House Divided (129 page)
Authors: Ben Ames Williams
“They'll shoot a few of them, put a stop to that.”
Streean shook his head. “They can't afford to shoot them. They need them to do the fighting. Secretary Seddon's talking about an amnesty, to bring them back to duty.”
Pew chuckled. “Tell 'em to be nice boys and come back and let the Yankees shoot them, eh?”
“But they won't come,” Streean insisted. “I tell you, this war may end any time. The army's falling apart. There's even a rumor that General Lee has resigned.”
“He won't resign as long as he's needed,” Captain Pew said positively. “Don't count on that.”
“I wasn't counting on it!” Streean retorted. “I was dreading it! Lee's worth an army by himself. If we lost him, we couldn't keep up the fight; so I don't want to lose him. I want to see us fight as long as we can.” He added frankly: “The longer the war, the bigger the profits.”
“Speaking of profits, is anyone trying to collect the taxes on incomes and profits under the April law?”
Streean laughed. “Not that I've heard. The tax on incomes isn't payable till January.”
“There's a ten percent tax on profits made last year. That's due the first of the month.”
“I haven't heard of anyone walking in and paying it,” Streean assured him. “No, the only tax that's likely to be collected is the tax-in-kind, from the farmers. There's no way the Government can find out what profits were made, unless we tell them.”
Pew chuckled and rose. “Well then, if my winnings won't be taxed, I think I'll drop in at Merrihay's for an hour or two. Come along?”
“No, gambling isn't one of my vices.”
“You're the only man in Richmond who can say that. Except the ones who've no money to gamble with.”
“Well, it keeps the criminals off the streetsâand in good, respectable company.” Streean smiled. “Have you seen that âStranger's Guide' someone wrote to the papers? I clipped it out. I've got it here somewhere.”
He went to his desk. “It's all aimed at General Winder and his Baltimore thugs.” And he read aloud. “âOne: The very large number of houses on Main Street with large gilt numbers on the door are Faro Banks.' ”
Pew drawled: “There's no number on Merrihay's door;” but Streean ignored him, continuing.
“ âTwo: The very large numbers of flashily dressed young men with villainous faces who hang about the street corners are studying for the ministry and therefore exempt from military duty.' ”
“That might be an idea for Darrell,” Captain Pew remarked. “As a minister he'd please the ladies.”
Streean read: “ âThree: The very large number of able-bodied, red-faced, beefy, brawny individuals mixing liquors in the very large number of bar-rooms in the city are not able to do military duty. They are consumptive invalids.
“âFour: The very large number of men who frequent the very large number of bar-rooms and Faroââ' ”
Pew laughed. “Don't! You're breaking my heart. Besides, I've a little frequenting of Merrihay's to do, myself.” He rose. “Whoever wrote that did us a service. As long as people swear at General Winder, they won't remember to swear at good patriotic blockade-runners who happen to make a little money out of the war.”
“There'll be plenty to be made, as long as the war lasts.”
“To be sure! And we'll make hay while the sun shines.” Captain Pew lifted his hand in a cheerful gesture. “Good night. Leave the gas turned low, will you, so I won't stumble in the dark when I come in.”
Alone, Streean went to his desk to consider some papers there and to study a letter from a man named Lenoir in New Orleans. Lenoir and Streean had had some profitable dealings, and Lenoir proposed now that Streean use his influence in the Quartermaster General's department to further a new venture. âThe Confederate Quartermaster in trans-Mississippi won't act without some sanction,' Lenoir wrote. âBut he's favorably inclined. I propose to buy two thousand bales in Arkansas and ship it here and trade it for supplies for the Confederate army, and then trade those supplies for more cotton and bring it to market here.' He went into details, and Streean checked the figures
with care. If no hitch developed, there would be a profit of close to five million dollars, and those dollars would be greenbacks, not Confederate paper!
