by John Keene
“Where were you born?” As he asked he hid the papers behind his back.
“Well, Sir, I was born free at my parents’ lodgings at 701 Spruce Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.”
He brought them back before him and read them carefully then concealed them again. “What date and year?”
“Well, Sir, I was born on December 18, 1842.” The officer again brought the certificate Dandy gave me from behind his back to study it, and I was glad I had studied it before the train left the Philly depot, since I actually was born in 1844, though in case I needed to be 18 to work Dandy had gotten somebody to add two years.
“So why are you down here in the capital? Philadelphia ain’t just walking distance. Between the ones of you fleeing across that river over there and the ones of you maybe sent up to spy, why in the Lord’s name should I think you’re telling the truth?”
“Well, Sir, I came down because as that other letter say I am to be employed down here by the scientist specified in it.”
He opened the other piece of paper and browsed it, and for a second I thought about handing him Mr. Linde’s carte de visite, but I decided to withhold that until absolutely necessary. “How do I know you didn’t memorize all this? Y’all can be so crafty sometimes. If you’re really free and from Pennsylvania and are working for this ‘scientist,’ read this paragraph aloud for me right now.”
“Yes, Sir,” I said, peering into the page, whose writing was swirling before me. “As things stand in our con-con-tinuing contri-tri-butions to Science in the De-fense of our UNION—this corps fortu-fortu-nately does need Hands, though I can-not but cert-cert-ify my Good-Will and a mini-scule Purse as guaran-tee. . . .”
“I’ll be the devil,” he said, snatching the letter from me, and read it again himself. “So why aren’t you working with this scientist Linde and the Corps now?”
“Well Sir,” I replied, seeing he was softening, “I been trying to figure out where the Federal Army headquarters at so that I can find him. I had to pay my way down here to Washington, and now I got to find where the Balloon Corps is at.”
The officer turned on his heel and pointed in the direction of Lafayette Square telling me, “The War Department is just east of the President’s House, at Pennsylvania and G. You should go there straightaway.”
“Yes Sir,” I said. “I’m going there right now.”
“You had better, and I don’t want to see you wandering around here again. These days nobody needs any added mischief.” I bolted up 13th, feeling his eyes train a target on my back and turning every so often, real subtly, to check if he was still watching me. I nearly stumbled into the street as a carriage was approaching but righted myself and paused against a hitching post, looking back to find him gone. Only a short while after that I reached War Department. All kinds of people thronged out front, mostly guards and, to judge by the navy uniforms, military men. I spoke to a white guard stationed near the base of the main portico, then to another at the main door, spilling my story to each, mentioning Dr. Linde, Professor Lowe, the Balloon Corp. After skimming my letter the second one called over a young man my exact size and build who was a good three years older, whom I at first thought was white until I got a good look at his nose, lips and hair. The white guard said to him, “You heading to the Potomac office?” and the young man said with a lilt, “Yessir,” and the guard said, “Take this boy up there with you, and see that he speaks to someone about that letter.” The young man didn’t speak at first, he just reviewed me up and down as he was leading me to wherever we were going, but finally he paused and asked my name and where I was from. I told him and when I asked him the same question, he answered, “My name Nicholas, but they call me Nimrod.” I added, “Well they call me Red. You from here?” He told me he was originally from Annapolis, worked as a messenger, among other things, for the staff of the Army of the Potomac and General McClelland, adding that he had never heard of any Balloon Corps and wasn’t at all sure I was searching in the right place.
On the top floor after a guard examined Nimrod’s papers and I displayed mine and the carte de visite, he guided me at an office where I eventually spoke to several different people. No one had ever heard of Dr. Linde but when I mentioned Professor Lowe and the balloons finally one official knew exactly who and what I was talking about. He said the Corps was not part of the military, but then, another official entering the office overheard him and told me it was, under the aegis of the Topographical Engineers, or perhaps the Quartermaster Department, no the Signal Corps, no the Engineers, then he interrogated me and perused my papers, taking the letter and disappearing for a while, which made me start to fidget in fear that he would not return with it. Finally he did and told me I would have to wait two days to head down to where the Balloon Corps was stationed. I would accompany Nimrod when he carried messages down that way. I thanked the officer profusely, but he ordered me to get out of his office.
