The Roswell Women

by Statham, Frances Patton

  Flood challenged her statement. "That's not true, Addie, and you know it. There's no need to be blamin' Madrigal for all our troubles."

  But the woman paid no attention to Flood. She continued her tirade, directing her anger against Madrigal. A baby started crying, and soon the cry was taken up by other babies until the barracks were filled with the noise of crying women and children.

  But within the hour, a quietness had come over the group. Sitting on the edge of cots, with their few possessions tied in bundles, they listened for the sound of soldiers coming to march them to the train.

  Allison looked out the window; for the sky had taken on that strange hue that presages an electrical storm, so prevalent in the scorching days of summer in the South. As a child, she had been able to smell an approaching storm, a blanket of heaviness in the air, long before it became apparent to her father or brother. And that same feeling now hung over the grounds of the institute.

  Outside, the activity was stepped up—mules and wagons drawn from the supply sheds to the rail yard; men loading the boxcars with fresh straw, not to feed a shipment of horses, but to spread over the floor for the women to sleep on. Other wagons brought the limited rations to be allotted to each woman for her journey.

  Then a jagged chain of lightning appeared fleetingly in the air, followed by a crack of thunder that sent the mules bolting. And the military manager in charge stood at the window of his office and watched the pandemonium that followed.

  The rains began and the trees on the grounds of the institute responded to the wind. The sudden storm intensified as if the belligerent gods had waited for this day to unleash their awful retribution against the land.

  Within a few minutes, lightning had struck again, killing two mules and a guard who had been leaning against the steam engine of the train. A tall oak tree nearest to the barracks where Allison was lodged took a direct hit, splintering its wood in missiles over the lawn.

  Inside the military rail office, the sergeant responsible for carrying out the orders to move the women was clearly uneasy. "Are you superstitious, Colonel Ramsbottom?"

  "No. But I'm not a nitwit, either. We'll hold up awhile and wait until the worst of the storm is over before proceeding."

  Twenty minutes later, the rain showed no sign of abating. But the pandemonium in the rail yard had been dealt with, and the colonel, realizing they couldn't wait any longer without running the risk of a flooded tunnel ahead, gave the orders to begin the migration from barracks to boxcar.

  Because of the steep grade of the roadbed through the mountains, the engine could pull only twenty boxcars. Ramsbottom didn't like loading each one with over twenty women and children; for that would give them little space to lie down, but there was no help for it. He could spare only one train.

  His main concern was the one hundred and thirty miles of single track from Marietta to Chattanooga. That was the most dangerous section because of the Rebels. The next hundred and fifty miles to Nashville was a little less so. But once he got the women to Nashville, General Webster could worry about the next one hundred and eighty miles to Louisville. By that time, he would have washed his hands of the women and started carrying military supplies again.

  "All right, Edwards. We've wasted enough time. Start moving them out."

  "Yes, sir."

  In the barracks, the women, sobered by the storm, still sat beside their bundles in silent groups.

  "I hate this waitin'," Madrigal said, looking at Flood. "Why can't they hurry and get it over with?"

  "Well, you might be glad to leave Roswell behind, Madrigal O'Laney, but you'll never be able to escape your reputation. Puckka told me the kind of girl you are. And I'm gonna make sure nobody forgets it." Rena Knox glared at Madrigal as she held on to her daughter Caddie.

  Madrigal lifted her head and smiled. "No wonder Puccka is such a bastard. I see he takes after his mother."

  "How dare you—"

  "Now, Rena, just hush. You're the one who started it." Flood frowned at Rena and then turned to Madrigal. "It won’t help matters if we get into a fight with each other. We've got a long way to go, and the goin' is gonna be mighty rough without any added fussin'."

  The door opened, and soldiers armed with muskets walked into the room to herd the women out, row by row.

  Allison covered the basket holding Morrow, with the shawl, to keep the rain from her face. And Rebecca, following beside her, carried both bundles of clothes.

