Jacob's Ladder

by Donald McCaig

  Cadet Captain Spaulding jogged Duncan Gatewood’s elbow. “Oh, they’re proud of the damn thing, ain’t they?”

  Spaulding was a fourth-year man and Duncan’s roommate at the Military Institute. A dozen of their fellow cadets—Confederates all—sprawled on the courthouse lawn. Spaulding passed Duncan a flask.

  Duncan Gatewood was no prize cadet. He was unexceptional at drill and not punctilious in religious observances. His mathematical skills were modest, his computations delivered with the desperation of a commander who has just committed his last reserves, and his recitations before Major Jackson were painful to the cadets who witnessed them.

  On the other side of the ledger, although he was no adept at parry and riposte, his determination at saber drill often defeated stronger opponents, and it was said that Gatewood gave as good as he got. He was a noted horseman, in Virginia where fine horsemen were commonplace. His nickname was Wheelhorse. Although the Virginia Military Institute possessed six batteries of guns, they had horses enough for only one, and during gunnery practice cadets were pressed into service in their stead. The cadets would detach the gun from its two-wheeled wooden limber cart, pretend to bring powder and shot from the limber chest, pretend to load, ram, set the elevation, prime, and pull the lanyard, then hitch to the limber again and pull the combined four-wheeled rig to a new location. One spring day, emboldened by strong sunlight and new life in the air, Duncan Gatewood began to prance and nicker. Their dour artillery instructor, Major Jackson, didn’t turn a hair, “Put that wheelhorse on report,” Jackson had said.

  By dint of great effort and Spaulding’s tutoring, Gatewood had survived the rigors of Institute education until this term, when his recitations collapsed and his maneuvers on the drill field befuddled the first-year men he commanded. Duncan became comrade to those cadets who bought whiskey from the liverymen and played cards until dawn. Not two weeks ago, Duncan had been called before the commandant, Colonel Smith, who warned him bluntly that he was risking expulsion, that only his prior record had averted that drastic step. “Sir,” Smith said, “would you care to explain yourself?”

  “Colonel, I am honor bound to silence.” Duncan paused. “It is . . . a family matter.” His face twisted painfully. Colonel Smith was a big man, ruddy-complected, equable, happiest on the drill field, tongue-tied when he delivered homilies in chapel: a man of honor. What would Smith say if Duncan told him the truth?

  Colonel Smith would be shocked, disgusted, appalled—as Duncan was. Colonel Smith would find Duncan’s behavior dishonorable. Colonel Smith could have no advice except that Duncan ought not to have done what he had done and could not undo. Duncan’s lips were dry. “Sir, I shall endeavor to be more attentive to my duty.”

  The colonel drummed his fingers on his desktop. “In these times, Gatewood. In these times . . .” He looked as if he meant to say something about the looming war but contented himself with a sigh. “No more demerits then. Eh, Gatewood?”

  On the courthouse steps, Dr. Junkins prepared to speak, Duncan took a jolt of raw whiskey and coughed. “Spaulding, God damn you and your popskull. I thought you Piedmont boys drank good whiskey.”

  “Same whiskey we’ve been drinking all night, Brother Rat,” Spaulding observed. “You didn’t object to it before. Didn’t pay for any of it either.” Spaulding gave him a broad wink. He turned to another cadet. “You applaud my jest, Cooley?”

  “Let us pray the wind increases. We didn’t come to listen to jests.” Cooley said.

  Spaulding lay back on the grass and watched the clouds scudding overhead.

  In his shrill voice, Dr. Junkins began, “Fellow Virginians, patriots, loyal citizens . . .” A gust of wind lifted the federal flag off the pole and snapped it open. Like the pole, the flag was overlarge, as if Lexington’s Unionists were countering Confederate sympathies by sheer size. The flag fluttered and popped, and Dr. Junkins looked up and produced a brisk, somewhat unmilitary salute. Other Union men uncovered. Pale faces uplifted.

  When the flag put its full strain on the pole, it broke at the two-thirds mark and the top third, with flag, folded like a jackknife, then the overburdened second third snapped, and finally flagpole and flag fell on the heads of its adherents leaving only a vibrating stump.

  Duncan was laughing so hard he was rolling on the ground, and Spaulding’s guffaws could have been heard in the next county.

