by John Jakes
Warden Wood, the pious little monster, let her use the walled sinks. “That’s all I can do, you’ve made your bed. I’d be your friend but I’m not permitted. You were seen embracing a Pinkerton detective in an effort to seduce him.”
Margaret laughed at the absurdity.
Wood blathered on, “You offended Colonel Baker, offended him deeply. He’s a very influential man. Very close to Mr. Stanton. It’s out of my hands. I’m so sorry.”
Someone approached her table. She glanced up with a flinty look. “Hello, Mason.” She no longer believed Mason Highbourne was a divinity student. She didn’t know what he was, other than a spy.
“How is Rose dealing with her celebrity, has she confided?”
“No, Mason.” Margaret played another card. “Why don’t you ask your friend the warden? Perhaps he knows.” Somehow Rose had smuggled a letter across the lines to Thomas Jordan-Rayford in Virginia, full of purple language describing the “outrages” of Pinkerton’s “ruffians” when they had invaded her home and searched her person. The sensational letter was printed in the Richmond Whig, then throughout the North, and in England.
Some of Rose’s partisans kept vigil outside the Old Capitol every day, hoping to glimpse her at a window. Flowers were left on the prison steps with memorial cards praising her devotion to the South. Kindly visitors bringing in food baskets also smuggled clippings from Southern papers that lauded Rose as a frontline soldier, or a saint. The whole Confederacy knew that when she was officially interrogated in March, she treated General Dix and Judge Pierrepont with disdain, denying all the charges assembled by “the Jew detective,” and vilifying Lincoln in front of the crowded hearing room.
“Why do you constantly accuse me of being the warden’s friend?” Highbourne said, petulant.
“Why? Because your cheeks are shaven. Your coat’s brushed, your linen’s clean. Someone’s feeding you well. Who would do all those favors when you claim you’re too poor to offer bribes? Everyone knows you’re in the warden’s quarters nearly every day. Does that answer you, Mason? If so, please take yourself out of my sight.”
Highbourne drew his shoulders up and pulled his head down. She thought of him as an offended turtle, assuming turtles could be offended. “Arrogant bitch,” he said, and stalked off.
Margaret wanted to laugh. Instead, her eyes filled with tears. They were wearing her down. Prison was wearing her down. With a little cry—half in anger, half in despair—she swept the patience layout off the table. Prisoners looked up from their sewing or their reading, then looked away.
She thought of Donal McKee. He’d gone back to New York. Donal’s presence would have helped. She didn’t love him, but his visits were moments of relief and rest. She longed for him to come again, soon.
29
April–May 1862
Zach was on his knees, his right hand braced against the ground. His left arm hung like the broken wing of a bird. An armband of blood wrapped his homespun shirt above the elbow. Lon saw all this in the seconds it took to sit up and lever a round into the chamber of the broken Spencer.
The first reb reached the end of the dam. Lon shot at him and missed. The soldiers, all young and green, collided with one another like circus clowns. Lon chambered and fired a second round. The last three men in the file retreated. The second and third reb jumped or fell into the river. Only the redheaded youngster who’d come over first held his ground, hastily reloading his musket. Lon levered the Spencer again and came up with an empty chamber. Harper had kept only two rounds in the piece.
Lon pushed Zach flat to the ground an instant before the redhead shot at them. The reb’s aim was no better than Lon’s. The ball buzzed overhead and landed in a patch of dead brush near the trees. Lon rolled on his stomach and fired the pocket Colt twice. The redhead faced about to run, slipped, and took a header in the water with his musket.
Lon helped Zach stand. “You hadn’t taken that bullet, it’d got me.”
“’S all right. You my friend. Han’t had many in my life. Can we fly out of here ’fore those rebs finish their swim?” In the river there was noisy splashing, a cry of “Charlie, I cain’t swim!”
“Can you run?” Lon said.
“It’s my arm, not my leg. Sometimes I wonder how you white folks got enough brains to run the world like you do.”
