“Look at the little dandy independent, ready to do battle!” one man at his camp called.
Harry steeled himself but did not reply. If he allowed himself to be bothered by every enlisted man who thought themselves better than he, he would have gone back to Richmond several days ago. He’d come this far, experiencing ordeals and circumstances that these mocking officers would never have to go through. He had no thought of turning back for any cause, especially not because of officers who were too big for their britches.
As the sun rose higher in the sky, it cast its light upon thousands of Southerners ready for battle. Harry decided to post himself with General Bee’s men, leaving Bob to clean up the camp.
The brilliant sunshine of the morning gave way to sweltering heat at the same pace as some of the men gave way to their inner fears. As Harry scrambled up the hill for an ideal position, he passed by many men with white faces and trembling hands holding their muskets, ascending very slowly, looking for any excuse to slip back down the hill. Cowards. He almost wished he felt even just a hint of fear, if only to sympathize with the chicken-hearts behind him.
The mist from the morning dew disappeared, only to be replaced by the faint clouds of dust from thousands of enemy feet marching toward the hill on the opposite side. As Harry bent forward to get a better look, he caught an occasional glimmer of a bayonet through the trees. Adrenaline surged through him as the tiny figures in blue uniforms grew closer. Every man marching on that side is my personal enemy, Harry told himself. He raised his musket as a gunshot sounded.
The sounds of many rifles firing soon filled the air, along with the roar of military shells exploding. To Harry’s delight, the moment he’d dreamt about all his life was upon him. The first major battle of the war had finally begun. The air became clogged with acrid smoke which burned Harry’s eyes and caused incessant coughing from the men around him. As more and more Federal soldiers entered into view, it became evident that the Confederates under General Bee were vastly outnumbered, although Harry noted with satisfaction that the men in grey still managed to hold their own. When he heard someone shout, “Fall back!” Harry assumed that the command had come from a Yankee general. But the men beside him began hightailing down the hill—it was General Bee who was ordering his men to retreat. Harry bit back a rage of indignation. He briefly considered disobeying Bee and continuing to shoot at the Yanks. His rage, however, turned to shame. He might have not had an official commission, but he was a soldier, and a Confederate at that, and the gallant men who fought for their independence always listened to their commanding officer. So, with all the mortification of someone admitting defeat, Harry turned and fled.
Bee had an alternate plan, however, which Harry quickly surmised as the general led his men to the rear of a nearby house and ordered them to halt. Soon, Harry was elated to see more and more Confederate reinforcements arrive.
After they’d had a chance to catch their breath, Bee turned to his men, and with a voice as loud as thunder, said, “My boys, at them again! Victory or death.” He gestured toward the newly promoted Brigadier General T.J. Jackson, who stood in front of his brigade of fearless Virginians. “See how our Jackson stands there like a stone wall.”
A thousand men echoed Bee’s roar as they made another go at the enemy, cheering for “Stonewall” Jackson as they did so. They rallied behind the Confederate flag, “The Stars and Bars,” which, in Harry’s opinion, was a little too similar to the detested Yankee flag.
When Harry glanced up at the hill that the Confederate’s bravest generals had occupied that morning, he saw it covered with men desperately fighting. Their shouting, combined with the deafening sounds of the guns, made for a roar that became a constant buzzing in Harry’s ear. The more intense the conflict became, the more determined he became to avenge the Southern cause as well as vindicate his comrades lying slain on the ground beneath them.
Jackson pressed forward, ordering his men to reserve fire until the enemy was within 50 yards. “Then charge, boys, and yell like furies!” The Confederates did as they were told, pushing through the lines with their bayonets pointed and emitting a guttural howl, an unearthly sound that would come to be known as the “Rebel yell.” The last of the men in blue were pushed off the hill by late afternoon.
Although the Confederates were eventually victorious, their losses that day were great, including General Bernard Bee himself, who was mortally wounded only a few moments after giving General Jackson his nickname.