  Out into the rain they went, with the wind slashing across their faces and whipping their clothes against their bodies. Ellie, still silent, was supported by Madrigal and Flood. Following them were those ill with fever who were also unable to walk without help from friends.

  As they approached the platform, Madrigal recognized some of the women from the mill at Sweetwater. A few men, including Mr. Bonfoir, the superintendent of the Roswell mills, were walking from another direction.

  "Miss Madrigal."

  The red-haired young woman looked up at the sound of the man calling to her. "Mr. Rowdybush, what are you doin' here?"

  "They arrested me, too, Miss Madrigal. Said the commissisary was part of the mill." Seeing Ellie being supported, he asked, "How is Miss Ellie?"

  "Be quiet, old man, and stay in line."

  The soldier's voice brought instant silence to the timid, old white-haired man.

  The women were marched to the boxcar openings, where wooden ramps had been placed for entrance. As soon as twenty-two were counted off and ordered inside, the ramp was removed, the door closed, and the bolt slipped into place.

  The guards had started loading from the rear of the train. Now the women and children were halfway down the track. Allison, caught in the crowd, held on to the basket containing Morrow.

  Surging forward, she saw the soldier standing and counting each woman as she went by. Suddenly he stepped between her and Rebecca. "All right. You're the last for this car. In you go."

  Frantically, Allison felt his hand pulling her onto the ramp while Rebecca struggled to reach her. "Miss Allison, wait for me."

  "Please," Allison protested. "I can't be separated from my—" She stopped. She realized it would do no good to say the word servant. She began again. "My baby can't be separated from her…wet nurse."

  At that moment, as if on cue, Morrow began crying.

  "All right, get back in line for the next car. I need another woman. You, over there. Swap places with this woman."

  A relieved Allison returned to the waiting line, and when the car had been closed, she and Rebecca were pushed toward car eleven.

  It had never occurred to Allison that she might be separated from Rebecca Smiley. The woman had been with her from the moment she was born. And though she might call her "servant" to other people, she considered Rebecca her friend and the only family she had left. The bond between them was strong.

  Behind Allison and Rebecca came Flood, Ellie, and Madrigal. They were followed by Rena Knox and her daughter Caddie; Fannie Morton with her six-year-old Maggie, and Alma and her baby son, Robert.

  The sliding in place of the wooden door brought darkness and a finality to the dreams of the women of going home. Holding on to their few possessions and the small bundle of rations that meant the difference between life and death for the next nine days, the women in boxcar eleven sat in silence and began to count the distinctive sounds of the other cars closing. Then the whistle of the steam engine announced that the prisoner train was ready to leave Marietta on the first leg of the long journey north.

  "You think we'll ever see home again?" a quivering voice inquired.

  No one answered.

  With the rain pelting against the sides of the boxcars, the engine gathered steam and, with one giant groan and jolt, the wheels began to move, metal against metal, on the tracks of the Western and Atlantic Railroad.

  Once they passed Big Shanty, they would be traveling the same route as the locomotive chase of the General, which had been stolen earlier in the war. But
no one would be pursuing them to stop the locomotive of this train. The women and the few men in the boxcars were merely civilian casualties of a war that had torn the land asunder.

  Chapter 13

  The siege of Atlanta began, but the Roswell women had no knowledge of the battle. Their minds were attuned to their own struggle for survival as they sought to find more comfortable positions in the darkened boxcars.

  To the women, the continuous rain slashing against the wooden car meant little. They became accustomed to it, like the darkness inside the car. Instead, they listened for rifle or cannon sounds, indicating that their own Confederate troops were somewhere nearby. For without speaking it aloud, each one still hoped for rescue by their own army.

  Allison leaned her head against the hard wood siding and also listened. It wasn't eyes that played tricks on a person, she decided, but ears—straining to make meaning out of the most insignificant sounds while allowing the more important ones to go by without notice.

  No one came to rescue them. The quarter miles multiplied into miles, with the steady clacking of the wheels, the puffing of the engine taking them farther from home. Allison felt the steady uphill pull, which was followed by a sudden sharp curve in the tracks that sent her tumbling against her nearest neighbor.

