The Spymistress (27 page)

“No,” John said flatly. “That is, she asked once, after the worst of her illness passed. I told her they were here, and that you were looking after them. She nodded, turned away from me, and hasn’t asked about them since.”

She will, Lizzie thought. Mary was too overwhelmed by her own troubles to think about her children at present, but a time would come when she would want them back—and Lizzie would have a terrible time letting them go.

She was reading the girls a bedtime story one evening when William appeared in the doorway. “Miss Lizzie,” he said urgently, “You have a visitor, in the kitchen.”

Guests were customarily escorted to the library or parlor depending upon the time of day, although they might be left standing in the foyer if they were strangers or if the Van Lews did not like them. Only one sort of visitor was taken to the kitchen instead. Quickly Lizzie finished the book, helped the girls say their prayers, tucked them in, and kissed them good night, and after turning down the lamp, she hurried to the kitchen, which smelled of freshly baked bread and pickling spices. A pale, dark-haired young man with full cheeks, a prominent nose, and a short, thick, bushy beard sat at the table devouring a plate of cold ham, cheese and leek pie, stewed greens, and bread left over from the Van Lews’ supper. He wore the gray uniform of a Confederate major, but it was too snug, and the sleeves scarcely reached his wrists.

He started when she appeared in the doorway, jostling the table and setting the dishes clattering as he half-rose out of his seat. “Please, don’t get up,” Lizzie said easily, covering for his alarm. “I’m Elizabeth Van Lew, and this is my home. How is your supper?”

“It’s the most wonderful meal I’ve ever tasted,” he said reverently, running the heel of the loaf over his plate to collect every last crumb. A moment later, Caroline was at his side to offer him seconds, which he gratefully accepted. Then he remembered his manners, rose, and offered Lizzie a slight bow. “I’m Captain William Lounsbury, Seventy-Fourth New York Infantry.” He sat down again, looking dazed. “And I can’t believe I’m here. An hour ago I was in Libby Prison.”

Lizzie smiled. “I’m very glad you made your escape.”

“I didn’t do it alone.” The captain shook his head, still disbelieving. “I was standing with the rest of the men in quarters when Ross entered—Ross is the clerk who calls the rolls and superintends the prison under Major Turner.”

“Yes, I know,” Lizzie remarked. “I’ve met him.”

“He never calls the rolls without swearing at us and abusing us and calling us Yankees, and other vile names not suited for your ears, begging your pardon, Ma’am. We all hate him, and many a man has said that if given a chance, he would get even with the little scamp.”

“Oh, dear,” said Lizzie, unsettled. Perhaps she should warn Mr. Ross that he was playing his role too convincingly. “Are you aware of any plans to do him harm?”

“No, and if I were, I’d tell you so you could warn him.” Captain Lounsbury paused to polish off another piece of ham. “This evening, we were lining up for roll call when Ross struck me in the stomach and said, ‘You blue-bellied Yankee, come down to my office. I have a matter to settle with you.’ I had no idea what he was talking about. I couldn’t think of anything I had done wrong, any rule I had broken.”

Sighing, Lizzie seated herself at the table. “I’m told prisoners are often punished even if they’ve done nothing wrong.”

“Well, that’s true enough. All the men had noticed that Ross would from time to time take officers away for punishment, but they would never return to quarters. We had no knowledge of what became of them, whether they were transferred to another prison or exchanged or killed. So when Ross ordered me to come with him, some of the other men whispered to me, ‘Don’t go. You don’t have to.’”

“But of course, you did.”

The captain nodded. “I followed Ross down to his office in the corner of the prison, an old counting room on the first floor, right by the exit. There was no one inside the office, but through the window I saw a sentry standing outside in front of the door on the sidewalk. Ross motioned for me to go behind a counter, and when I did, found a Confederate uniform there.”

Lizzie rested her elbow on the table and cupped her chin in her palm. “Imagine that.”

“I lost no time in getting into it, although—” He gestured wryly to his straining buttons. “It was too small for me.”

“So I see.”

“Ross put a finger to his lips to warn me to be silent, then he jerked his head to show that I was to follow him. He left the office, and I waited a bit before following after. He had exited the prison, and when I peered outside, I saw him strolling off with the sentry down the sidewalk. So I just walked out the door.”

