A Light to My Path

by Lynn Austin

  “Of course not. But that ain’t the only reason, you know.” It was hard for Grady to admit the truth, especially to himself. “I did it so you wouldn’t get hurt. I like you, Kitty. We’re … we’re friends, ain’t we?”

  “Yeah. We are.”

  “Kitty,” he began, then stopped. He hated calling her by that name, an animal’s name, especially after Missy Claire had tried to breed her like one, saying she had no more feelings than a horse or cow. “Is Kitty your real name or is it short for Kate or Katherine or something?”

  “Missy Claire named me Kitty the first day I came to live in the Big House. Her mama wouldn’t let her have a real cat, so she pretended I was her kitten.”

  “What!”

  “Shh … It don’t matter, Grady,” she said, squeezing his hand. “I had fun being a cat. After a while the name just stuck to me, I guess.”

  He clenched his jaw, wanting to murder Missus Fuller. “What was your name before that?” he asked when he could speak.

  “Why are you so angry? How come talking about names makes you so mad?”

  He drew a deep breath, then exhaled, trying to calm himself. “My mama named me Grady. That’s my name—the one she gave me. When the slave trader bought me he changed it to Joe. It was his way of having control over me. You have a lot of power over somebody if you can change who he is. See this scar on my forehead? I made the mistake once of telling him my name was Grady, not Joe. He beat me with a fireplace poker for it. But my name ain’t Joe. It’s Grady.”

  She touched his forehead lightly, then looked away.

  “Don’t give that white lady power over who you are. She has no right to be changing your name and … and turning you into an animal. Only a mama who knows you and loves you has the right to name you.”

  She was quiet for a moment, then said, “My mama called me Anna.”

  “Anna,” he repeated. “That’s beautiful. Just like you are. From now on I’m going to call you Anna, too.”

  “Please don’t do that. Missy’s gonna get real mad if she hears you calling me that.”

  “She won’t hear me. Besides, that’s what this is all about,” he said, gesturing to the room. “That’s why we jumped the broom.”

  “Because you want to make Missy mad?”

  “No. I want to stop her from hurting you. I just wish …”

  “What?”

  “I wish you wouldn’t be letting her treat you the way she does. I wish you could see that it’s wrong and … and that you’d want to fight back as much as I do. You deserve better.”

  “It don’t matter to me, Grady. I learned a long time ago that it don’t do any good to be getting mad at Missy. I’m still her slave. That ain’t never going to change. This is just the way Missy is. She can’t help it.”

  “See? That’s what I mean. You don’t even realize what she’s doing to you.”

  “But I’m happy, Grady. Are you?”

  “How can I possibly be happy when my life ain’t my own? When I’m somebody’s slave? Their property?”

  “You get angry so fast, and it seems like for no reason at all, sometimes. I don’t want to be mad all the time like you are. I can’t be living that way. Tell you the truth, you scare me a little. I think you could get mad enough to hurt somebody.”

  Grady gently wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. “Don’t be scared of me, Anna. I’d never hurt you.”

  “I been with Missy a long time. I know that even when she’s acting angry, she don’t really mean it. But I think you do mean it.”

  He released her again. “If I’m angry, it’s because we were meant to be free and we ain’t.”

  “Does getting mad change anything? Does it make you free?”

  “It helps me, okay? Your way of dealing with it is to shrug it off. Getting mad is my way.”

  “How does hating white people help?”

  “It’s their own fault if I hate them! They taught me how. My first master was my own father—and he sold me! The second one used to beat me just because he enjoyed it. He was always trying to break my will, pounding all the hope right out of me. Then there were the four white boys who lived near Massa’s plantation. You want to see what they done to me? For no reason?” He lifted his shirt and turned so Kitty could see his back. Her icy fingers caressed his skin as she felt the lumpy scars.

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

  “Why are you sorry? You didn’t do it!” He pulled his shirt down again and stood up to tuck it in.

  “That ain’t what I meant, Grady. I’m sorry you been treated so bad. I never had it as bad as you, or maybe I’d be angry, too.”

