Andersonville (96 page)

In late afternoon the train stopped dead with a grinding lurch which sent the passengers into convulsions. The jolt was so severe that Ira Claffey supposed a driving-rod must have lashed up into the engine, or that the engine had upset and cars rammed it. Ira was hurled against old Jack on the side bench. He got free from the caterwauling mass of citizens, and carried his carpetbag to the door. . . . It’s a wreck! Children clamoring. Ma, we’re in a wreck!

The car was upright, there rose no sound of flames, no demonstration of serious injury. I don’t believe it’s a wreck, said Ira. Now everybody hush!

He pushed open the rickety door and peered out and forward along the left side of the train. Soldier boys ganged around him to peer also, they pushed their heads past Ira, over and under the arm with which he braced himself. The train was halted on a curve, the engineer was getting down, several Negroes had hopped off the tender. Two officers from another car hastened toward the engine.

We ain’t allowed to get out, sir, said a youth. We got to stay aboard, less we’re ordered to get down.

See if you can quiet these women and children, Ira told him and the other boys. I’ll attempt to satisfy our curiosity. He swung from the car, still carrying his bag; it would not do to leave it behind.

The engine-driver stood at the front, rubbing sooty hands against his flanks. Two Confederate officers were with him, and were joined by bearded citizens. Come all the way from Albany, an old man said, just to run into this! The engine was smashed into a barricade of logs and ties. Smaller logs had been sent flying, one had been hurled like a spear to bury itself in the side of the embankment. The train stood in a cut rounding the lower portion of a hill. Heavier substance of the barricade remained, crushed under forward wheels or surmounting the cow-catcher. Two wheels at the left side were pushed from the U-shaped track. We hain’t got the power, the engineer said sourly, to lever them back.

Who would have done this? Ira asked.

One officer unfastened a revolver holster and fingered the butt of his weapon. Could be Sherman’s folks have got this far. I heard last night they was headed nigh.

You might be captured, Major.

The old major declared emphatically, That’s just the rub. But my orders were to take this train. Naught arrived to countermand them.

Ira Claffey pointed. A wisp of smoke blew above trees perhaps one hundred rods to the northwest. It was the light forerunner of a thicker column—twisting, congealing, darkening to black as it climbed.

By Mercy, said the engine-driver. Could be those damn bummers!

I thought twas customary for them to destroy railroads, rather than build barricades.

Hell, Mister. They’d do anything!

A younger officer exclaimed nervously. Now that they had moved past the engine other fires loomed ahead, the horizon was layered with smoke.

Reckon I’ll take to the woods, the wrinkled major said decisively. Got no wish to be snatched up by Yanks.

Ira walked back beside the cars, trying to decide a wise course. If Yankees had penetrated this region (it was apparent that they had; or at least some accompanying bands of straggling raiders must have done so) they might shoot anyone who seemed anxious to conceal himself. He thought that under these conditions the woodland offered little sanctuary. He considered it unlikely that the frightened freight of refugees would come to harm. He recalled what papers he was carrying. Papers should prove his identity, give evidence that he was not a Confederate soldier in citizen’s clothing. Ira reached his own car and spoke one low word to faces studding the doorway. Sherman. Three of the boys came down like jumping jacks, weaponless, not even pausing to secure haversacks. Two others went back for their equipment, then they sprang down as well. One youngster sprinted up the embankment immediately, filling his shoes with ashes as he climbed, and disappeared over the edge. The others stood debating, while there ensued a gush of women and old people and children from the cars. Ira walked away from the train, south around the extremity of the curve, until he was out of sight. He should strike for a road, any road. He had not gone out of earshot, however. A series of yells rose behind him—staccato whoops of challenge or triumph. He walked steadily, glancing occasionally over his shoulder to see if he was being followed. Later he heard shots. He hoped that no one had been hurt, he trusted that the shots were fired merely for intimidation, or in a celebrating spirit. No one pursued him. If a bushwhacking gang was raiding the train they must have come up too late to see his departure.

