Jenny's Passion

by Diane Wylie

  “Oh, Napoleon, what has happened to you?” she whispered.

  It was hard to tell anymore that the stallion was actually black in color. He was filthy and starving. Rib bones showed harshly on his torso, and the horse’s face was gaunt. Jenny’s chest constricted with fear at the sight of that empty saddle where David should be sitting tall and proud. But that saddle had become an instrument of torture for the animal, rubbing deep oozing wounds on its back. Napoleon’s mouth was raw and bleeding around the bit, but his eyes were wide and clear. She wished he could talk to her, but the horse just looked at her sadly.

  He was uncharacteristically fidgety. The poor animal must have been through a bad time. Napoleon was having trouble trusting her. She couldn’t blame him for that. He must have spent all this time avoiding humans…ever since he lost David somewhere, somehow.

  Jenny kept talking to the unsettled creature quietly. Then, remembering the lullaby she had sung to him the first time she laid eyes on the horse, she sang the old slave song again, though the notes were watery and shaky. It took a lot of effort to hold back the tears.

  “Dear God, where is David?” she asked him.

  Tentatively, he stretched his neck and took the carrot carefully from her outstretched palm with gentle lips, all the while watching her with mournful, big brown eyes.

  “Let’s go home, Napoleon. I’ll take good care of you now.”

  “How is David’s horse doing?” Papa asked her at dinner that night.

  “Oh, Papa. The poor creature has been alone for quite some time to be in such poor condition. He wore that saddle for so long that he may bear the scars for the rest of his days.” She pushed the cooked carrots around on her plate listlessly.

  “Where is Captain Reynolds, Jenny? Why is his horsie here by himself?” Benjamin asked around a mouthful of biscuit.

  “I wish I knew, Benji. I wish I knew…and don’t talk with your mouth full, sweetie.”

  “Jeb, how long do you think the horse was unattended?” Phillip turned to the stable master and overseer who now had four horses in his barn. In the days before the war they had housed over a dozen prime animals with Jeb carefully tending them all.

  “Well, suh,” Jeb scratched his gray beard thoughtfully, “based on the shoe wear, I figure that animal done traveled close to a hundred miles or so. I figures maybe a month or round abouts since that hoss had anybody unsaddle the po’thing.”

  Jenny shot a horrified glance at her father, but he just shook his head mournfully. “Papa! A month since David and his horse were separated! He…he could be dead!” Too exhausted to flee the room, she simply laid her head on her arms and sobbed. The effort to hold back the tears was just too great. Pain came over her in great, overwhelming waves.

  Phillip sighed deeply then he patted her arm in a comforting gesture. Ben and Kizzie moved to Jenny, one on each side, wrapping their arms around her.

  “No, sister, no crying. You mustn’t. David will come back and marry you. Jeb told me so!” Ben cried.

  * * *

  Unaware that she slept after weeping for so long, Jenny woke in her bed with a jolt of heart-pounding fear. Someone was pounding on the front door directly below her open window. The sultry night breeze carried the sound easily to her ears. It was a man’s voice.

  What time was it? It was dark and very late, that much she knew. Who could it be? The urgent pounding continued as she jumped out of bed and quickly donned a robe and slippers. Then she picked up her pistol from the nightstand and slipped it into her large pocket. Pulling open her bedroom door, she almost ran into Papa coming down the hall with an oil lamp in one hand and a rifle in the other.

  “Who do you think it is?”

  “Jenny, you stay here,” he commanded.

  “No, I’m coming with you.”

  Jeb came out of his room at that moment. His eyes were round with fear. A fireplace poker was clutched tightly in his right hand.

  “Who there, Massa Phillip?”

  The pounding and shouting grew louder.

  “Anyone home?” The man’s voice called out.

  The three of them moved down the darkened grand stairway together with Phillip leading. He stopped at the heavy wooden front door. “Who is it? What do you want?” he called gruffly through the closed door.

  “Is this Pleasant Run Manor?” the voice replied. “My name is Jeffrey Reynolds. I believe you know my son, David?”