At the end of the day, Harry’s exhaustion from the day’s trials was mixed with exhilaration from both the victory and the fact that he had accomplished something he had dreamt of doing all of his life. Something that everyone, including poor William, God rest his soul, had told him was impossible.
As Harry headed back to his tent, he reflected that if anyone were to ask his fellow soldiers how he had fared, they would reply that Lieutenant Buford had fought just as valiantly as any man on the field, perhaps even more so.
After double-checking that the tent flaps were closed, he removed his shirt. He unwrapped the soiled wrappings on his chest, taking one free deep breath before replacing them. He then used a hand mirror to take off his fake mustache in order to reapply the glue that held it in place. For a brief second, the face that stared back at him was not that of Harry Buford, but that of his real identity: Loreta Janeta Velazquez Williams, a recent widow who had a sympathy for the South that was as strong as anyone’s: male or female.
Chapter 6
Mary Jane
July 1861
When Richmond became the capital of the Confederacy, the once quiet city was overrun with government officials—the Confederate Congress was installed in the State Capitol Building and the Post Office was established in the basement of the beautiful Spotswood Hotel. Jefferson Davis, the newly elected President, had arrived to the salute of 15 guns—one for each Confederate state.
After the Battle of Manassas—or Bull Run to the Federals—train after train arrived bearing the pine boxes of the dead and wounded soldiers. Many of the “brave boys” were welcomed into private homes to convalesce when the hospitals grew too full, but others were not so lucky and the streets were thronged with bruised and bloody men from both sides of the war.
“Come with me,” Miss Lizzie commanded Mary Jane as she returned to the mansion after an errand. Mary Jane helped her down the steps. She trailed after her mistress down Grace Street, puzzling over her fine attire: a blue silk dress trimmed with yellow ribbon and a matching parasol. She contrasted greatly with the soldiers who wandered the streets as though they were the walking dead, which, Mary Jane mused, with their faces black with gunpowder and blood-soaked bandages over every appendage, they nearly were.
“Miss?” the man’s throat was surely so parched he could barely croak the words out.
Miss Lizzie paused and took in the man’s appearance. His head was wrapped with a yellowing bandage and another was wrapped around his right knee, the leg below it gone. He used his musket as a makeshift crutch.
“If I had to give a quarter for every wounded soldier, my father’s fortune would disappear in no time,” Miss Lizzie muttered, more to herself than to anyone else. But she dug change out of her reticule, anyway. She placed it square in the man’s open palm and then folded his fingers over it, as if to say, “Don’t tell anyone I gave it to you.”
She motioned for Mary Jane to continue on, checking to make sure there were no carriages in the vicinity as she crossed Franklin Street. “Damned wounded rebels,” Miss Lizzie murmured. “If I could guarantee that for every quarter I pay to them, the impaired Federals would receive the same, I would indeed spend every penny of the money Daddy left me.” She gave Mary Jane a searching look before adding, “For the cause.”
Miss Lizzie stopped abruptly at the corner of Main and 25th Street as Mary Jane peered up at their apparent destination: the former tobacco warehouse belonging to Mr. John Ligon. The tobacco factories of Richmond had been infamo
us for their tales of cruelty to the slaves who labored in the warehouse, pressing and preparing the tobacco leaves and stuffing them into the massive hogshead barrels.
A crowd had already formed outside the three-story brick building.
One woman pointed her parasol toward the building and shouted, “Nothing but cowards in there, not even daring to show their face at the window!”
“Of whom do you speak?” Miss Lizzie asked the woman.
“The blueback malingerers in there.” Again she waved her parasol. “They’ve been taken prisoner and we are here to stir up the Northern lunatics.”
Mary Jane caught sight of a young man in a blue uniform, staring out the barred window as though he were a wild animal in a cage. Another woman, this one younger than the one beside Miss Lizzie, shouted, “Even if you end up killing all our men, we women will make more soldiers!”
Mary Jane bit back a giggle as the other woman planted the tip of her parasol on the ground. “Why, Sarah, just because the Yankees are rude, that doesn’t mean we need to be as well.”