Streean had considered inviting Pew to participate; but he decided against it. Pew's share of their joint profits in their blockading venture, when you considered that he took out a bonus of five thousand dollars every voyage before any division was made, was scandalously large. A man who threw money away over the gambling table as Pew would do tonight, did not deserve to have it. Money was respectable! It should be kept in respectable hands.
july-August, 1863
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OR Cinda and Vesta those early July days when rumors filled the air but brought no certainty were hard and weary. Since Julian and Anne were living with Judge Tudor, they were, except for the servants, alone in the house on Fifth Street. Cinda's duty in the hospital gave her respite from her own anxieties; and Vesta, upon whom housekeeping cares descended, found in them distraction. Hard work was an anodyne; to go to bed exhausted was to sleep soundly. To be busy all day might keep concern for loved ones in the background of your thoughts.
But this was not always true. With the first trainload of wounded from the battle, Cinda's ward filled. Among the wounded was a boy whose shattered leg had to be taken off close to his body. A new supply of chloroform was hoped for, but the leg was already in such condition that amputation could not wait; so the boy screamed under knife and saw. Afterward when Cinda promised to write his mother in Raleigh, he said: “Please, ma'am, don't tell her I hollered.”
She promised, and wrote the letter; but the leg did not readily heal. One day it began to bleed, and the surgeon who came to mend it said a small artery had sloughed off. He took up the artery and secured it; but on the second day afterward the youngster called Cinda to his side. His leg was bleeding again, this time with a hard steady pumping. She had learned by observation enough anatomy to press her thumb into his groin and stop the bleeding till a surgeon could be called; and the surgeon bade Cinda keep up the pressure and summoned Dr. McCaw.
The two agreed that the boy was lost. The main artery was gone,
and there was no room to catch it except in the spot where Cinda's thumb was pressed. If she moved her thumb, the youngster's life would spill away before the artery could be secured.
When the boy knew the truth, he was the steadiest of them all. He spoke to Cinda. “Why, ma'am, I reckon you'll have to write another letter to Mama.” She looked to the surgeons in helpless entreaty. “You tell her how it was,” the boy said, “and tell her you was with me, and that I was all right.” He smiled, and there was beauty in his eyes. “Tell her I wasn't skeered, ma'am.” She nodded, careful not to weep, yet unable to speak. He spoke to the doctors. “Thankâee kindly, gentlemen,” he said. Then to Cinda: “Now ma'am, you been holding on a long time. I reckon you must be real tired. You just take your thumb away.”
Her whole arm and side ached from the steady pressure she had maintained; yet she said to Dr. McCaw: “I can hold it.” But he shook his head.
The boy smiled at her. “It's all right, ma'am,” he murmured.
She met his eyes for a moment, bound he should not see tears nor hear a sob. Then with a swift movement she caught him up in her arms, held his head close against her breast. In a few seconds he was dead.
This boy might have been Burr; so it was wonderful to find when she came home an extraordinarily long letter from Burr, dated at Williamsport two weeks before.
Dear Mama and allâI've seen Papa and Uncle Trav since the battle. They were all right and so am I, but pretty tired. We've been on the go for over three weeks now, and from the twenty-fourth of June till the second of July we were between the Union army and Washington, making as much trouble for them as we could. We captured a wagon train right outside Washington, and some of the wagons tried to get away and we caught them on a hill and I could see all over Washington. The wagons were loaded with oats, and our horses needed grain, so that was good luck; but guarding the wagons slowed us down pretty badly, so we didn't join the army till they'd had two days' fighting at Gettysburg. Captain Blackford went to General Lee's headquarters that night and he says General Lee was sick with dysentery. We had a hard fight the next day, but the worst part of it for me came afterward. I was detached to come with General Imboden guarding the ambulances. It rained all the time. The whole trip was awful. The wounded were loaded in ambulances and on
wagons; and the wagons, the canvas tops leaked, so the men were drenched all the time; and the rain and wind scared the horses and mules so they kept trying to run away, and wagons kept upsetting into the ditches, and we'd just leave them, because orders were not to stop for anything. There wasn't even straw in most of the wagons, so the wounded men bumped around on the rough road, screaming and crying and dying and you couldn't do anything to help them. Some of them kept begging us please God to kill them or to dump them out and leave them or anything. The road was jammed all the way from Gettysburg over the mountains and down the other side. As far as Cashtown it's fairly level, and that wasn't so bad. All the wounded men who could walk tramped along with the wagons. But climbing the pass above Cashtown was terrible. There must be four or five miles of steep climb along a winding road through a deep ravine and woods, a hard pull for the horses and worse for the men walking and worst of all for the men in the ambulances, jolting every which way, with their legs and arms shot to pieces, and the bones coming out through the skin, and rolling around like so many logs when the wagons jolted over the ruts.