  “But you have been treated badly. I wish I could make you understand that. Missy ain’t your friend. What she wanted to force you to do with Martin was just as bad, just as degrading as what them four white boys done to me.”

  Kitty closed her eyes. Grady was afraid she was going to cry. When she opened them again she said, “Then I’m glad that you saved me, Grady. Thank you.”

  Her words defused his anger. He stood, looking down at her, then bent and took her face in his hands. He kissed her gently.

  “Good night, Anna,” he whispered.

  Grady longed to stay with her. But he refused to give the white folks what they wanted, even if it meant giving up what he wanted. He left his wife sitting on the bed in the dark and hurried downstairs to sleep, alone.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Charleston, South Carolina

  April 1861

  The room was still dark when the first cannon fired. The explosion jolted Kitty awake and for a moment she forgot where she was. She sat up on her pallet, her heart thudding, and saw bright flashes of light outside the window. Then she remembered saying good-bye to Delia and Grady, and leaving Beaufort to travel back to Massa Goodman’s Charleston town house with Missy. A moment later, Kitty heard three more explosions. The floor trembled and the windows rattled with every boom.

  “Kitty!” Missy Claire called in a frightened voice. “Light the lamps! Hurry!”

  Kitty scrambled to obey. This was why Missy had insisted that Kitty sleep on the floor of her room all night instead of out back in the slaves’ quarters. She saw Missy sitting upright in the big feather bed, clutching the covers to her bosom.

  “Fetch my robe and shoes,” she said. “I want to go out on the piazza and see what’s going on.”

  Kitty put on her own shawl and went outside to stand beside Missy on the third-floor porch. They both shivered in the early dawn air. Out in the harbor in front of them, the horizon glowed like a sheet of orange flame. Battery after battery of heavy guns pounded Fort Sumter with a rumbling, thundering noise that never ceased. Kitty could see cannon fire pouring into the distant fort from three sides.

  Massa Goodman joined them a moment later, wrapping one arm around his daughter’s shoulders as they stared into the distance. “Well, it has begun,” he said grimly. “The war is on.”

  Kitty had stood here with Missy and her father last evening and heard him explain the coming battle. Rebel forces were stationed on Morris Island and James Island on their right, at Castle Pinkney and Fort Ripley in front of them, and at Mount Pleasant and Sullivan’s Island on their left. Fort Sumter was nearly surrounded as all these batteries aimed their cannons at it, demanding surrender by four o’clock in the morning on April 12. Missy’s new husband was out in the middle of it all, stationed with the Beaufort Artillery at a place called Fort Stevens on Morris Island. His sons were among the cadets from the Citadel who manned guns in White Point Gardens, just down the street from the house. They would fire on any warships that sailed past the batteries and into the harbor to bombard the city.

  As the cannonading continued, dense smoke filled the horizon, shielding everything from view, at times, except flashes of fire. Kitty thought that the dull gray color of the sky and the water and the smoke was a good color to paint death and destruction. It was the color of tombstones. Only the brilliant
speckles of red and orange from exploding shells and flames relieved the gloom.

  Eventually she went back inside with Missy to help her dress. But Missy wouldn’t eat, worried as she was about her husband. The bombardment went on and on, until it seemed to Kitty that the whole city of Charleston shook like an earthquake.

  Later that morning, Massa Goodman’s friends and family members began to arrive, gathering on the piazzas to watch the battle out in the harbor. They talked in quiet, grave voices, as if at a funeral. On the streets below, masses of people crowded along the promenade to watch. They’d done the same thing last evening as they’d waited for the battle to begin. Now it had, and spectators packed every rooftop and piazza and street along the waterfront.

  Hours passed as the deafening noise continued. Kitty could see streaks of flame and smoke shooting out from the fort as Union soldiers returned fire on the ring of batteries surrounding them. The air was thick with the smell of gunpowder and smoke. Missy Claire’s sisters and aunts and cousins huddled together, weeping for all their loved ones who were taking part in the battle.