  Men had been injured, and friends helped them away. Mechanics were at the broken pole examining the saw cut, three-quarters through, disguised by beeswax and sawdust. Dr. Junkins reverently bore his fallen flag indoors to safety.

  “It was them,” one foundryman cried, and a hundred Unionists rushed the laughing cadets. A blow took Duncan in the left eye, and black-and-red stars shot through his head. His uniform jacket tore at the shoulder.

  “Cadets, form on me!” Spaulding cried. “Damn you ruffians to attack without warning!”

  A gun was fired. One of the Unionists had a revolver.

  “Oh Christ, Gatewood! Back to the Institute!”

  The clot of Unionists and cadets rolled down Main Street. One boy was jammed into a doorway and worked over thoroughly. One excited citizen fired a revolver into the air.

  “Run, you toy soldiers!”

  “Traitors! Cowards! Stand like men!”

  At the Institute’s gates the Unionists abandoned pursuit. Cadets carried two beaten boys toward the barracks. Somebody was banging the fire bell.

  “You all right, Wheelhorse?”

  “Spaulding, tell me, do I still have my left eye? I pray I have my eye!”

  “God yes. Damn thing’s swelled shut. What did he hit you with?”

  “Those cowards. Attacking unarmed men!”

  Blue-and-white cadets disgorged onto the parade ground, where officers’ commands and cries—“D Company!” “To me, Company B!”—might have been crows cawing, so little were they heeded while cadets gawked at their bloodied fellows.

  “Oh, those traitors! Those damn traitors!”

  “Unionists are murdering cadets! Turn out! Brigade of Cadets, turn out!”

  More cadets poured onto the field. Some fetched ammunition from the armory. As quickly as they armed themselves, in twos and threes, they double-quicked across the parade ground toward town.

  Spaulding was so excited he shook.

  “Oh, I hate them! I’d use my bayonet on them!” Duncan cried.

  Although staff officers were urging restraint, the cadets ignored them as they stuffed handfuls of cartridges into their pouches.

  “Those bastards! Those black Republican bastards!”

  “Can you see well enough to fight, Wheelhorse?”

  Despite his pain, Duncan Gatewood was pleasured, as if some benefice had descended from heaven. He might kill someone. He might even be slain. What a splendid afternoon!

  He and Spaulding raced after their fellows gathering in Wilson’s Tavern’s horseyard. A staff officer shouted, “For God’s sake, boys, haven’t you learned anything? These Unionists are armed and have climbed onto the rooftops. They’ve baited you and you have fallen for their trick.”

  Cadet officers took their posts and called their men into ranks. “A Company, fall in on me!”

  “C Company . . .” That cadet lieutenant’s voice broke. He was just sixteen.

  Keen as a greyhound, Cadet Captain Spaulding peered down Main Street. Duncan clutched a cloth to his hurt eye. Spaulding pivoted to face his company. “Cadets! In nine steps, load!”

  Each man bit a cartridge open, dropped it into the octagonal muzzle, ramrodded it home with a thump. Next, bullet. Ramrod again. Pointed muzzle to the sky, inserted brass cap, eased hammer to half cock.

  “Fix bayonets!” Spaulding ordered, and with a slithering metallic clatter, the cadets complied. “Right shoulder shift!” The air above their ranks shimmered as the sun danced off their triangular bayonets.

  Duncan was so very happy. Honor would be put to the test. Honor might be retrieved. His body was coole
d by gratitude.

  Colonel Smith galloped up before his bristling youthful brigade and dismounted on the tavern’s mounting stile. His face was pale.

  It became so quiet Duncan could hear a bee buzzing and wondered whether a bee flying so early would survive the spring night. The bee zipped and soared among the immobile ranks. It hovered at one cadet’s red kepi, inspected a second. Duncan fancied he heard annoyance in the bee’s buzz.

  Colonel Smith stretched his hand out over the cadets. “Young gentlemen, you have received a great wrong and you have my sympathy. But this is not the way to right it. I appeal to your reason and better natures.”

  The bee zoomed through the sparkling forest of bayonets. Duncan knew that if one lad yelled “Forward!” or “Let’s get the bastards!” the cadets would charge and nothing old Smith could do or say would stop them. He yearned to cry the fatal command but choked.