I had to go on from Cashtown to the head of the column. You couldn't see anything, but you could hear the men crying and screaming and begging somebody to kill them. After we finished the climb, the down grade was almost worse. I'd have gone crazy but I sort of refused to listen, remembering other night marches we had made that were fun, if you weren't so tired you just went to sleep in the saddle. There'd always be somebody joking, making us laugh. One night on our way to Gettysburg it was pouring, and an old man in a house we passed opened his window and yelled to know who we were, and somebody yelled: âMister, you'd better take your chimney in! It's going to rain.' That kept us laughing till daylight.
But there wasn't any laughing on this ride. We didn't go through Chambersburg. Some country people showed us a short cut. I guess even the Pennsylvania farmers were sorry for our wounded. We took the Pine Stump Roadâthat's what they called itâthrough Walnut Bottom and New Guilford to Marion. You never heard of those little places, but I'll never forget them if I live to be a thousand. We came on here through Greencastle. The first ambulances got here day before yesterday, and the rest of them, those that didn't break down and have to be abandoned on the way, were still coming yesterday all day, so I guess the whole train of wounded must have been at least thirty miles long. There must have been eight or ten thousand walking, and thousands in the wagons. I don't suppose as many men as that ever suffered as much all at the same time before. Even not being wounded,
I was so tired I ached all over so badly that I wanted to just lie down and cry, so you can imagine what it must have been for them.
We were supposed to go right on to Winchester, but the Yankee cavalry had cut our pontoon bridge here the last day of the fighting at Gettysburg, and the river had been so high since that it hadn't been rebuilt. So we're still here; so the surgeons have had a chance to work on the ones that are still alive. We've been ferrying some men across, the ones that can walk. They'd all walk if they could. They fight to keep from being put back in the ambulances again.
Oh I ought not to write you about it, but I'll never forget it. It was the worst thing I ever saw.
But Papa and Uncle Trav are all right and so am I. I'm writing to Barbara too. Just a note. I couldn't tell her all this, but I had to tell someone. You write her that you've heard from me, in case my letter doesn't reach her. I haven't seen Uncle Faunt. He's probably on detached duty. He usually is. He's all right, I'm sure. I love you all.
Burr
We may have to fight here, if the Yankees can catch up with us through this mud. But I don't think they can.
Cinda had already heard something of the horrors of that march he described, for many of those wounded were here now in her care. Burr's letter made her live over that dreadful night with them. The letter had been written on the seventh of July, but next day they had another, written on the sixteenth and in better spirits; and at the month's end came a letter from Brett, brief but reassuring. He was back at Culpeper Court House. “We're camped two miles away, on the Sperryville pike,” he wrote, and he said Trav was fine. “And I've seen Burr. He says he's written you. I saw Faunt yesterday. He's just skin and bones, but he says he's well.”
Two weeks later, a warm Sunday evening toward sunset, Anne and Julian had come for supper; and they were all together on the veranda above the garden when Cinda heard the bell ring, heard Caesar go to answer, heard Brett's strong happy tones. Without knowing how she got there she was in his arms, hugging him and laughing and crying and pushing him away so that she could feast her eyes on this dear bronzed man, then snatching him close again; and then Vesta thrust her aside to have her turn with him, and Anne was next. Julian, last of all, came swinging expertly on his single crutch, and Brett kissed him too; and he said admiringly:
“Well, son, you're as spry on one leg as you ever were on two!”
“I'm all right for anything but riding,” Julian agreed. “And I'll learn to do that before I'm through.”