  “I can’t bear this terrible waiting,” one of her cousins moaned. “If only we would hear some news.”

  “I wish Roger had never left Beaufort,” Missy wept. “Why did he have to come here to fight?”

  Kitty had heard Massa Roger explain the reason to Missy when they were still home in Beaufort. “The U.S. government is trying to send a ship to resupply Fort Sumter,” he’d said. “The Rebels ordered them to abandon the fort or face hostile fire.” Massa’s artillery unit had been needed to help force the Yankees to surrender.

  But Delia had offered a different explanation. “The Lord’s hearing our prayers,” she’d told the slaves as they’d gathered in the kitchen in Beaufort. “That’s what this is all about, not some silly old fort. There’s a bunch of good Christian folks up north who been working hard to set us all free. The slave owners here in South Carolina know that, and they all fighting to keep us slaves.”

  Kitty missed Delia. She missed Grady, too. They hadn’t been allowed to come to Charleston. As she stood on the piazza of the Goodmans’ town house, Kitty didn’t think that the little fort out in the harbor looked like it was worth fighting for. She listened to the rolling boom of artillery fire and the women weeping, and she wondered how it would all end. Was all this noise and fear necessary just so Missy and the others could keep their slaves?

  “I can’t watch anymore,” Missy said. But she stayed anyway, twisting her handkerchief in her hands.

  “Can I get you anything, Missy Claire?” Kitty asked.

  “No! This is all your fault!”

  Kitty knew she didn’t mean it. Missy Claire was just upset because Massa Fuller was out there where all the shooting was going on. Kitty wondered what it would be like if Grady was fighting in a war, being shot at this way. What if she didn’t know if he were dead or alive—or if she would ever see him again? The thought upset her. Even though they’d only been married a short 190 time, even though it wasn’t a real marriage like Missy Claire’s, she still cared about Grady. And she believed that he cared for her, too. He’d given up all his other girlfriends just for her. That meant something, didn’t it?

  “Why can’t the North just leave us alone instead of trying to interfere with our way of life?” Missy said. “It’s none of their business if you’re my slave,” she told Kitty.

  “Save your breath,” Missy’s cousin said, comforting her. “Slaves are too stupid to even understand what we’re talking about.”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” another cousin said. “I saw a bunch of our slaves whispering together this morning. I think they’re just biding their time, waiting to start an uprising. They may act stupid, but they hate us, you know.”

  “No, they don’t.”

  But Kitty knew at least one slave who did. Grady hated white folks enough to murder them all in their beds.

  Missus Goodman joined the little group to try to comfort Missy. “Maybe you should go inside and lie down, Claire.”

  “That won’t help. I can still hear the battle. Oh, why didn’t Roger take an exemption, like Father did? He owns more than twenty slaves. He didn’t have to be drafted.”

  “You’re just going to get yourself all worked up for nothing,” Missus Goodman said.

  “It’s hardly nothing, Mother. If Roger dies, then I’ll have nothing. Everything will go to his son, Ellis, instead of to me. Not only that, but I’ll have to be in mourning for at least a year. I won’t be able to remarry for ages.”

  A prickle of fear shuddered through Kitty at her words. If Massa Fuller died, Grady would belong to one owner and she to another. They would be torn apart, just as her parents had been. Like Missy Claire, Kitty began to fear for Massa’s life, too.

  “As soon as this ends, you’d better hurry up and have a son,” Mrs. Goodman told Missy. “He won’t be Roger’s firstborn, but at least he’ll be entitled to a portion of his estate.”

  “I’m doing the best I can, Mother.”

  A while later, Massa Goodman pulled out his pocket watch. “Well, it’s been going on for twelve hours now,” he announced, “and there’s still no sign of a surrender.”

  “Maybe there’s no one alive over there to raise the flag,” one of the men said. “We’ve been pouring thousands of rounds of ammunition into the place.”

  “No, they’re still firing back,” another gentleman said. “Here, see for yourself.” He offered his opera glasses to Massa Goodman for a better look.

