The Better Angels of Our Nature (45 page)

“Because she was back before we knew she was gone,” Cartwright answered facetiously.

“Two days?”

“Was it that long? Even the Rebs got sick of her. They sent her back.”

Ransom bowed his head. The surgeon watched him trying to steady his breathing. He saw him squeeze the corners of his eyes and saw that moisture stood out on his lashes.

After a moment Ransom said, “You should have sent me word.”

“You were busy with your five regiments. I didn’t want to bother you.”

The Vermonter looked up at him. A nerve was beating in his left cheek; his hands were clasping and unclasping, making fists. Every muscle in his lean body seemed tensed to strike. The surgeon swallowed and glanced, as if against his will, at the saber in its scabbard at the other man’s waist. He wondered if this murderous expression was the one he’d been wearing when slicing off the top of that unfortunate soldier’s head in Jones Field. He also wondered if this noble officer would ever strike a man in eyeglasses.

“Who told you she was missing, anyway?” Cartwright said.
“Jacob!”
He answered his own question, venomously. “Why that lousy…good-for-nothing Dutch Judas—” Cartwright stopped and backed up because Ransom had taken a menacing step toward him.

“I know you care deeply for Jesse,” he said, “I know the anxiety of the last few days has added to your already heavy burden, but if you utter one more derogatory word against Sergeant De Groot I will knock you down, Doctor, I swear it.”

Cartwright took another step backward because Ransom’s hands had balled into fists which did not unclasp. “He’s my steward, and I’ll say what I damn well please.”

“No, sir, not in my presence, or you will prepare to defend yourself.”

Cartwright laughed. It was a nervous laugh and it carried a nervous question with it. “Are you challenging me to a duel?”

“I can only say that any miserable bullying attempt on your part to cast a shadow over Sergeant De Groot’s exemplary character will be promptly resented by me in a most appropriate way. In other words, sir, I’ll punch you on your damn nose.”

There was a second’s tense silence and then the surgeon shrugged his shoulders.

“If you put it like that—” he said. He took out his pipe and played with it as he spoke. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you.” He walked off toward the trees, lest Jesse hear their voices. Ransom followed. “I think somewhere along the line you’ve gotten the wrong idea about Jesse and me. Don’t let the fact that we fight like a couple of wildcats fool you. We’ve got a special relationship.”

“Doctor, please, there’s no need to—”

“Well, clearly there is a need,” Cartwright broke in emphatically, looking at his rival sideways. He put his pipe into his mouth and made sucking noises through the stem, then said, “Girls as young as Jesse have a tendency to be very impressionable. They can so easily have their heads turned by someone like you.”

“Like me?”

“A brass-mounted general, always in the front line, leading your men. You cut a
dashing
figure in that uniform, from a well-respected New England family. You’ve paid Jesse a lot of attention and she admires you, maybe she’s even infatuated by you, but infatuation ain’t love.”

“You underestimate Jesse’s intelligence if you believe she’s impressed by rank or brass buttons.”

“I may not cut so dashing a figure as you but I’ve looked after her since Pittsburg Landing.”

“I know that, Doctor,” Ransom said earnestly.

“Yes, but what you don’t know, or don’t want to know, is that Jesse and I have an understanding. When the war is over we’re gonna get married. We’ve talked it over a dozen times. She knows I’ll make a good husband. I’ll take good care of her. You know about the Homestead Act? Jesse and I are gonna buy some land.” He took the newspaper article from inside his frock coat and held it out to the other man as though it was concrete evidence of all he had said. As though the headline did not say “Homestead Act Passed,” but “Jesse Davis Has Agreed to Marry Seth Cartwright.” Official. “Read it, go on. I cut it from the newspaper back in May last year. Any adult citizen who has never borne arms against the U.S. government can claim 160 acres of surveyed government land. Claimants are required to ‘improve’ the plot by building a dwelling and cultivating the land. After five years on the land, the original filer is entitled to the property, free and clear, except for a small registration fee.”

Ransom looked at Cartwright’s desperate face and then at the article in the surgeon’s hand, a hand trembling slightly.