  "Watch where you're going," a voice called out.

  "Sorry."

  Occasionally, the train stopped to take on water, and each time the women waited in hope that one of the guards might take pity on them and let them out of the boxcars to stretch their legs. But then the engine would start up again, leaving all of the women disappointed.

  In the space of three hours, they slept, soothed their crying babies, and then wept themselves. Some women sang low, mournful tunes while others prayed. Silences were interrupted with a sudden need to speak, to reach out for comfort, for reassurance. And through it all, the rains came down, steadily, unceasingly.

  "I wonder where we are," Madrigal finally said.

  "Must be close to Resaca by now," Flood answered.

  "You hear that, Ellie? That's where that Private Angus Smithwick was from. You remember that day we picked blackberries by the river?" Madrigal asked.

  Ellie gave no response.

  "I don’t think she even hears you, Madrigal," Flood said.

  "But she's a lot better, thanks to Allison."

  In the darkness, Allison smiled. What a difference two weeks had made. At the mill, Madrigal had called her Mrs. Forsyth. At the institute, it had been Miss Allison. Now, in the boxcar, she was merely Allison—no better, no worse than any of the other mill women.

  The train continued on for another hour. Then it began to slow again. With brakes wheezing, the metal wheels screeched against the metal rails, jolting the boxcars against each other until the train came to a full stop.

  At first, there was no other sound beyond the steaming engine. Then the guards began to talk, their voices growing louder as they passed by a boxcar and then diminishing as they walked on by.

  "I wonder what's happening, Rebecca. We shouldn't be stopping again this soon, should we?" Allison asked.

  "Maybe something's happened to the track."

  "Listen. I hear guards comin' back," Madrigal said. She crawled to the tiny slit in the door and tried to peer out. She moved quickly back when she heard the bolt being removed.

  Accustomed to the darkness, the women blinked at the sudden light when the door slid open.

  "All right. Out you come," one of the guards commanded. "The engineer says you're going to have to walk a little ways by foot. Leave all your belongings in the boxcar,"

  "Well, I don't mind that a bit," Madrigal said. "The walkin', I mean." And she was the first one to jump down from the boxcar. When she was on the ground, she called out, "Come on, Ellie. I'll catch you."

  Flood slowly lowered Ellie to Madrigal, and then she herself jumped.

  Fannie Morton and Rena Knox, with their children, Maggie and Caddie, came next. Then the others jumped or were helped down, until the last ones remaining were Allison and Rebecca.

  The rain had changed into a gray mist, covering the entire landscape with a fine veil. Peering through the mist, Allison sought to get her bearings.

  They were now in the mountainous region of Georgia, with red clay hills covered in pines and hardwoods and fertile valleys cut wide into the land. Low-hanging clouds sat on the peaks and disintegrated into the mist that partially obscured the valleys below.

  Standing at the higher elevation and looking downward, Allison felt an unexplainable sadness encompass her, almost like a cognizance of another time.

  She was moved by the relentless majesty of the Cherokee land, where Indians had once fished and hunted, until their hunting grounds had been taken from them. And she felt the anguish of the people walking along the interminable trail of tears, bleached with the bones of the weak.

  The feeling was strong: another time binding her to the present; a people being torn from their homeland by military decree.

  For the first time since leaving Marietta, Allison brushed an unwanted tear from her cheek. At that moment, she didn't know whether the sadness was for herself or for the Indians.

  The women began to murmur and shrink back, making an opening through which Allison could finally see ahead.

  A tall, wooden cornstalk bridge, built over the swollen gorge, rose up before her, curving and bending in endless length, its iron rails mounted on awkward stilts of impossible height. It would have been shattering enough to ride over the gorge on the train. But hearing the roaring, swollen stream below bombarding the wooden pilings, Allisoin realized now why they had been ordered to walk. The engineer must have deemed it far too dangerous to take a fully loaded train across the weakened track.

  "Golly! Have you ever seen such a terrible sight," Madrigal said, also catching a glimpse of the awful trestle bridge.