  “Yes, it looks like the Yankees are pounding Fort Moultrie at the moment. I wonder how much longer this will go on.”

  Kitty wondered, too. She was tired of standing outside on the piazza, tired of the noise and the smoke and the fear. She wanted Massa to come back safely so she could go home to Beaufort. The thought startled her. Was Beaufort her home? She had lived there for only a few months—how had it become home to her already? Kitty knew the answer: Grady and Delia were there.

  Just before dinner, a messenger finally arrived with some news. “There have been no injuries at any of our batteries on Morris and Sullivan’s Islands,” he announced. A cheer went up from the little group. “Fort Stevens was hit several times, but there was no damage and no casualties. That means Roger is fine.”

  Missy’s knees went weak with relief. She fell into her mother’s arms in a swoon. Kitty ran inside to fetch the smelling salts.

  By six o’clock it had begun to rain, and everyone moved indoors. It was still storming at bedtime, the wind whipping tree branches against the house and lashing rain against the windows. But the terrible bombardment never let up. Missy ordered Kitty to remain with her for the night, sleeping on the floor beside the bed again, in case she was needed. Kitty curled up with a blanket, but she didn’t sleep. At dawn, a full day after the first cannon had fired, the battle still raged.

  The storm had cleared away much of the smoke, and the sky was so brilliantly blue it made Kitty’s chest ache. One of Massa Goodman’s relatives set up a telescope on the piazza, and the men took turns gazing through it, describing what they saw to the anxious ladies.

  “Sumter’s on fire. There’s a lot of black smoke, and I think I see flames… . Yes, I definitely see flames.”

  The ladies cheered delicately and clapped their hands.

  “Looks like three or four Union ships are anchored out there beyond the bar, but they don’t seem inclined to join the battle.”

  “That’s because they know we’ll blow them out of the water if they come within range.”

  Massa Goodman was peering through the telescope after lunch when Kitty heard him exclaim, “Look! They’ve taken down the Stars and Stripes! They’re flying the white flag!”

  “No! Are you sure?”

  “Yes! Yes! See for yourself!”

  Kitty’s heart pounded with excitement and hope. Maybe now all this terrible worrying would end. Massa would come back, and they could all return home to Beaufort.
Missy would have a baby, and maybe Grady would change his mind and give Kitty one, too.

  The bombardment slowed to a halt. Then silence. The terrible shooting had finally stopped. The hush seemed eerie after a day and a half of thunderous noise. Everyone waited for the smoke to clear.

  “The white flag is definitely flying,” Massa Goodman said. “And I can see a ship of truce heading toward the fort.”

  It was over. As soon as Missy Claire received the news that there had been no fatalities on either side, she went to her room, lay down on her bed, and wept. Church bells pealed all over the city, and the cadets in White Point Gardens sent up a seven-gun salute, one for each state in the new Confederacy. Massa Goodman and all the other gentlemen hurried to the docks, boarding any ship they could find to sail out to the victorious batteries to celebrate.

  When Kitty went outside to the kitchen for dinner, she found the mood among the slaves quiet and subdued. “What do you think all this excitement means?” she asked them.

  Albert the coachman sighed. “It means we’re all gonna be slaves a while longer,” he said.

  On Sunday afternoon, just as Kitty was leaving the house with Missy Claire to watch the cadets’ dress parade at White Point Gardens, a carriage pulled to a halt in front of the house. Massa Fuller stepped out, his face dirty, his nice new uniform smudged with soot. Kitty felt as relieved to see him as her mistress did. Claire ran into his arms.

  “Thank God you’re safe, Roger. And thank God it’s over.”

  “Yes, but I’m afraid it has only begun, Claire. There’s likely to be a full-scale war now.”

  His words sent a tremor of fear through Kitty. She thought she understood now what a war was all about—bombs falling and guns shooting, the endless waiting and uncertainty and fear. The past few days had been frightening enough for all of them. She didn’t want to think about an entire future spent that way.

  “But at least we won the first battle,” Massa Roger said, smiling. “God willing, we’ll win all the rest of them, too.”