“Go on—read it—” Cartwright urged, thrusting it at the other man’s chest. That he take the time to read it seemed so profoundly important to the surgeon that the young general lifted the article and pretended to read. It had been taken out, read, and folded so many times in the past months that the paper was disintegrating at the folds, but he already knew about the act. He handed the paper back and nodded.

Cartwright gave an answering jerk of his head, moved his gaze across the Vermonter’s calm countenance. Only his eyes showed something. Not anger, not envy, not even suspicion, or disbelief. Cartwright did not recognize it as compassion and sympathy. He thought, so he has decided to take the bad news on that well-bred chin? And said, “I thought you deserved to know.”

“Yes.” Ransom moistened his lips. “Thank…you…for…for your frankness.” His voice wavered now; but the steady eyes did not even flicker, though they were full of pain for both of them.

“I’m telling you for your own good. Duty comes first with you. Now you know about me and Jesse you can stop worrying about her and dedicate all your time to promotion and winning the war.”

23

Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears

The Army of the Tennessee settled in for a siege.

The noise of Federal rifle fire along the picket line was constant and the Federal siege guns relentless as they pounded the city from sunrise to sunset. The returning fire from the Rebel defenders, musket and artillery, was more sporadic, and becoming less every day, constrained as it was by the lack of ammunition.

The blue-clad soldiers dug and advanced, dug and advanced, at over thirty feet per day, constructing breaching batteries at point-blank range now, without too much fear of being blown up or shot.

Trenches were extended forward toward enemy positions, and hundreds of artillery shells were fired with devastating accuracy and regularity at their fortifications. The bombardment of both the city and the Rebels behind their barricades was savage. Admiral Porter, with the heavy guns brought from his vessels and hauled ashore, and more rifled cannons being added all the time, now controlled the waterfront, holding the Mississippi River both above and below the city. Grant had drawn more troops from Memphis, and received from the North the Ninth Corps, which he posted at Snyder’s Bluff, the sight of Sherman’s presiege pantomime, so as to prolong the line to the left, completely closing off the land side.

Of course, there were casualties, from sharpshooters’ bullets, grenades, and an occasional artillery burst, but as always sickness was the biggest problem. Sunstroke was rife, treatment simple but effective. Cold water compresses to bring down temperature, water to drink, and shade. The last easier said than done. While snake bite, insects, chills and fevers, diarrhea and constipation, boredom, ticks and lice and fleas, were all a way of life for these citizen-soldiers.

However, there was plenty of grub. No more did Grant hear the cry of “
Hardtack! Hardtack!
” from hungry Federals as he rode the lines.

While Vicksburg’s civilians and soldiers were forced to count each grain of corn, eat their horses and mules, their rodents and pets, good roads had been constructed to bring provisions of all kinds up to supply the Union forces, likewise medical supplies. In the Rebel hospital the basic needs of any surgeon, clean bandages and chloroform, morphine and quinine, were almost gone. But Grant was inexorable. Unyielding. Hoist the white flag over what remained of your rooftops, or cling to the rubble and see the entire city razed to the ground. Surrender or starve. The time for mercy was past. Though the tanner’s son had lost the momentum that had driven them on from Grand Gulf to here, he would have Vicksburg, whatever the price, and the desperate frontal assaults of May 19 and 22 had proved he was willing to pay that price, when the coinage was the lives of his brave, eager, and mostly uncomplaining veterans.

Vicksburg may have been crumbling, but another city, constructed entirely of canvas, had now sprung up on the hills beneath the bluffs. A tent city of field hospitals, mortuaries, post offices, photographers’ studios, embalming establishments (much in demand), and of course row upon row of “thievin’” sutlers’ tents, where copies of
Harper’s Weekly,
with Grant’s picture on the cover, changed hands for up to seven dollars. That the engraving looked nothing like the western commander mattered not a jot. This “souvenir” of the siege was more highly prized by his veterans than a ten-day furlough.

The lines were now so close together that Yank and Reb could pass letters back and forth, messages for a brother or a friend in the opposing army, converse about politics with the sensible conclusion that the war would end tomorrow if it were left to them. When discussions got too heated, they threw insults and clods of earth, a written jibe or insult, wrapped around a piece of candy to lessen the sting, as well as the odd hand grenade. They stood up in the trenches, and exchanged tobacco for coffee, and other sundry items. Since the Rebs had little to exchange but what they stood up in, the fun was more often in the exchange than the exchanged.