Cinda shivered with dread. If he could ride, would he wish to fight again? But this was not the hour for fears. “Come out where it's cool,” she said. “We're going to have supper out there.”
But Brett wished first to wash the grime of travel away, and she went up with him, clinging to his arm; and Vesta called after them: “Now don't you two talk about anything! Don't say a word till we can all hear.”
They promised, and at first Cinda wanted nothing but Brett's arms around her; but when he came from the bathing room and began to put on fresh linen she asked quietly: “Was it as bad as we think, Brett Dewain?”
“It was bad enough.”
“The newspapers had been promising us a great victory, and everybody believed them. Even the speculators. Prices went down.”
“The papers print what people want to hear. You must expect that.”
“We've stood so much; seen our homes ruined, seen our sons killed, seen speculators get rich and politicians squabble while things grow worse all the time. Politicians got us into this. Why don't they get us out?”
“Our best men aren't in politics, Cinda. We've let so many poor, shiftless, irresponsible people vote that good men can't be elected, and good men in office won't stay there. To be a politician is disreputable, so they go into the army. Men like General Kemper. In the Virginia legislature, he put through the bills to organize our state troops and to buy ammunition months before the war started, so we were at least partly ready to fight. If he were in Congress now, he'd see to it that the army was better supplied. We need such men there. But he resigned and went off to command a brigade at Gettysburg and got himself killed. Or at least badly wounded. I hear he's still alive, in Yankee hands.”
“Were we badly whipped, Brett Dewain?”
Brett said thoughtfully: “I suppose so. Oh, we didn't run away. The soldiers fought magnificently.”
“People are saying Ewell was to blame for not winning the first day.
And the same ones who said the invasion would win the war for us this summer are saying now Lee shouldn't have gone north at all.”
“It's easy to be right afterward,” Brett reminded her. “Ewell missed a chance the first day, of course. He did well at Winchester; but that first day at Gettysburg he hesitated. I doubt whether a man with only one leg is ever a good commanding officer.” Cinda thought of Julian and her heart checked, but as though he read her mind Brett said quickly: “Julian's not a soldier, Cinda. He's all right.” She nodded, and he said: “I wish after the first day we'd drawn back into the mountains, so they'd have had to attack us. To fight them at Gettysburg was a defeat before a gun was fired.” He kissed her. “Come, let's go down to the children.”
On the balcony Vesta and Anne were plaiting straw hats; the cheerful litter lay all around their chairs, and Brett asked a question.
“We're making ourselves new hats, Papa,” Vesta said proudly, and perched the shapeless straw on her head. “Pretty, isn't it?” He laughed at her, and she explained: “It will look better when it's done. We get straw from the country and soak it in water all night, and plait it and sew the plaits together; and then we press them into shape and dye them pretty colors and put some feathers or flowers on them. They're lovely!”
Cinda saw, behind his amusement, tenderness and pride. “Hats are hard to come by, are they?”
“Hard?” Vesta laughed. “Oh no, this is easy, much better than paying blockade prices. Five hundred dollars is nothing for a really good hat, and I simply won't buy at the prices they charge. Why, merino is fifty dollars a yard, and even unbleached linen is twenty dollars. Everything has to come through the blockade, except Alamance plaid and things from the mills over in Manchester; so we just rummage in our trunks and take old things and make them over.”
Cinda said quietly: “Sometimes we can buy dresses from our friends, when they go into mourning or when they have to sell things to buy food.”
“I'm even learning to make my own shoes,” Anne boasted, and Julian said smilingly:
“She doesn't have to, Papa. After all, we've plenty of money. But she thinks it's fun.”
Cinda saw something stern in Brett's eye, the reflection of a thought unspoken; but he spoke lightly enough. “I'm about out of shoes myself;” he declared. “I'll give you an order, Anne.”
“Oh, I couldn't make men's shoes,” the girl confessed. “I just take my old shoes for a pattern and make the tops out of some of Papa's old broadcloth suits; but I have to have them soled by a regular shoemaker.”