Lon laughed, waved his friend forward. “Go through there.” They ran to the patch of dead brush. In his pocket Lon found the waterproof tube of matches. He struck one, tossed it into the brush. They left a rampart of blue-gray smoke behind them as they limped away toward the ground station. Gradually the yelps of the rebs faded.
Lon reported to Lowe that both Liberty and Harper were lost, driven over the river into enemy range by freak winds. He said nothing about Harper’s meanness and cowardice. What was the point? The man was dead, and all his bad traits with him.
The surgeons dug a flattened musket ball out of Zach’s arm, patched him up, and pronounced him lucky to have no bone damage. He recuperated in the pup tent he occupied by himself. Lon looked in when he could; brought Zach extra hardtack and a canteen holding a mix of water and sutler’s whiskey. Sledge was scornful of so much fuss over a colored man. Lon reminded him of Zach’s act of bravery.
McClellan’s siege guns were nearly all in place by the end of April. George Bangs said the bombardment of Yorktown would begin soon. On May Day, right after breakfast mess, Pinkerton called his men together in his tent in the headquarters compound. The boss’s tent always stood within sight of the general’s. A fierce wind battered the canvas walls. Pinkerton looked frail and haggard.
“Gentlemen, it’s my duty to convey unhappy news. The rebellion has taken a new and sinister turn. On the twenty-ninth, last Tuesday, despite every humanitarian appeal that I could make, we lost a valued colleague and friend. Timothy Webster.”
Silence. Men shuffled their feet.
“Tim was a dedicated and nerveless agent. A complete professional who repeatedly risked himself by entering Richmond to gather information. His reports were models of thoroughness and detail. He missed nothing, from shortages of hay or Army overcoats, to the number and equipment of Richmond’s defense batteries. Through misfortune and betrayal by a drunken coward, John Scully, Tim and Hattie Lawton fell into the hands of the Confederate provost marshal. General Winder incarcerated them and placed them on trial. The verdict against Hattie was relatively humane, a one-year sentence with no restrictions on parole or exchange. Tim wasn’t so lucky. The tribunal sentenced him to hang.”
The wind snapped the tent canvas with sharp gunshot sounds.
“Under a flag of truce arranged by General Wool, I personally crossed the lines to deliver a written appeal to the Davis government.” Pinkerton found a paper on his field desk. “This is part of what I said. ‘The course pursued by the Federal government toward spies has heretofore been forbearing. In many cases such persons have been released after a short confinement, and in no case has anyone charged with spying been sentenced to death.’”
Pinkerton laid the paper aside. “The effort was fruitless. Tim met his maker with a brave heart, but it was an ignominious death. A shameful public carnival, held at the city fairgrounds. Hawkers sold souvenirs. Respectable ladies of the town came out in fine carriages to observe the demise of a Yankee. When at last the noose was dropped around Tim’s neck and the trap sprung, through some ungodly circumstance the rope unraveled. Tim fell to the ground, alive. He was compelled to climb the steps again, take the rope again—a double death.”
An operative raised his hand. “Sir, how do we know all this?”
“Mrs. Lawton. Hattie wrote a full, heartbreaking report. We have friends buried deep in Richmond society with the means to smuggle out messages.”
Pinkerton shut his eyes a moment. “Tim Webster’s death opens a new and ugly chapter in our struggle. Our enemy has revealed his true face. We must always be vigilant, but henceforth, whenever it becomes necessary, we must be ruthless.”
Well, no more. Lon left the tent with the others. No one spoke.
On Saturday, May 3, two days before McClellan’s guns were to open the siege, Joe Johnston’s artillery took the initiative. Shot and shell thundered into the Union lines commencing late in the day. The guns boomed long after darkness fell. In the morning, scouts broke down the Yorktown sally port and found that under cover of the barrage, Johnston had withdrawn his men. He’d slipped away west, toward Richmond, leaving the town to the Federals.
On Sunday, Spaldini rushed into Yorktown in search of fresh vegetables for the Pinkerton mess. The street blew up beneath him. The rebs had buried columbiad shells rigged with fulminate of mercury detonators. The infernal devices went off under the weight of a man or a horse. Lon heard of it late Sunday night and searched the hospital tents until he found Spaldini.