  Phillip yanked the door open just as David’s father was about to knock again. He nearly fell into Phillip who stepped back holding the oil lamp out of danger.

  “Mr. Reynolds! Please come in, sir,” he said. “What do you know about Captain Reynolds?”

  The tall, gray-haired man stumbled across the threshold, struggling to regain his balance as Jenny grabbed his arm. Steadying himself, he raised his head. She found herself looking into a pair of very familiar green eyes. Her chest suddenly tightened, forcing her to reach deep inside for composure. There was no doubt. This was indeed David’s father.

  “Hello,” Mr. Reynolds smiled and held out a hand to her, “you must be Miss Winston. My son said you were beautiful.” He peered at her a little closer in the dim light from the oil lamp Phillip had set on a nearby table. “My dear, have you been crying?” His voice was gentle and kind. He had seen her puffy eyes.

  Phillip interrupted. “Let us all go into the library to talk, Mr. Reynolds.” He turned to Jeb, “Would you please see to the gentleman’s horse, Jeb? Then you should return to your bed. We’ll be fine, thank you. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  The night was warm, and all of the room’s windows stood wide open to catch any breeze. The two men had seated themselves after several lamps were lit and introductions were made all around. Jenny went to the sideboard.

  “Would you care for a drink, Mr. Reynolds?”

  “Please, whiskey and water, if you have it.” He pulled off his riding gloves and laid them on the table beside him.

  “I’ll have one also, Jennifer, if you please,” Phillip said, rubbing a hand over his face wearily. “It isn’t often we get midnight visitors.”

  “I do apologize for the hour, sir. I have been riding straight through from Washington.”

  Despite her best efforts, her hand trembled as she gave the newcomer his glass. He appeared not to notice. She couldn’t wait a second longer. “You have news of David, Mr. Reynolds? Is he…is he alive?” Her breath caught on the last word, and she took a gulp of her father’s drink before stepping over to give it to him. Phillip raised a brow but remained silent. Sinking onto a chair to await his answer, she clutched the graceful curving arms tightly.

  Mr. Reynolds took a long pull from the glass before he responded. “As far as I know, Miss Winston, he is alive. I received a telegram from the Army of the Potomac informing me that my son was taken prisoner at some engagement in the Shenandoah Valley. That was all it said. I immediately left Philadelphia and went to the headquarters in Washington to see what could be done.” His face darkened with anger.

  “It took three days for those idiots to tell me he has been held for over a month now at Andersonville, the worst Confederate prison of all, and there was nothing the army will do about it!”

  Jumping up, the man began to pace up and down the shadowy room in his agitation. Mr. Reynolds was as tall as David, but he was whipcord lean compared to David’s more muscular build. In his facial features, the family resemblance could not be disputed. The structure of the cheekbones, shape of the nose, and fullness of the mouth were the same. But most telling of all were those eyes, that unmistakable, intense deep green color marked them as father and son of the same blood.

  Jeffrey Reynolds’ face was haggard and drawn with anxiety and exhaustion, but he showed no signs of wanting to quit the conversation. “Mr. Winston,” he stopped in front of Phillip, who was leaning forward on his chair, watching the other man intently. “I have money, gold and plenty of it, but it seems that money didn’t help me one bit with the army. They absol
utely refused to send anyone to get David out of that damned horrible place!”

  “I have come here to beg you for your help, Mr. Winston. David wrote me and told me how Miss Winston saved his life. He asked me to let her know if anything should happen to him in this God-forsaken war. Well, something has happened, and I need Southerners that I can trust to help me free my son!”

  Jenny moved beside her father’s chair and held his hand tightly.

  “I can’t do this alone, Mr. Winston. I could never get that far south with my voice and mannerisms. Will you please help me?”

  “Yes!” she cried without hesitation then looked to Phillip desperately. “You will help him, won’t you, Papa?”

  Her father put his hand on hers. “Of course we will, Jennifer…both of us.” He looked up at Jeffrey Reynolds. “What did you have in mind, Mr. Reynolds?”