  Colonel Smith repeated, “I appeal to your reason and better natures. A moral victory is finer than a bloody one. Virginia has not yet seceded, and these townspeople are fellow citizens! Follow me. I will see that you get redress.”

  The commandant got back on his horse and started for the Institute.

  For a long hesitation, the cadets held fast. Duncan felt like vomiting. A handful fell out of the back ranks, and then the ranks crumbled entirely.

  “Come on, Wheelhorse!” Spaulding threw his arm across his friend’s shoulder. “It ain’t so bad as all that.” Spaulding backed, repelled by Duncan’s futile rage. “We’ll get our chance at ’em, my friend,” Spaulding predicted. “All the chance we want.” He offered his flask, but Duncan pushed it away.

  When the cadets filled into the Institute, Colonel Smith’s face had recovered its customary red hue. He fired barrages of homilies, and told them that war was likely. The cadets should save their courage for worthier opponents.

  At that moment, Duncan could have killed anyone, Unionist, old Smith, anyone. Death seemed rich in opportunity.

  Major Jackson made an uninspired speech, but he concluded, “If we have to fight, let us draw the sword and throw away the scabbard,” and the cadets cheered until the rafters rang, including, though he was weeping too, the dishonored Duncan Gatewood.

  A HIGH-HEADED SHEEP

  SUNRISE, VIRGINIA

  APRIL 7, 1861

  And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars;

  see that ye be not troubled.

  —Matthew 24:6,

  text for Preacher Todd’s sermon

  ALTHOUGH THE WHITE congregation of SunRise Chapel was not lacking in Christian devotion, neither was it numerous, and only the larger planters’ generosity made a preacher possible. To augment his income, Preacher Todd made cabinets, pie safes, and coffins. He was not a very good cabinetmaker but he was the best in SunRise.

  Gangs from Warwick and Stratford had built the chapel three years before, replacing the log house on Pheasanty Run where Presbyterians worshiped when Captain George Washington was building forts against the Indians. It was square and brick, with a squat wooden steeple and two cement columns which filled most of the vestibule. Enclosed stairwells mounted into the servants’ garret, which overhung the sanctuary. Although the pews in the sanctuary had been bought in Lexington, Preacher Todd himself crafted the backless oak benches in the garret. The pulpit was carved black walnut. The piano Sister Kate Gatewood played had been donated by the Dinwiddies, though its tone (Grandmother Gatewood often stated) was not refined.

  On this Sunday, Preacher Todd descanted on rumors and alarms. He reminded his congregation that Virginia remained in the union and prayed that the federal government would peacefully relinquish Fort Sumter to its rightful master, the sovereign state of South Carolina. Anxiety and distress among the parishioners were remarked. Specifically, it had come to Mr. Todd’s attention that some in the congregation—even, he believed, some elders—had entered into contracts for life insurance on rented negroes. The preacher deplored this practice, inquiring, “How can we ask God’s help, if we do not trust His Providence?”

  His parishioners seemed contrite, so the preacher moved into his closing prayer, wherein he prayed for the congregation’s sick or grieving, all magistrates and county officials, and the governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Missing from his petition was the President of these United States, dropped from the prayers of the SunRise congregation when Abraham Lincoln assumed the office.

  Sister Kate shifted from pew to piano and, with as much flourish as she permitted herself, struck up the recessional.

  Several servants in the hot, badly ventilated garret cleared their throats. Gatewood’s Pompey hummed a C, and Warwick’s cook laid in the harmony.

  Since no Christian could object to praising the Lord, the coloreds did so with a will. Their praises overwhelmed the white congregation and the piano itself. Colored singers relished every verse, extended every harmony, and determined Sister Kate’s tempo.

  When their last note was sung, they remained standing while the preacher led his white congregation out, then filed down the narrow stairs.

  The whites gathered at the door, the coloreds in the new graveyard. Just three stones had been emplaced thus far, and the almost empty graveyard seemed like an ill-sown field.

  “Ah,” Jack the Driver said, “Aunt Opal. So glad you could come here today.”

  In Sunday finery which squeezed her where she wasn’t used to being squeezed and itched her where she wasn’t used to being itched, Aunt Opal made a face.

  “Is Master Uther well?” Jack inquired.

  “Last I seen of him he was,” she said. “More’n a fortnight past.”