Ira came to a creek where rails were supported by a trestle; he slid down and crouched beneath the trestle. He had with him nearly three thousand dollars in Confederate currency . . . he did not know how long it would take him to reach Richmond, how long to return. He carried also a letter from Americus authorizing him to draw a draft as necessary. Now he thought it wise to destroy this letter: the practice of holding for ransom might exist. He tore the letter into scraps and scattered them on the water. He left one hundred and eighty dollars in odd certificates, rolled this money and thrust it into his pocket. He was dressed very nearly in his best; no one would believe him if he professed to be penniless. The bulk of the money, together with his watch, he put into his wallet. He disrobed partially and, constructing a belt of handkerchief strings, bound the wallet against his inner thigh. In the carpetbag Ira carried only clothing and a few toilet articles. Again he thought it better not to be empty-handed on meeting freebooters. He put the razor case into his coat pocket, the razor might serve as a weapon. Reclothed, he ascended to the railway, crossed the trestle, found a wagon road a few hundred yards to the south. There were no vehicles in sight—no pedestrians, no animals, not a figure moving.

The train had halted but a few miles beyond Macon if one judged correctly the speed and the time elapsed. Possibly Northern troops were in Macon already or would be immediately. If Macon were captured, Milledgeville also must have been captured, or would be captured soon, or besieged. The reduction of an important military point such as Macon, the reduction of the State capital itself—to be accompanied by wastage and looting—would consume time. If Ira traveled rapidly across country toward Savannah he might reach that port before Yankees did. He thought of counties to the east, reviewing geography involved. He must get across the Oconee. Traveling southeast by way of Reidsville he might keep to the right of the Federal advance, and thus escape stragglers. Perhaps he would still be able to journey by boat from Savannah or by rail from Savannah to Charleston. . . . A horse. Wilkinson County had not yet been raided: he might be able to buy a mount and travel long, and next day trade his horse for a fresh one. . . . How far is Savannah? Perhaps a hundred and fifty miles as the crow flies? . . . Ira was embarked upon a sacred course. His conscience had sent him into this hazard, his conscience must sustain him.

Sun came through low haze and turned the rutted clay road to a brassy streak. Ira halted, looked to the west, flattened his hand, held it out at arm’s length with wrist against the horizon. The sun would set in little more than an hour. He resumed his plodding. The way swung slightly to the north, then back south of east. There came a rise, he topped it, he stood on a slight ridge. . . . No smoke ahead, but several separate trunks of smoke twisted at the left. He envisioned them as outskirts of a forest which might thicken. He must avoid that forest, not be tangled in it, not be lost.

Ira saw himself in Richmond, signing for a room at the Spotswood Hotel. Halls were filled with belted officers in gray, with citizens shouldering. Streets were a press and torrent . . . horses bringing down their hoofs, army wagons a-jumble. There were beggars and armless veterans . . . Ira imagined one young man with both legs gone; the fellow pushed himself upon a wheeled platform as Ira had seen another beggar do in a Northern city long ago. This legless man had a cake of solid wood strapped to each hand: with these slabs as motive power he drew himself ahead, bumping, straining on his low cart. These things Ira saw . . . perhaps prostitutes sauntering at entrances of small lanes, the Capitol rising beyond.

He stood eventually in the presence of Mr. Seddon. He had never seen Mr. Seddon, but a friend told him that the Secretary wore habitually a black skull cap. Appropriately beneath that cap his face was a dry corpse-face bereft of vitality. Eyes were pits, the voice mouldered as it spoke. . . . There loomed a repository in the shape of a burial casket, with glass where the face of a dead person might be seen. Therein was contained no body: only the mass of reports sent by inspecting officers and angry surgeons. Pleas of good men like Persons and Chandler and Jones . . . you could witness those reports through glass, each rolled into a little rod, tied tightly with red tape, scratched with chicken tracks which said that those reports had been Noted By Secretary Seddon And Then Filed Away.

No, doubtless he would never stand before James Seddon, he could but try to reach Mr. Seddon’s presence. Guards, underlings would hold him back. He would stand instead before some other desk, be greeted tonelessly by a slit-eyed subordinate, be told to go away, just as General Winder had ordered the people of Americus to go away with their vegetables.

Sir, as I have described to you, the place is a menace and disgrace.

But upwards of twenty thousand prisoners have already been removed, Mr. Claffey!