  * * *

  A CRY FROM ANDERSONVILLE PRISON

  Excerpts from a poem, written in 1864 by William Comfort, a soldier with the Thirty-Fifth New Jersey Volunteers, imprisoned at Andersonville.

  When our country called for men we came from forge and hill,

  From workshop, farm, and factory the broken ranks to fill,

  We left our quiet happy home and those we loved so well,

  To vanquish all our Union foes or fall where others fell.

  But now in prison dear we languish and ’tis our constant cry,

  Oh ye who yet can save us…will you leave us here to die?

  There are hearts with hope still beating in our “Northern Homes”

  Watching, waiting for the footsteps that will never come.

  In “Southern prisons" pining, meager, tattered, pale, and gaunt,

  Growing weaker, weaker daily from pinching cold and want—

  Are husbands, sons and brothers who hopeless captives lie,

  And ye who yet can save us— Will you leave us here to die?

  From out our prison gate there's a graveyard close at hand,

  Where lay fourteen thousand Union men beneath

  a Southern sand,

  And scores are laid beside them as day succeeds each day,

  And thus it shall be until we all shall pass away;

  And the last can say while dying with upturned glazing eye,

  Both faith and love are dead at home, and they’ve left us here to die.

  * * *

  David lifted his head and looked around him listlessly. At least I can see again. That is something to be thankful for…maybe. What his eyes could now see was not pleasant in any way, but he was capable of making his way to the food line to get whatever he could. Hell, it was so blasted hot! He was thirsty…again. Actually the thirst and hunger never left him, not for the months since he had been betrayed and handed over to the enemy by a man he had trusted with his life.

  Thomas Miller—just the man’s name filled him with red-hot, consuming rage. He lurched to his feet, propelled by a burst of energy from his anger. Carefully stepping around the middle-aged man sharing his tent, he moved to the doorway. He didn’t know the man’s real name and likely never would. The soldier had gone over to madness some time before David had been led to this tattered shelter, blind to everything but impressions of light and darkness. A Confederate guard had taken pity on him when he arrived at the gates with dozens of other Union soldiers. Memories of that time left a bitter taste in his mouth.

  He felt the wagon jerk to a stop and, unable to brace himself, fell against the man beside him.

  “Get off me, you fool!” the man snapped and shoved David away.

  The rough treatment did nothing to improve the skull-splitting headache that David suffered since Miller viciously kicked him in the back of the head rendering him instantly unconscious five days before.

  It was two days before he was able to fully regain his wits, only to find himself in the grip of a waking nightmare. He was a prisoner of war, bound hand and foot, and jammed into a wagon with other men on their way to Andersonville, Georgia…and he had lost his sight.

  “Everybody out! This is your new home, Yanks!” a deep voice bellowed.

  David didn’t move from his seat in the wagon. He was jostled and kicked as the other men climbed out. The smell from the unwashed, sweaty men, including himself, made his stomach churn uneasily.

  “Come on, Bluebelly! Didn’t you hear me? I said, out!”

  Turning toward the voice, he squinted. All he could see was a dark silhouette of a figure against the slightly brighter background.

  “Sorry, sir,” he replied. “I can’t see. I need some help.” He held his shackled hands out in front of him, groping for something to guide him.

  A string of Southern-accented curses erupted from the man. “Goddamn, are they putting blind men in your blasted army now?” The wagon springs creaked as the man climbed in. He put a hand under David’s elbow.

  “No, sir. I woke up blind a few days ago. Got kicked hard in the back of my head.”

  “Damn shame. Come on, son. The least I can do is get you to the doctor.”

  The prison doctor examined him, but, as expected, found no visible problem. “Has this happened to you before, soldier?” the doctor asked kindly.

  “Yes, sir, but not this bad. I was grazed in the head by a bullet at Mine Run and knocked out. My eyesight got blurry, but this is far worse.”

  “Did your vision clear up later?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then I expect it will return again in time. Sorry, Captain, there is nothing else I can do.”

  He tied a cloth over David’s eyes and handed him off to the guard who had personally escorted him to the spot of ground he now shared with the man called “Mad Louie.”