Most nights they sang, first one side and then the other, and then both at the same time, until the result was no more than a contest to see who could outshout the other with the bawdiest of songs. But mostly when night fell they simply lay in their trenches under the stars, and thought of home and loved ones far away.

Once, Dr. Cartwright, paying a “house call,” and not remotely inebriated, climbed upon the parapet and ordered these jawing men to shake hands, to admit they were fighting for the “glorification of generals, politicians, and planters,” and go home. Persuaded only by Jacob’s impassioned prediction that he would be shot by Sherman for preaching mutiny in the ranks or by an enemy sharpshooter, but either way he would be dead, the surgeon climbed down. He feared neither Rebel shot nor shell, and Sherman could go to hell, but he would have no man say he preached.

When not with Sherman, Jesse spent her time at the hospital.

The Mississippi sun had sunk over the Rebel entrenchments. It was cooler, but only by a degree, cooler around suppertime before it got even hotter around the time the men tried to sleep. The birds had quieted down, now was the time of day for all insects, those that squatted, stung, crawled, or simply irritated, to rally in regiments, and assault anything that moved. You couldn’t shoot an insect with a Henry but that didn’t stop some of the men, maddened by the heat and these assaults on their flesh, trying. If the men hated Southerners before entering this deadly region, now they hated the very land itself, from out of which seemed to come the disease and the bugs and all that crawled on God’s earth and the heat that tormented man and beast, day and night.

Jesse came out of the operating tent and breathed in the fresh air. She was emptying a gourd full of water over her head when a young corporal thrust a piece of paper into her hand. It was, surprisingly, a message from Sherman. Terse and pithy, like its author: “No hospital duties tonight. Report to my headquarters at nine. Without fail.”

“—So, gentlemen, General Joseph Johnston is thirty-seven miles northeast of Vicksburg, collecting the shattered forces we whipped at Champion Hill and Jackson. Spies tell us he is also expecting reinforcements from Bragg at Tennessee, and when they arrive, he plans to attack our rear between the Yazoo and the Big Black.” He interrupted himself to puff at his cigar, now no more than a stub, and looked at it in surprise, as if he could not recall smoking it down that far. He tossed it aside, smoke emerging with his next words. “But we’re going to stop him by establishing a defense line between those two points.” As always the Ohioan had his extensive maps, well thumbed, well marked out, spread upon the table before them so that they could push forward and see where that bony finger was going. “Haines Bluff to the railroad bridge over the Big Black, from there we’ll counteract any movement on Johnston’s part to relieve Vicksburg or reinforce Pemberton’s position.”

Jesse slipped into the tent, crowded with brigade and division commanders and waited in the rear as they filed out, talking among themselves.

Sherman was still standing behind his desk, doing what he always did before and after such meetings, studying his maps as though he had never seen them before, always searching for the unexpected, leaving nothing to chance, his red head encircled by clouds of blue-gray smoke. He knew she was standing there, all right, but he chose to ignore her. In time, she moved to the front of his desk.

“Good evening, sir.”

He sat down, drew a well-thumbed copy of the
New York Herald
toward him, and growled before tossing it aside again in disgust. “Grant’s movements from Grand Gulf to here have been the most successful and hazardous of the war. He is entitled to all the credit for its completion, for
I
would not have advised it.” He hooked his thumbs over the armholes in his ash-stained vest and leaned back in his chair. “He is now deservedly the hero, belabored with praise by those who a month ago accused him of all the vices in the calendar, and who next week will turn against him if so blows the popular breeze. Vox populi—vox humbug!” He passed his disdainful gaze over the assortment of garments she was wearing. “You look like a tramp,” he finally declared. “Did you have nothing clean to change into? Every night at the hospital. I don’t believe I’ve seen you for more than five minutes these past two weeks.” He smacked at something that had been crawling up his neck. “Goddamn mosquitoes. Bring the whiskey bottle from my trunk.”