Nimrod was waiting for me out in the hallway. I relayed everything to him and he told me I had to be here in two days, at 7 o’clock in morning sharp, that’s when he was heading down to the camp to bring the messages and other information. I assured him I would be there. I beat the fastest path I could back up to the shack where Dandy and I were staying, dallying only at the market at Mt. Vernon Square to get some water, and buy a few provisions like bread ends, potatoes, and a cabbage to give to the people we were lodging with. That night as Dandy and me were lying on the cot we shared, trying to stay warm as the cool September air enfolded us, I told him my news and he told me Anthony Smith had a special opportunity in Baltimore. He urged me to be as careful as possible, first chance I get write Jonathan a letter he could read to the rest of the family, always guard my watch and money, don’t spend a penny I didn’t have to, and above all don’t tell these people here the date I was fixing to leave. Finished with his litany he reminded me about all the fun we had had together, including the train ride down. Before I fell off to sleep I hugged him tight as if I might never see him again. When I woke up, Dandy and all his belongings were gone.
I spent the day just walking around 7th Street, peering in the shop windows, my head down and my ears perked, listening to every conversation I could hear. Half the time in Philadelphia it hadn’t felt at all like there was a war, but here talk of it was constantly passing people’s lips. Outside the market I even overheard one man saying to another brother that a federal general had set all the slaves free in Missouri. I make sure to stay circumspect as I eavesdropped, not walk too fast since things were slower down here, not waste a single penny except to get a drink of water, and avoid all trouble with white people. Finally as evening was falling I left the Northern Liberty Market and returned to the shack. I told them I wasn’t feeling so good and went into the little area where me and Dandy were staying and quietly gathered all my things. My pocket watch handy, I took little naps till I glanced down and saw it read 5:35. I rose, silent as a shadow, everybody else was still slumbering, washed up best I could and used what passed for an outhouse, and grabbed everything of mine, including a new, well-fitting coat that someone had folded up and placed in my bag. I left some coins on the table for them, then rushed off to meet Nimrod.
At the western end of the War Department Building portico, a white patrolman asked me what I was doing there. I answered that I was waiting for Nimrod, an official Army messenger, but we went halfway through a document check before Nimrod appeared beside him with a white orderly who cleared us to go. The patrolman eyed me all the way off the War Department’s property and was still watching me even when we reached the covered wagons waiting to
take us down to where the Corps was headquartered. I asked Nimrod where we were going but he told he wasn’t allowed to say. Once we had helped several enlisted men load all the supplies and gear, I climbed in the rear of the wagon beside several of them and other men and Nimrod, and we took off. It was a slow, bumpy ride. I held on tight to the back of the wagon, my other hand on Nimrod’s knee, trying to make sure when we crossed a rut or uneven pavement I didn’t go flying out the back. Between the journey’s unpleasantness and my rising nerves I could hardly pay attention to what the men were talking about. The rocking of the wagon began to stir me so I forgot what was going on until someone broached how there were snipers everywhere, how someone else had almost gotten killed by an errant shell. I thought about asking Nimrod how close the Confederates were or we were going to be to them, but I just held onto the backboard and him, and listened, and peered out at the city streets as the day closed in.