Awake but delirious with pain and opiates, the bright-eyed man lay on a pallet under a smoking lantern. In his fractured English he repeated something that sounded like “How I cook now?” Stained bandages covered the stumps of his wrists. The torpedo had blown his hands off. Somehow the surgeons had kept him alive.
“Better if it killed me. Better.”
Lon couldn’t find a single word of comfort to offer. It didn’t matter. He was sure Spaldini didn’t recognize him. He left the tent. In the morning George Bangs told him Spaldini had died at four a.m.
While Sledge snored and hard rain beat on the tent, Lon read his Bible by candlelight.
He read Exodus. Thou shalt not kill. He read Isaiah. They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. He read St. Matthew. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.
How often Mathias Price had quoted or preached from those texts. Lon believed in their meaning and their worth. Yet they no longer seemed relevant to the morass of hatred and killing in which he found himself.
He blew out the candle. The mournful rain poured down, sluicing off the tent walls and seeping underneath. He lay listening to bugling and drumming, the slosh of boots in the mud, the rattle of chains and creak of wheels that went on all night. He was still awake, shivering in the damp, when bugles blew reveille and the rest of the Army moved out to pursue Joe Johnston.
30
May 1862
Dr. Whyville succumbed. Apparently he had but one relative, a cousin. She traveled from Fairfax Court House to claim the body. She was a mousy little person, completely in black even to the lace handkerchief for her weeping eyes. She watched the jailers removing the body in a cheap pine box. Halfway down the staircase she began to scream. “Murderers. Murderers.”
Everyone in Room 16 stopped whatever he or she was doing. Margaret sat numbly, unable to make sense of the card layout on the table. The scream echoed through the building until the woman left with her burden.
On May 5, Monday, the prison was aflutter with rumors that its most famous inmate would leave next day, paroled to Richmond because her powerful presence in Washington was a continuing irritant and embarrassment.
Rose and little Rose said good-bye to their favorites among the prisoners. Rose looked splendid. Her color was high, her eyes lively and as defiant as Margaret had ever seen them.
“Do what you can to get out of this filthy place,” Rose said after they embraced. “You don’t deserve the treatment Baker and Wood have given you.”
Margaret replied with a resigned shrug. “Will you do something for me in Richmond?”
“If it’s in my power, of course.”
“Try to find out if my brother Cicero’s all right.”
“I will, and I’ll get word to you, depend on that.”
Little Rose tugged her hand. “Mama, the coach is waiting.”
A crowd had gathered outside to see them off. Like a queen taking leave of her subjects, Rose waved and called good-bye as she swept grandly away from the filth and gloom of Room 16. Margaret joined the applause. The sound of well-wishers chanting “Rose! Rose!” reached all the way from the street. Margaret heard little Rose on the stairs:
“We showed these damned old Republicans, didn’t we, Mama?”
Three days later, Washington reveled in news of a sharp engagement at Williamsburg on the Peninsula. Two Union brigadiers, Kearny and Hancock, had distinguished themselves. That day, Hanna surprised Margaret with a visit.
Hanna wore a suit of dark gray cloth, a buttoned waistcoat, a flowing silk tie. Trousers cut off at mid-calf showed gray stockings with vertical black stripes. Margaret didn’t know whether the suit was tailored for a woman or whether a boy’s suit had been altered. Either way, Hanna was flat-bosomed and unfeminine. Her face was pale, free of paint or powder.
Greeting Margaret, Hanna was reserved and hesitant. After she presented a small Edam cheese wrapped in a checked napkin, Margaret hugged her and the mood warmed. Hanna pulled up a stool and whispered like a conspirator. “You’ll never imagine where I’ve been.”
“I’m sure I won’t. Tell me.”
“Virginia. Falmouth. General McDowell’s corps is camped there, waiting for orders to reinforce McClellan. I wore a uniform and mixed with the soldiers as though I belonged.”
“Really! You talked about doing that, but I never thought you would.”