“I would have done the same.”

“It was just after dark, so I ran across the street to a vacant lot thinking to hide in a patch of overgrown brush until I could decide what to do. As I was catching my breath, a colored man stepped out and said, ‘Come with me, sir. I know who you are.’ And then he led me here, to you.”

Lizzie reached across the table and clasped his hand. “And we are so very glad to have you. That was Nelson who brought you here, and in a day or two, when you’re rested, he’ll guide you to the next safe haven along your route.” She rose, smiling. “When you’ve eaten your fill, William will show you to your room. It’s a bit small and there’s no view whatsoever, but it’s snug and no one will find you there.” She turned to go, but she paused in the doorway and added, “Please don’t think unkindly of Lieutenant Ross. He is a great friend of mine, and of the Union, although he has been obliged not to let it show.”

“I know that now,” the captain declared. “Believe me, Miss Van Lew, I take back every unkind word I ever said about the man. As soon as I get back to the North, I’m going to send him a box of cigars.”

“Send it to me rather than the prison,” Lizzie advised. “I’ll see that he gets it. You wouldn’t want your gift to betray him.”

“Never.” Suddenly the light of understanding appeared in Captain Lounsbury’s eyes. “So all those missing officers, taken aside for punishment—Ross freed them all, and they sought refuge here.”

“Not always here,” said Lizzie. “We have other friends throughout the city, but you will forgive me if I divulge no more than that.”

With a parting smile, she left him to finish his supper.

Captain Lounsbury remained with them two days to rest and regain his strength, and to allow the furor of pursuit to diminish before embarking upon the most dangerous part of his journey. They used that time to study maps, and with Lizzie’s help he learned which roads to follow and which to avoid, where to take to the woods to elude the Confederate pickets, and where he was most likely to be able to cross over into Union lines safely. On the third evening after his escape, Lizzie provided him with a civilian suit, packed some food in a haversack, and had Nelson escort him under the cover of darkness to McNiven’s Bakery, where he would hide in the delivery wagon, travel beyond the city limits, and continue on foot to Mr. Rowley’s farm.

For several days following his departure, Lizzie and her mother anxiously searched the Richmond papers for an announcement that Captain Lounsbury had been recaptured, but with each day he remained free, their hopes that he would safely reach the Union army rose. Then, two weeks later, they were rewarded with an unexpected, terse announcement in the Richmond
Dispatch
: “We have heard from the Yankee press that Captain W. H. LOUNSBURY, 74th NY Infantry, late of Libby Prison, has arrived in New York City, where he will be feted before returning to his brigade. It does not seem possible that his escape could have happened without the aid of Yankee-lovers in our own city and perhaps within the prison itself. We trust that General Winder will roust the traitors from their dens and fling them into the darkest corner of Castle Thunder.”

Lizzie felt a chill. Earlier in August, General Winder had commandeered three adjacent tobacco factories and warehouses on a single block of Cary Street to establish a new prison for Confederate deserters, political prisoners, and Union sympathizers. The stark name was meant to evoke the storm and fury that would be brought down upon the treasonous men—and, increasingly, women—who were imprisoned there.

That was where she would be sent if she were found out. Lizzie could not walk past the new prison or glimpse its name in the newspaper without brooding over that grim truth. Sometimes Lizzie imagined that her lurking enemies had already prepared a dark, gloomy, lonely cell for her, and that they were watching and waiting, burning with eager malice, determined to catch her in a mistake.

If she were discovered with escaped prisoners in her home or secret papers on her person, if the evidence against her were irrefutable, she knew not even General Winder’s pass would grant her liberty from Castle Thunder.

It was far more likely that General Winder would himself shove her into a cell and lock the cold iron bars behind her. She would find no mercy there.

Chapter Fourteen

SEPTEMBER 1862-JANUARY 1863

A
ugust ended with all of Richmond—and indeed, all the South—celebrating Robert E. Lee’s triumph at the Second Battle of Manassas, and September began with General Lee pressing his advantage. After trouncing Union major general John Pope’s army on the familiar fields where so much blood had already been spilled, General Lee led his army across the Potomac River at White’s Ford near Leesburg and into Union territory. As terrified Pennsylvanians evacuated government archives, treasure, and personnel from offices in Harrisburg and Philadelphia, the Confederate army captured food and horses, and searched with less success for recruits among sympathetic Marylanders.