Every so often the wagon would stop, and the driver would speak to patrolmen. At one such checkpoint I heard we were heading west into Georgetown. When we neared the water Nimrod said, “Red, you seen the Monument yet?” I looked to my right and there it was, the lean gray blade of obelisk slicing the blue morning sky. I wasn’t sure, however, how it was supposed to represent President Washington, the capital or the Union. As we crossed the Aqueduct, as one of the men called it, across the Potomac into Virginia, I could again feel my nerves ginning, but Nimrod knew at that moment to calm me, patting my shoulder and assuring me the federal troops had full control of all of Alexandria. Before I knew it we were climbing the road up through the green bluffs of Arlington Heights to our stop at Fort Corcoran. We stopped just outside the main gates and began unloading most of the baskets and crates, soldiers streaming past the high palisades and the piles of trees, which Nimrod called abatises, to collect them. I asked him before he ran off to deliver his messages where the Balloon Corps headquarters were, a query he answered by glancing first at the fort itself then at the cleared terrain ringing its walls, finally telling me when he found out he’d escort me there. As I waited I moved back from the main road, the wagon traffic, and pressed myself as close possible to the fort’s walls. I observed the waves of blue-clad figures, most from the 13th New York Infantry Regiment, I would learn, all the other white men galloping up or off on horseback, the fusillade of commands and conversation. For whatever reason at that second I wondered what my mother had said about my letter, what Jonathan thought about it, what Horatio was thinking about and doing right now—
—“Let’s go,” Nimrod called and I followed him, my sack slung over my back, we two heading towards the rear of the fort, between the walls, buttressed by a revetment of riprap and soil, fascines and planks, and a long row of tents, toward a group of white men standing in a circle. Behind them I could see a balloon bag, uninflated and spread out like a flattened lampshade, its vast silk head trellised with linen cord, its large wicker basket double the size of a standard well, festooned on its sides with sandbags. The men didn’t notice us at first and continued their discussion, one of them I immediately recognized by face as Professor Lowe, standing at the center of their circle and pointing towards the clouds. None wore the Federal’s uniforms I’d seen for weeks, but instead dressed like regular working gentlemen I might see on the streets of Philadelphia. Nimrod engaged one of the men in conversation while I hung back, watching him and them, their exchange inaudible though the man looked over at me. He led Nimrod to the balloon, where I could now see on its far side more men kneeling and fiddling with strings and cables. Nimrod yelled, “Red, come on over here.” I readied my papers in case there was any further confusion. On the ground, tinkering with a mechanical contraption and wires, a pencil, ruler, and notebook splayed opened before him and several other men, was Mr. Edward Linde.
“Professor Linde,” the white man with Nimrod said, “this boy has showed up saying he’s in your employ,” yet Mr. Linde continued his work on the metal device, twisting and arranging the wires. The white man did not repeat himself but walked away, while Nimrod and I hovered there, until Mr. Linde finally raised his eyes, squinting first at Nimrod then at me, his face initially a portrait of bafflement, and I opened the letter to hand to him and prepared once again to recount everything when he stood, gathering up a ruler, notebook and pencil, which he passed to me, his expression suggesting that I had just accidentally dropped them there to undertake some other minor task, and said, “Ah, Theodore, there you are.”
From that minute forward I was working alongside Mr. Edward, who insisted I call him “Neddy,” although all the others, around whom I always said, “Mr. Edward,” had to be correctly addressed: Mr. John La Mountain, Mr. John Wise, the Misters Ezra and James Allen, Misters Paullin, Steiner, Starkweather, the different assistants to each, as well as Professor Lowe and his father, Mr. Clovis, and his wife, Mrs. Leontine, who would periodically visit us. Soon as I set my bag down I was sharpening Mr. Edward’s pencils, tracking the placement of his spectacles to ensure he didn’t lose or sit on them, replenishing his stash of tobacco and filling his pipe, ferrying messages to the various other members of the corps, and posting his letters to his parents, his siblings, Mr. Peter Robins and other friends who had not volunteered. More than anything else I repeated verbatim what I heard him say whenever he was musing scientifically or assisting Professor Lowe, especially when they were devising a device, so that he wouldn’t fail to record it.
Like most of the others Professor Lowe at first didn’t really notice me at all. Then early one morning about a week after I had been there he said, “So you are Neddy’s little computer key, the boy from Philadelphia,” but I didn’t grasp what he meant. Later that afternoon Mr. Edward told me, “That kindly savant Professor Lowe is convinced you are helping with my calculations, so please keep quiet and both of us in his best graces,” before he added, lowering his voice, “though the rest of these characters are, as my father would say, a Schlangennest.” I asked, “Mr. Edward, Sir, excuse me but come again?” and he replied, “Nidum serpentium,” and I said I didn’t understand, worried I was supposed to get what he was talking about, but he chuckled, “Neddy—and perhaps it’s best you don’t.”