“I got leave from the Canterbury, packed up my kit and bedroll, and marched.”
“What did the major say?”
“Oh, he objected strenuously. But he had no time to stop me. Mr. Stanton keeps his employees too busy.”
Hanna gazed around the room that had become Margaret’s universe. “I’m sorry you’re in this place. I asked Papa if he could do anything. He said you were Colonel Lafayette Baker’s prisoner and he was the only one who could write a release order. Papa warned me not to visit you because you’re a dangerous spy. I told him I’d come even if it were true.”
“Well, let’s not worry about whether it is. Here I am, and here that fine Colonel Baker intends for me to stay. Tell me more about your adventure. Isn’t it terribly dangerous to be a woman in disguise?”
“I wish it were. You have to avoid only two things: undressing in front of men, and using the latrines. I roamed around the camps for a whole twenty-four hours, even slept awhile, with no mishaps. Hundreds of men are separated from their commands. A lot are stragglers who couldn’t keep up.”
“What if someone asked you to identify yourself?”
“Oh, they did. But I’m an actress, don’t forget. I pitched my voice low and identified myself as Private Siegel, from a fictitious Ohio regiment.” In a music hall accent she said, “Mit a liddle bit of Deutsch to trow dem off.” She giggled. “If they asked why I didn’t have a musket, only a haversack and bedroll, I said someone stole it. The officers are too busy and frankly too green to worry about every last man.”
Amused, Margaret said, “If it’s that easy, you might as well join up.”
“I could. Most volunteers never take off their clothes for their examination. A doctor checks their height, their hands, and especially their feet. That’s all.”
“Well, you’ve had your taste of it, so you needn’t keep taking chances.”
“Oh, yes, I’ll go back. My first time was a dreadful disappointment. I saw nothing but country roads, campfires, and a lot of callow boys sitting around wailing sentimental ballads or reading lewd books or gambling. I have to see the elephant.”
“Beg pardon?”
“Go into battle. Hear a real musket ball whizzing by. I’ll bide my time until there’s more fighting near Washington.”
“You think there will be?”
“I have little doubt of it. Papa says most in the War Department believe McClellan is an incompetent egotist, and overly fearful. Mr. Stanton believes he’ll
fail.” Hanna looked at the dismal surroundings. “Is there really no way you can get out of here?”
“Oh, yes. I could be a turncoat. Betray some of my fellow prisoners to the warden.” Or give in to Baker. Margaret brushed a straggle of hair from her forehead. “You know I could never do such a thing.”
Hanna squeezed her hand. “I do. I am so sorry the war’s driven us apart. We’ll patch things up when it’s over.”
“I’m sure of it.” An aching doubt lurked behind Margaret’s smile.
She watched her friend walk to the stairway. Margaret took much of the blame for the breach in their friendship. But how could it be helped, given their different loyalties?
Just when it seemed that her personal horizon could grow no darker, there was an unexpected ray of light. She came back from a noontime visit to the walled sink, and there, standing in the middle of Room 16 with his mauve gloves and lacquered stick—there was Donal.
His curly hair gleamed with barber’s oil. His black eyes warmed when he spied her. Prisoners smiled as Margaret ran to him, her tangled hair flying. She threw herself in his arms, buried her face in his neck. “I’ve worried so. No letter, no word at all.”
“I’m sorry, darling. I was detained two weeks in Nassau. The damned anaconda that Scott’s wrapped around the South is playing hell with trade. The South’s eager to exchange cotton for cash, but the blockade has restricted the supply. Never mind, I’m here to see about you.”
He stepped back, studied her face. “What are they doing to you? You look simply terrible. I intend to remedy that.”
Uncontrollable tears welled in her eyes. At that moment, seeing Donal so confident and concerned, she almost loved him.
31
May 1862
In the muggy warmth of springtime, Captain Frederick Scott Dasher, First Virginia Cavalry, rode north on a wooded road in Spotsylvania County. By Fred’s reckoning they were some fifteen miles below Fredericksburg, where McDowell’s Army corps was encamped.