Some of them have been returned, because there seemed no safe place to hold them, either at Savannah or at Blackshears. True, the crowded conditions have lessened, but smell continues. And disease. A higher percentage of hospital patients go to death each day, because they constituted originally the sick and crippled, the unable-to-travel, the weaklings, the rotting outcasts.

Mr. Claffey, the Secretary is engaged. He cannot possibly see you.

Then I shall presume to address myself to President Davis. I knew him— It was during the Mexican War—

Blank formless visage, still formless, still blank, still repellent . . . somehow wearing a supercilious smile. The President knew many people during the late War with Mexico, Mr. Claffey! I doubt that he would recall you. I doubt that he would recall your name.

Then I shall go to—

To whom?

Surgeon Elkins addressed himself in appeal to the Almighty God. Can I not do the same?

God will not see you. He is engaged.

In desperation of anguish . . .

Oh, please to hear me, please to assist! I plead not solely on behalf of the miserable Yankees who whine and vomit in those several acres of so-called hospital between the creeks! I plead on behalf of my three sons who died boldly, died with honor. I plead on behalf of our dear new Nation, on behalf of whatever tradition shall be suffered to exist when once we have gained the—the—victory, the—unchallenged independence we seek. What matters a chivalrous Lee if we have a Winder? What matters the sacrifice of a Hood, if we have a Captain Wirz? What matters the competence of a Johnston or the spiritual strength of a sickly Stephens, if we have at home only the incompetence of venal surgeons, incompetence of a Seddon, frailty and futility of a sickly Seddon?

You are near to provoking me into issuing an order for your arrest, Mr. Claffey! You are presumptuous, stubborn, ignorant of necessities of war. Go way!

Then nothing can be done?

Nothing. Go way!

I prophesy with all the terrible ardor I can muster: this will be a stench in the nostrils of history.

Those are not my nostrils, nor the nostrils of any living soldier or office-holder. How can I be held responsible, you upstart? Who can be held responsible?

If an individual, it is difficult for me to name him.

Ira Claffey felt the doom of his hope. Still he must progress, win through to Richmond. He felt that Sherman’s entire army was on his flank . . . beloved Creator, I must turn that flank. He limped on. How could a mere carpetbag grow so heavy?

Ahead appeared a house and outbuildings on the north side of the road. It was a substantial house; but as Ira came closer he could see that the steps were in bad repair, some windows were broken, there was a scurrying which occurred among outbuildings at the rear. He heard the whinny of a horse. Then, past the next clump of leafless trees, he saw three horses standing riderless in front of the dwelling. Saddles were empty but there were odd-shaped baskets and bundles tied to the saddles. Some hurly-burly was in progress within the farmhouse. Voices raised . . . Ira heard suddenly a scream that started as a squeak, a moan rising in pitch until it pierced walls and roof. The yell was accompanied by a dragging banging sound. Murder, he thought. That is the sound of murder. He dropped his carpetbag at the gate and hurried along a graveled path littered with debris and chicken droppings. He went up five steps to the gallery, felt a board break beneath his weight; he did not fall. The door was a double door, giving on an open hallway which passed directly through the house; a door stood open at the other end. No person was in sight. There were pans, utensils, implements hung along the passageway. A tall chest of drawers stood against one wall, and bundles of seed corn dried from the roof. Banging sound and the continuing shriek filled the first room on the right; Ira blundered there. The scene struck him swiftly: a mussed bed, a gray-haired woman—perhaps an invalid—who sat stiffly in a small rocking chair and held her hands over her eyes as she wailed. A medium-sized man was bending in front of another bureau there. He had pulled out all the drawers and was rummaging, dipping both hands into masses of clothing, bundles of letters. A rag doll was tossed aside, tossed over the man’s shoulder, the doll fell at Ira’s feet as he entered. The man swung around, straightened. His hand went to his hip as if reaching for a weapon. Ira struck him on the side of the jaw; the man sprawled and lay grunting. His face was stubbly, the beard grown out an inch. Plunging, two other men came across the corridor from some opposite room. Ira whirled, ready with his fists, then he dropped his fists. He saw the muzzle of a carbine. One man was tall, clean-shaven, the other squat. Yes, both carried carbines. Ira thought swiftly that he would be shot, he stood anticipating the blow of bullets against his body. These men were in blue or half in blue. Still they did not look like soldiers.