By September 7, General Lee’s forces were marching into Fredericksburg, with General McClellan in pursuit. The people of Richmond waited anxiously for news, hearing only frustratingly vague rumors about fighting around South Mountain and Harpers Ferry. Then, in the middle of the month, word came of fierce and terrible fighting that had broken out the misty morning of September 17, of an enormous clash of armies on the ridges above the village of Sharpsburg and along Antietam Creek. Both sides consolidated their forces overnight and resumed the bloody battle in the morning, but ultimately General Lee was forced to withdraw his troops back across the Potomac, his brief invasion of the North thwarted.

In the days that followed, as the Union claimed victory and the Confederacy declared the battle a draw, rumors about a curious incident preceding the Battle of Sharpsburg began to circulate throughout the capital. It was said that a Union soldier crossing a campground recently vacated by the rebels had discovered three cigars wrapped in a piece of paper lying forgotten on the ground. Astoundingly, the document turned out to be a copy of General Lee’s battle plan for Maryland, which the soldier promptly turned over to his commanding officers. Already possessing superior numbers, General McClellan—informed of Lee’s plan to divide the Army of Northern Virginia and armed with foreknowledge of the Confederate troop movements—had been handed the opportunity to soundly defeat General Lee’s divided army.

Arguments about what might have been if not for that crucial mistake quickly fell silent as wounded soldiers returning to Richmond described in stark, horrifying detail what they had witnessed along the banks of the Antietam. Their stories of carnage left Lizzie dazed and shocked and sickened—thousands upon thousands killed and maimed, hillsides dotted with prostrate corpses clad in blue, sunken roads filled with bodies in butternut and gray mowed down like grain before the scythe. Men frozen in the final acts of their brief lives—a hand gripping a sword hilt as a lieutenant rallied his men, teeth clenched in a last grimace around the bitten end of a cartridge as a corporal reloaded his weapon, brains and blood splattered on broken green leaves of corn. Bodies bloated in death, fallen alone, in pairs, behind fallen logs and tangled in thickets, eyes staring blankly up at the sky or down into the thick mud.

Lizzie could scarcely comprehend the estimates in the papers of the numbers of dead and wounded. It had been the bloodiest battle ever fought on American soil, but as the phrase echoed around Richmond, Lizzie remembered how it had been applied to previous battles, and she wondered, despairing and heartsick, how many more times it would be employed in the months and years to come as more colossal battles were waged.

Despite their devastating losses, the Union considered the Battle of Antietam, as they called it in the North, to be a victory, for although the perpetually overcautious General McClellan had allowed the battered Confederate army to withdraw to Virginia without pursuit, he had managed to repulse General Lee’s advance into the North.

The costly victory must have heartened President Lincoln, for less than a week after the battle, newspapers across the North published a proclamation in which the president declared that “on the first day of January in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.”

When the entire preliminary Emancipation Proclamation was reprinted in Southern newspapers, it sparked outrage and alarm throughout the Confederacy—except within the Van Lew household, where it evoked jubilation. The Richmond press condemned the measure, warning that it would incite the four million slaves in the South to rise up and slaughter their masters, whose blood would be on Mr. Lincoln’s hands. Other editorials jeered that the proclamation was ridiculous, for the Union president had no jurisdiction over the South and was powerless to enforce any laws there, just as surely as he could not impose his policies upon Great Britain or France.

Even within the Van Lew household and among their Unionist friends, the proclamation was not immune to criticism. In the days that followed the announcement, as they weighed and debated the president’s words, their rejoicing was tempered by concerns that the proclamation did not go far enough. It called for the abolition of slavery only in states that were in rebellion as of January 1, 1863, so if a state agreed to return to the Union before that date—an unlikely occurrence—slavery would be permitted to continue there. The proclamation also did nothing to free the enslaved people living within the loyal Union border states of Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri, as well as Tennessee and parts of Louisiana, Confederate territory that had come under Union control.