  Motioning for the small band of women who were standing back to join the others, a soldier ordered, "All right. Start walking."

  "Not me. I'm scared of heights," Alma Brady said. "I couldn't carry my little Robert and keep my balance at the same time."

  "There's no other way, ma'am, to get across," the second guard said.

  "Can't I just climb back inside the boxcar?"

  "No. The orders are for everybody to walk across."

  Amid the protesting cries, the women began to walk slowly along the narrow roadbed past the other boxcars and finally came to a stop in front of the engine.

  A terrified Rebecca gazed in horror at the vast expanse ahead of her. "Miss Allison," she whispered, "That soldier just might as well shoot me now. I can't walk across that trestle."

  Allison disguised her own fear. "Yes, you can, Rebecca. It's the only way we'll ever get across."

  "But the baby…How're you goin' to get Morrow across? You'll lose your balance for sure."

  The image of Indian mothers carrying their babies upon their backs became a fleeting picture in her mind and then was gone. Of course. The basket. She could tie it to her back, leaving her hands free to balance herself on the tracks.

  "Hurry, Rebecca. Go to the boxcar and get the basket—and a strong piece of linen. I'll strap Morrow to my back."

  The guard, Tom Traymore, allowed the black woman to retrieve the basket from the boxcar. With Rebecca's help, Allison tied the basket to her body and slipped her arms through the loops of the strong linen cloth.

  When Alma saw what Allison was doing, she followed her example, making a cloth swing for little Robert. But she placed him in front, where she could see him.

  The engineer watched in consternation at the slow progress of the women. With only one track and no siding until they reached Chattanooga, the railroad track was dangerous with the constant threat of another train bearing down upon them from the opposite direction. Once they started the hazardous journey of walking over the gorge, there was no turning back. And if an unscheduled train happened to come along before the women reached the other side, the
y would all be killed.

  "Come on, Ellie. Put your foot on the crosstie. And be careful." Madrigal held on to the silent Ellie while Flood walked directly behind them.

  A woman cried out as she stumbled, and her cry swept over the valley, a mocking echo answering her from the next mountain peak. An anxious Alma closed her eyes, prayed, and then walked onto the trestle. To lull her child and to take her mind off the raging flood beneath her, she began to sing in a low voice,"Hush, little baby, don't you cry. Mama's gonna sing you a lullaby." And she thought of Mama Lou, who had always been the one to sing to little Robert.

  Next came Allison and Morrow, with Rebecca at her side. Rebecca took one look downward and stepped back.

  "Go on, woman. You're holding up the others," a guard's harsh voice said behind her.

  Allison held out her hand to her servant. "Don't look down," she advised. "Just one step at the time, Rebecca. You can do that."

  Tentatively, Rebecca placed one foot on the crosstie of the trestle. She had taken only a few steps when a strange, creaking noise assailed her. "The bridge isn't gonna hold," she cried out. "I'm gettin' off the bridge."

  But Rebecca had nowhere else to go. As she turned around, she saw the other women behind her, cutting off her retreat. Allison took her hand again and gave her an encouraging nod. "You can do it, Rebecca."

  More women came onto the trestle while Rebecca slowly made progress from crosstie to crosstie. Then it was Addie's turn and she rebelled. She started wailing. But the guard near her had run out of patience.

  "Stop your sniveling and start walking. Or else I'll shoot you."

  A terrified Addie, seeing the musket aimed at her, rushed onto the trestle. "It's all your fault, Madrigal O'Laney," she screamed. "If somebody dies on this trestle, the sin will be on your head."

  "Shut up, woman. I said, walk."

  The summer rain began again, with flashes of lightning connecting the mountain peaks in the distance. Now the crossties were more slippery than ever, with the rain cutting off even the slight view below.

  Yet, the sound of the water was fierce, with logs and uprooted trees caught in the swirling gorge, bumping against the trusses of the bridge before being dislodged by the rush of water forcing the debris onward toward the rocky cataracts farther downstream.