Usually I was referred to as an “aide to Mr. Edward Linde,” or “Professor Linde” as Misters Paullin and Starkweather called him, and often when that particular combination—“aide” and “Professor Linde”—was uttered, shortly thereafter I found myself at far more tedious, difficult work. I slogged sandbags to the baskets, unfurled the telegraph wires that rode up with the balloons, arranged the necessary tools for the various aeronauts or others on the team, helping unpack or break down the campsites as we moved along the Potomac, either on the Maryland side when we weren’t based at Fort Corcoran or temporarily stationed in one of the other ones along the Virginia banks. The periodic gunfire and talk of snipers made me always want to stay behind the cordon of federal troops and forts that guarded the north shore of the Potomac and Washington. I also always offered to lend a hand with the meals, though the white man in charge of mess, Paul Danahy, didn’t want me anywhere nearby. Point of fact whenever Mr. Edward wasn’t right beside me and I wasn’t busy with one of their tasks nearly all of them ordered me to stay out of their way.
There was only one other colored man working for the Corps; his name was Ulysses Harris. Twenty-five and a good foot-and-a-half taller than me, he at first didn’t say much of anything or even look in my direction. After he realized, however, that he and I had to eat together and do everything else personal together, sleep and crap in the same place, away from everybody else, he started to grow a l
ittle and then considerably more friendly. I learned he was born in Winchester, Virginia, up in the Shenandoah Valley not all that far from where we were or from Harper’s Ferry, where the great martyr John Brown had launched his raid, and that he and his family escaped north to Maryland and then into Pennsylvania, where he had spent a few years near Greencastle. He said he had a wife there, Lizzie, a former escapee like himself, though she was from Martinsville, as well as a baby son, Lysander, and after the war wanted to be a minister rather than digging ditches, pitching tents and securing pulleys. I told him I lacked the introspection to be a preacher, the gift of insight to be a teacher, no contacts to undertake an apprenticeship, the strength to be a stevedore, the patience to be a waiter or porter, and no money to pursue any of the higher professions open to us in Philadelphia, so like my father before me I was going to be a cook and, I hoped, eventually a caterer, though I didn’t say I was choosing this path mainly because I couldn’t think of anything else. Sometimes in the evenings when Nimrod was free he joined us, and we sat and chatted, both of them asking a hundred questions about Philadelphia, which they really hoped to see someday, and me asking about Annapolis and Washington and Greencastle. I wanted to tell to them about my train trip down with Dandy and ask about slavery, though from Philadelphia etiquette I knew better and didn’t dare. We’d gab until the sky grew black and our lids heavy, forcing Nimrod to hurry back or lose his post. When it started to get real cold at night Ulysses didn’t even have a blanket, but Mr. Edward had given me one of his extras, a quilt with all of Pennsylvania’s counties sewn on it, so I invited him under it with me and soon we were sleeping arm in arm.
One Saturday toward the end of September, General McClellan ordered Professor Lowe to ascend in the Eagle above Fort Corcoran and report on the rebel positions south of us, near Falls Church, in preparation, everybody was saying, for a battle. We were all commanded to stay inside the fort’s walls, to the rear of it, well behind the line of fire. Though Mr. Edward said the Confederates were at least three or four miles away and we had nothing to worry about, my heart hammered whenever I imagined they might be closer. “Worse comes to worst you can play a bondsman,” he said to me, drily, “but they will surely slit my throat with a bayonet since our dear President can’t see fit to sign off on our commissions, and where, pray tell, would that get us?” I wanted to tell him I knew nothing about commissions but was not about to play, let alone be anybody’s slave, but instead I kept quiet and calmed myself down by helping him and the other assistants ready the telegraph cable and the relay machine, the gauges, which he said he had ensured were perfectly calibrated, and several flags that Professor Lowe was going to take up in the balloon with him.