The woman named Sarah opened her mouth and then shut it, glancing at the rest of the crowd, who were snickering at her remark. “I didn’t mean we’d make more, as in... make more ourselves. I meant we’d take up arms if need be.”
“That’s even funnier,” a young man, clearly not old enough to enlist, commented. “Women taking up arms.”
The woman with the parasol found a new target. “You sir, you don’t think women could fight the Yankees as well as you?”
“Not me,” the young man conceded, shaking his head. “Not until I’m 18.”
“See there,” the woman replied, shouldering her parasol. “There are other ways to go to battle with the Yankees.”
Miss Lizzie marched up to the door and held it open for Mary Jane. “Give them officers hell!” an unknown female voice shouted before it faded when the door slammed shut. “I’d like to see the officer in charge,” Miss Lizzie stated to a guard.
“Who are you?” he demanded.
“Miss Elizabeth Van Lew,” she said, not without a little pride.
The man, a Richmond native, Mary Jane could only assume, nodded with deference at the name and disappeared behind an inner door. In a few minutes, he was back to escort them into the former owner’s office.
The man rose upon their entrance. He looked to be in his early thirties. He had a full goatee and mustache, both black as pitch without a hint of gray. His dark eyes seemed to match, and they became darker as they fixed briefly on Mary Jane standing behind Miss Lizzie before flickering back to the seated Miss Lizzie. Mary Jane could detect a hint of alcohol in his breath as he introduced himself as Lieutenant David Humphries Todd. He pronounced his name with half as much pride as Miss Lizzie used earlier. Mary Jane knew him to be the half-brother of Mary Todd Lincoln, a native of Kentucky. It had been rumored that some of her kin had joined the Confederacy, and, judging by the battered gray uniform, this would be one of them.
If Miss Lizzie recognized the family name as belonging to the First Lady, she did not show it. “Lieutenant, this prison must contain wounded soldiers, and, as such, I would like to be appointed nurse to them.”
Todd narrowed his eyes and glared at Mary Jane.
“My servant,” Miss Lizzie replied to his unasked question. “She will be of assistance to me.”
“Miss—”
“Van Lew,” Miss Lizzie supplied.
“You are the first and only lady to make any such application,” his voice, slightly slurred, was more of a growl than anything else. “You are aware that we house Yankees here, not gentlemen.”
“Yessir,” Miss Lizzie’s voice had affected a Southern drawl. “But if we wish our cause to succeed, we must be charitable to the thankless and unworthy as well.”
His black eyebrows, previously knitted together, became two again at the mention of the words, “our cause.” He pulled a pen out and scribbled something on a piece of paper. “This is a pass to see General John Winder, the provost marshal of Richmond. You will find him next door at Howard’s factory.”
“Thank you, sir.” Miss Lizzie rose.
His eyes followed them. As soon as the door shut behind them, Mary Jane thought she heard a drawer open. She pictured him uncapping a bottle of Kentucky bourbon and taking another swig before returning to his paperwork.
“Miss Lizzie,” Mary Jane hissed once they were past the crowd outside the prison. “What was all of that about ‘our cause’?”
“You can kill more gnats with honey than you can with poison,” Miss Lizzie said cryptically before entering the adjacent building. They entered directly into a cavernous room, with multiple rows of wooden structures that Mary Jane guessed were tobacco presses. A gray-haired man in an officer’s uniform stood in the middle of it all, barking orders at two other uniformed men, who seemed to be running around in circles.
Miss Lizzie waited for a lull in the commands before tentatively calling out, “General Winder?”
“Yes’m?” he replied, marching closer to the women.
She stuck out her hand. “I am Miss Elizabeth Van Lew. Lieutenant Todd sent me here to speak to you about the federal prisoners being housed at Ligon’s Warehouse.”
“Yes. Eating utensils,” he shouted at one of the soldiers nearby, who marked something in a notebook. Addressing Miss Lizzie, he said, “We’ve already reached capacity there and plan on moving some of the officers here as soon as we can ready it.”
