wanted Jedediah Strong to fall for her, even though he did look kind of dashin’ in his lieutenant’s uniform. Just the same, she wanted to see whether she could make him. Maybe that would teach that Scott Yancey a lesson, show him what she thought of his flirtin’ like that with Sally Cosgrove. As if she didn’t hear enough about Sally Cosgrove! Sally, Sally, Sally, that was all her brothers could talk about.

  ‘How long are you home for, Jed?’ she asked, resting a gloved hand momentarily on his sleeve. ‘Are you all goin’ to the ball at the Wallach house on Christmas Eve?’ She gave him the look again; it seemed to work because he smiled. He was real handsome in his way, Jane thought. Not as good-looking at Scott Yancey, maybe. She just hoped Scott was watching, that was all, eating his silly old heart out.

  ‘I sure am, Miss Jane,’ Jed said. ‘And I’m hoping you’ll save at least half a dozen dances for me!’

  ‘Here, here!’ Travis said. ‘You can’t monopolize Miss Maxwell that way. She’s got to give the rest of us a chance, too! How about it, Miss Maxwell? Will you promise me the first waltz?’

  ‘You don’t have a chance, Trav,’ Jed grinned. ‘Once I get started I’m a dancing fool.’

  ‘You always were, old chap:’

  Jed turned to see Paul Maxwell smiling at him, not a sign of friendliness on his face. Jed felt the hostility surge up inside him. No, he told himself. Don’t let him start it all over again. Paul was twenty-three, the older of the two brothers. He was dark-eyed and curly-haired, his face square and his middle already thickening. David Maxwell stood just behind his brother, the same truculent expression on his face. They’re spoiling for trouble, he thought, and decided not to allow them to goad him. It was too nice a day. The Maxwell boys were only kids, after all. Spoiled rotten, but still just kids.

  ‘True, true,’ he said. ‘Got to make the most of every furlough. The army doesn’t give us too many chances to go dancing!’

  ‘Too busy hangin’ old men, I imagine,’ Paul said, and now there was no mistaking the hostility in his voice. Damn him! Jed thought. He’s tried to make trouble already over the John Brown business. Obviously he was going to keep pushing, pushing, like his Bible-spouting father. If it had been up to Edward Maxwell alone, every single slave-owner in the South would have been slowly roasted over a fire. Only to be expected that his sons would be the same.

  ‘Look, Paul,’ he said tightly. ‘We’ve had this argument before. A soldier follows orders. Regardless of his opinions.’

  ‘You tryin’ to tell me you were opposed to the hangin’ of old John Brown?’

  ‘I’m saying that my opinion doesn’t matter, Paul,’ Jed said. ‘I was ordered to do what I did and I carried out my orders. Let’s leave it at that, shall we?’ He turned back towards Jane Maxwell, who was standing to one side, her face bland. She was totally unaware of the tension, just annoyed at her brothers for interrupting her flirtation. They were always spoiling her fun. Now they’d started talking about all this silly war stuff, as if she didn’t hear enough of that every single solitary mealtime.

  ‘You must tell us all about it,’ Paul said, not willing to let go. ‘How Colonel Lee managed to subdue that terrible renegade and his thirty desperate men with only three companies of artillery and a hundred marines.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that,’ Jed said.

  ‘Listen!’ Travis said, pushing forward, the blue eyes bright with anger. ‘What the deuce do you know about it, anyways? Jed was there, and you weren’t.’

  ‘If I had been, I’d have fought with Brown!’ Paul said.

  ‘Paul, Paul,’ Andrew said, coming across towards them. ‘There’ll be all the fighting anyone could want, soon enough. Let’s not have any today!’

  Paul turned to face Andrew. ‘Coming from you, that’s a laugh!’ he said. ‘Aren’t you the one resigned his commission because he didn’t have the stomach for fighting bare-assed Indians?’

  ‘Now, listen—’ Jed said, starting forward.

  ‘No, Jed,’ Andrew said softly, taking hold of the arm which his brother had been about to raise. ‘Don’t start anything. Let him say what he likes. He doesn’t know any better.’

  ‘You damned poltroon!’ Paul Maxwell snapped. The sound of the slap was like a pistol shot in the stillness of the moment. A small worm of blood trickled from Andrew’s lip and dropped, staining the collar of his shirt. He shook his head and turned away, eyes flooded with shame. As he did, Paul Maxwell moved as if to strike him again. This time Jed stepped between his brother and Paul. He did not speak, nor did he need to. He saw the quick flare of panic in Paul’s eyes, the darting look towards Sally Cosgrove, who was watching with wide e
yes, her mouth an ‘O’ of shocked delight. Jed realized all at once that Paul Maxwell had picked this fight deliberately, to show off to the girl. He had slapped Andrew knowing that his challenge would not be taken up, shaming him to look manly for this simpering child. Somehow the thought made Jed killing angry. He took off one of his white cotton gloves and threw it into Paul Maxwell’s face. It fell to the ground. Paul stared at Jed, his face like stone.

  ‘Stop!’

  The deep, commanding voice turned every head. The speaker was Edward Maxwell, who stood on the steps of the church, glaring at them. He was a giant of a man, with shoulders wide enough to necessitate his coming sideways through most doors. His brows were drawn thunderously together, his eyes alight with the fire of anger.

  ‘Will you squabble like rowdies on the very steps of God’s house?’ he roared. ‘Damnation take you, boy! Come away from there, this moment, d’ye hear? This moment!’

  Paul Maxwell looked at his father as if he was seeing him for the first time in his life and contempt twisted his face.

  ‘I see, sir,’ he said. ‘You’d rather I ran, is that it?’

  Edward Maxwell’s face turned dark with rage, and he hit one great fist into the palm of the other. It was well known that he did not believe in sparing the rod. His wife had high standards he said, but God,’ s were higher still. People said he had beaten everything out of the boys but their mother’s vanity.

  ‘You’ll do what I say, damn you!’ he thundered.

  ‘And I will, sir,’ Paul said, every word dripping acid. ‘Pray tell me how you would have me reply to this insult?’

  ‘Mr. Maxwell,’ Andrew said softly. ‘I beg you, sir, do not allow this to go any further. It is not a matter of honor.’