Jesse obeyed. She filled the tin cup and Sherman immediately swallowed half the contents. His narrow eyelids reddened. He wiped his bearded mouth on the back of his hand and stared hard at her. “So, you suffered no lasting effects from your brief stay with the enemy?”

“I’m healthy as a horse,” she said so quickly that he gave a burst of rasping laughter.

“Look at you; you are all skin and bone. If you
were
a horse I’d have you shot to put you out of your misery. Why my son Willy could wrestle you to the ground with one arm tied behind his back.”

“I do all right.” She drew her red brows together in a mean old frown. “Maybe Willy
could
wrestle me to the ground, but I couldn’t easily be kept there, I reckon I proved that on May twenty-second!”

“Your behavior on May twenty-second impressed no one, least of all me.” He started to pace once more, fiddling all the while with the tarnished buttons on his coat, plucking at his short, wiry beard. During the past five months, from December ’62 until now, the first days of June, from Chickasaw Bayou and Fort Hindman, through Grand Gulf and Jackson, and here to Vicksburg, it seemed that he never relaxed for a moment, was forever alert, to the point where he did not sleep, but lay in his blanket, either on the ground or on his cot, fully clothed, dozing restlessly during the predawn hours, ready and waiting to carry out Grant’s orders or to respond to the enemy’s next move. Vicksburg was under siege but neither Sherman nor Grant possessed a siege mentality. They were men of action. Both had different ways of coping with boredom. It was being whispered that Grant was ready to give in, not to Pemberton, but to the melancholy he felt at being stuck here, and to the lure of the whiskey bottle. Sherman’s nature, on the other hand, gave him no rest, no opportunity to stare vacantly into space. He filled every waking moment with letter writing, reading, poring over his maps, questioning deserters, and riding his siege lines. He fixed her with those hypnotic eyes beneath their lowering sandy brows. Her hair was a tangle of short red curls and her clefted chin and lower lip thrust out defiantly. She looked no more than fifteen, yet in the very depths of those strange eyes was an expression as old as time itself.

“General Grant personally went to a great deal of trouble to get you back after your misguided heroism. He was forced to tell a whole parcel of untruths about you.” He poked her in the shoulder, but very gently, in fact it was more a tickle than a poke. “Do you know
why
he went to so much trouble?” Sherman asked as he circled her. “For some misguided reason he likes you, has done since Pittsburg Landing. He believes you are brave and spirited and noble-hearted and can’t understand why I haven’t raised you to the rank of brigadier general and given you a whole regiment of cavalry since he says you love horses.” Jesse blinked as his breath, hot and pungent from cigars and whiskey, seared her features, then he was off again and pacing, as restless as any disembodied spirit. “Well, you’ve been wounded and captured by the enemy and survived, that should be enough excitement and adventure for one lifetime.” Sherman stopped suddenly and remained motionless, studying her, the cigar stub twitching at the left-hand corner of his mouth. There were still faint dark shadows beneath her eyes, but what eyes, they were afire with a determination that would not be ignored or thwarted, a fire that matched and equaled his own. A fierce little flame. “—Are you now ready to forget all this perfidious and absurd nonsense about becoming a soldier?” His face was thrust close to hers and challenging.

Jesse hitched herself up to her full five foot three inches and drew back her narrow shoulders. Then she said boldly, “No sir, I am not, and I never shall be, not until the war is over.”

“I thought not.” He straightened and jammed the cigar between his teeth. “This will be positively the last time I ask you. Now you will face the consequences of your recklessness and see if I give a damn!”

The following evening outside Fifteenth Corps headquarters, in sight of the Vicksburg ramparts, freshly minted Second Lieutenant Jesse Davis, junior aide de camp to General William T. Sherman, sang for the commander of the Army of the Tennessee.

Grant, who appeared none the worse for his well-concealed recent drunken binge, now sat conscientiously whittling with a small pocketknife, cutting a small stick into smaller sticks, as different from the beautifully crafted wooden images that sprang from similar pieces in Jacob’s creative hands as Jeff Davis was from Mr. Lincoln. To Grant’s left sat the inevitable Rawlins, and behind him Colonel James Harrison Wilson, a man even more treacherous than the tubercular Rawlins.