“Sir, that’s exactly why I’m here—I want to help. A man of your authority shouldn’t need to worry about such trifles as forks for the Yankees.”
Winder sighed. “Indeed, it is a thankless position. I was a major in the US Army.” He pointed to a scar running the length of his cheek. Everything about his countenance was gray, from the dull eyes devoid of color, to the unruly tufts of hair that stuck out underneath his hat, to the stony expression on his face. “Got this in the Mexican War, fighting for the Union. But they have no right to use force to keep the Union intact.”
“Ah, I would have never noticed your scar. Your hair is what distracts me—it belongs in Rome among the Gods, not here in Richmond.”
The taut line of Winder’s lips extended, as if he were attempting a smile that did not reach his eyes. “You say you want to help the prisoners.”
“I know the good women of Richmond will tend to all of the needs of the Confederates, but the federal prisoners will need provisions as well.”
He nodded. “You there,” he called to a passing soldier. “Write Miss Van Lew a pass to visit the prisoners at will.”
Even Miss Lizzie seemed taken aback at Winder’s easy compliance. He excused himself and returned to his spot in the middle of the warehouse to bellow out more items for his men to procure. The other soldier returned with the requested pass and Miss Lizzie bid him good day. When they left the dank warehouse and the sun was once again warming their shoulders, Miss Lizzie congratulated herself. “I’d heard Winder’s vanity was great. Now I know I can flatter anything out of the old man.”
Mary Jane thought once again of that gray face, lined with knowing wrinkles. Perhaps Winder wasn’t completely blinded by arrogance and those colorless eyes saw past Miss Lizzie’s flattery to her true intentions.
Mary Jane assisted Miss Lizzie in gathering fruit, bread, books, boots, and other various items for the prisoners. They loaded her wagon until the wheels threatened to stay buried in the mud. Miss Lizzie’s sister-in-law Mary watched the goings-on from her perch on the porch. “Elizabeth,” she called as Miss Lizzie made another trip from the kitchen to the wagon.
“Yes, Mary?” Miss Lizzie asked as she carefully balanced a basket of socks on the pile of supplies.
“Why do you insist on aiding those miscreants? If freed, they would rape or murder us in an instant.”
Miss Lizzie pasted on a smile. “All Yankees are not criminals, just as all Southerners are not gentlemen. There are evil-doers on both sides of the war, just as
there are noble men. Our purpose is not to judge, but to aid.”
“You are aiding the wrong side. You could be considered an enemy under Jeff Davis’s new proclamation,” Mary stated.
Mary Jane knew that the Confederate Congress had recently passed an act declaring that any person “adhering to the Government of the United States and acknowledging authority of the same” would be treated as an alien enemy.
Miss Lizzie motioned for Mary Jane to climb into the front seat of the wagon. “That act only applies to male citizens,” she replied, ascending the block to take her place beside Mary Jane. “God knows it’s the least we can do,” she said, more to herself than anyone else as the driver picked up the reins and the horses began to pull the wagon slowly out of earshot.
Chapter 7
Hattie
July 1861
After helping deliver Lincoln to his inauguration in one piece, Pinkerton and Co. settled back in their Chicago office. Even though Fort Sumter had fallen, resulting in a war between the states, the criminals were still at work, and the Pinkerton operatives resumed their status quo.
Since Hattie was the new girl, her day mostly consisted of completing paperwork and sketching. Hattie knew she had been hired in large part because Pinkerton had spotted her talent for drawing. She would draw a likeness of a suspect based on the hair color, eye color, chin shape and physical abnormalities dictated to her by an informant or victim. The picture was then hung in the “Rogues’ Gallery,” a hallway which was also filled with daguerreotypes and tintypes of criminals the Pinkertons had arrested through the years. To Hattie’s immense pride, a few of her depictions had resulted in arrests—in her own way, Hattie contributed to getting dangerous criminals off the street. But still, she longed for a larger role.
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