  “Mad Louie won’t hurt you none, Captain,” the guard told him. “He just babbles on and on about nothing, poor fellow. Don’t know his real name. He don’t answer you direct. Good luck to you.”

  David stumbled out into the bright sun, shading his still-sensitive eyes. He was in the middle of masses and masses of prisoners crowded into a prison camp obviously meant for a lot less. You couldn’t move without bumping into someone.

  Slowly making his way to the food line, he passed an endless line of ragged tents pitched on bare ground. Not a single blade of grass grew on the acres inside the stockade gates. He wondered if the men had eaten it all. Some men had no tent to shelter them and simply sat or lay on the ground out in the harsh sun. Coughing and the droning voices of weary men could be heard everywhere. With so many people elbow-to-elbow, the noise was nonstop. And the smell, well, he couldn’t even begin to describe the nausea-inducing kinds of smells that this place held. No one could bathe; people were sick everywhere.

  Bringing back food for the sick had seemed like a good idea, but they usually either refused it or vomited it up again. After the tenth man he tried to help died, David gave up. No longer could he afford to give away the food and water that was necessary to survive. He was growing weaker and thinner, and he had not managed to save even one other person. Over one hundred men died here each day. It had gotten to the point where there was little he could do but try to survive.

  For the next five hours he stood in line before finally receiving a spoonful of salt, three spoons of beans, one half cup of cornmeal, and a cup of water. It was in his stomach before he walked to the back of the long line to wait again. This process was repeated for as long as he could stand. Sometimes he stayed awake and standing for two days and got several rations of food. No one objected. It was simply survival of the fittest. If a man wanted to wait in the food line all the time, who really cared?

  The majority of the men here were so demoralized and dispirited that they barely seemed human. David joined them more and more each day. He communicated less and less with his fellow prisoners. It seemed all a waste of what little strength one had to talk to others. There was simply nothing left to say. He waited. His mind numb, belly grindingly hollow, and legs aching.

  He stared at the back of the man in fr
ont of him in line. After a time, he started to get the strangest feeling that he knew that soldier. The skeletal man wore his baggy uniform jacket, despite the blistering heat, and appeared to be shivering. Long, greasy blond hair showed under his ragged cavalry hat. Maybe he did know the man; the beat-up hat belonged to his own regiment.

  He tapped him on the shoulder then nearly passed out from shock. “Jack! My God, is it you, Jack? I thought you were dead!”

  It was Jack Montgomery, pale, filthy, and ill, but it was his long-lost friend. He peered closely at David, recognition apparently dawning much slower. “Dave? Dave Reynolds?”

  David grabbed him in a bear hug. His once robust friend was thin and frail under the worn wool jacket. Jack was alive!

  * * *

  After getting over the initial shock, the two finally progressed through the line, received their meager rations, and walked slowly back to the tent. With his friend’s arm draped over his shoulder, David helped Jack move through the teeming crowds. His friend was barefoot and weak from the malaria that wracked him with chills and fever. By comparison David seemed strong and capable, though he had lost a lot of weight since his arrival at Andersonville and possessed only a fraction of his former strength.

  He gently lowered Jack to the depression in the ground that he called his bed and covered his shivering friend with the remnant of blanket. Crazy Louie, as usual, was cowering in the corner of the tent staring at them suspiciously through tangles of greasy gray-black hair, muttering something unintelligible. Occasionally Louie would jump as if he were startled or nervous. Often David wondered what the man had been like before the war and imprisonment had reduced him to a twitching mass of nerves.

  With a grunt, David sat in the dirt beside Jack, whose eyes were shut. His friend appeared to be sleeping. As much as he longed to find out how Jack Montgomery had come to be imprisoned in Andersonville, he figured there was plenty of time to get his story later.

  The tent was stifling, but the alternative was to broil in the open Georgia sun until your skin turned beet red and blistered before peeling off in sheets. Jack continued to shiver, while sweat poured off David. Taking off his worn shirt, he covered his friend with the damp garment also. It would dry quickly in the heat.