  Jack shook his head sympathetically. “You farin’ well?”

  “I got myself used to that old fool bein’ underfoot.” She coughed. “He in Warm Springs, at Master Byrd’s house, until court day.” Opal inspected the throng of brightly dressed negroes as if they were strangers. “I come today to beg you to ask Master Gatewood keep Miss Sallie safe,” she confessed. She added, “Generally on Sundays I washes clothes.”

  “Master Gatewood has already spoke up for Miss Sallie,” Jack the Driver said. After a pause he added, “Course I’ll talk to Master.”

  On the church steps, Preacher Todd and Samuel Gatewood were in serious conversation. Preacher Todd was a founder of the county militia, which Samuel Gatewood had denounced as inflamatory.

  Jack said, “Auntie, I was meanin’ to come see you anyway. We won’t start plowing in the river bottoms until Monday next, and we can spare hands to put in your oats and corn. Is you gonna work the same ground as last year?”

  “That five acres below the barn and the three acres beside the creek.” She turned, “This headstone. Who is it?”

  “Jim Ervin. He weren’t no old man, neither. Was the bloody flux killed him. If you lack seed, we . . .”

  “Why do white folks write on their gravestones? They afraid folks forget who they are? Ain’t nobody write on colored gravestones.”

  Jack the Driver said, “Master Gatewood was thinkin’ you might want somebody stayin’ with you until they have the trial and Master Uther comes home.”

  “Jesse,” Opal snapped. “He can send me Jesse. Jesse already knows where things is.”

  Not far away, Franky Williams was flirting with Rufus, who had a foot propped on a gravestone and was chewing on a straw. The straw bobbed up and down when he chuckled.

  “Jesse locked up in the root cellar. He’s run twice already.”

  “You ever wonder why I never took me a man?” Opal asked. “I couldn’t bear it was they to sell a child of mine. Better not to have no child. This fool white child—Sallie—break my heart. I told her to her face in that jailhouse, ‘Miss Sallie, you got to humble your pride. You got to get down on bended knee. You tell ’em how you and Jesse was raised under the same roof and Jesse cared for you when you was a tiny baby and when Jesse came knockin’ on your door, middle of the winter froze near to death, you let him in, just couldn’t help yourself
. Tell ’em you know you done wrong, you’re sorry and won’t ever do it again, and likely they’ll turn you loose.’ ”

  “What she say?”

  Opal shrugged and traced the letters on the headstone. “I don’t care if I never be in no jailhouse again, ’deed I don’t. They keep man and wife apart. Only one to look in on ’em is Old Uther.”

  “White folks scared. In Warm Springs they holdin’ torchlight parades and marchin’ around like soldiers. And Franky’s sister, Dinah, who was give to Master Byrd when he married Miss Leona, Dinah says the white folks talkin’ hard talk about Miss Sallie and that husband of hers. Miss Ophelia Simmons so feared her servants goin’ to murder her in her sleep she lock them in the coal cellar every night before she goes to bed. You know Simmons’s Billy? Billy a godly, cleanly man. Billy a Baptist church deacon, and he plumb hate to sleep in that filthy cellar.”

  Franky mock-slapped Rufus, pretending offense at Rufus’s remarks. Her girlfriends raised eyebrows and giggled.

  Jack shook his head. “White folks sayin’ Miss Sallie and her husband are abolitionists like Mr. John Brown.”

  “You think my Sallie gonna stay in jail?”

  “Master Samuel say they done ‘felony,’ same as if they was to steal Master’s watch or pocketbook.”

  “How can you steal a person?” Aunt Opal glared at Jack until he had to look away. She muttered, “Well, it’s nothin’ to me. She’s just a white child, none of my own.”

  “Sallie’s husband, Master Alexander, is harmin’ them; aggravatin’ people the way he does.”

  “He plumb ruined that girl,” Opal said. “Master Alexander he take up more space just sittin’ than any man I ever seed. Don’t know how to milk a cow, can’t pour oats to the horses without spillin’ ’em. Old Uther ain’t the handiest man ever walked the earth, but Uther always willing. Old Uther, he pull up a chair by the fire and talk educated talk, all about Mr. Jefferson and such. Do you think that Alexander said a word? Talk goes on long as Uther is moving his mouth. Minute he quits all his fine words fall on the floor lay there looking foolish.”