A Light to My Path

by Lynn Austin

  “Remember what you told me about the fighting up in Charleston? How you was standing on that porch, not able to see what’s going on? This here’s the same thing. We’re standing in the smoke, hearing the noise all around us, and we don’t know what God’s doing because we can’t see things as clearly as He sees them. But He’s gonna make everything turn out okay when the smoke clears. When it does, God’s gonna be the winner and all our suffering here on earth is gonna finally make sense. We’re gonna look in Jesus’ face and say, ‘O Lord, it was worth it all.’”

  “What should I do about Missy Claire? She’s real mad at me, Delia. I can tell.”

  “She’ll get over it. Sooner or later she’ll figure out that she can’t be snapping her fingers and making somebody have a baby just because she wants them to.”

  “And what about Grady?”

  “Don’t be tempting that poor boy no more, honey. He’s already carrying around a load that’s much too big for his shoulders.”

  Kitty began to cry again as soon as she was alone. If only Grady were here to hold her in the darkness. If only they could have a baby like Missy wanted them to. Maybe then this terrible dread Kitty felt would finally go away.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Beaufort, South Carolina

  November 1861

  The fall Sunday had started out so perfectly, Kitty thought. The weather was sunny and clear, Massa Fuller and Grady were home after being gone for a week, and Missy Claire’s morning sickness had finally passed—and with it, her threats and crabby moods. Kitty helped Missy get dressed in one of her newly altered dresses, and she and Massa Fuller went to church together to pray with the other white folks about the war. Kitty sat outside on the carriage seat beside Grady, listening to the distant organ music and sketching the pretty white church with its graceful steeple. As Grady watched her, they talked quietly, the way they used to talk in Charleston. Kitty felt happier than she had in many months.

  Then the white folks began streaming from the church, their faces grim, their voices grave and subdued. The seed of fear that had first taken root in Kitty’s stomach at the battle for Fort Sumter sprouted anew. She could tell by the way the white folks acted that things were about to change again. The war must have worsened. The happiness she felt was about to vanish.

  “Pay attention to what they say at lunch,” Grady whispered to her on the drive home. He’d been trying to follow the war’s progress, eavesdropping on Massa’s conversations as he drove him around Beaufort or out to the fort. He wanted Delia and Kitty to do the same, to remember every detail they heard about the battles that had been fought and who had won them.

  “It’s important that the Union wins,” Grady had told them at breakfast this morning.

  “But that means that Massa Fuller and his sons have to lose,” Delia replied.

  “Yes,” Grady said, “but if they lose, there’s a chance we’ll all go free.”

  Delia shook her head. “Much as I want to be free,” she said sadly, “you know I been raising Massa and his boys since they was tiny babies. I don’t want to see any of them hurt.”

  “They started this war,” Grady said stubbornly. “They knew what they were getting into.”

  Massa Fuller invited another soldier home for dinner after church, so Kitty had a chance to hear some of the news. They ate in the big dining room, even though there were only three people at the huge table. Kitty helped Martin serve the food, then stood aside, listening.

  “Tell us what you know for certain, Lawrence,” Massa Fuller said as he cut into a slice of ham. “We’ve heard all the rumors.”

  “For certain? The Union armada sailed from Hampton Roads with more than sixty vessels,” he said.

  “Sixty,” Massa repeated. “Warships, I presume?”

  “Yes, and troop ships.” He reached for another biscuit. “We don’t know which city they plan to attack, of course. Charleston … Savannah … perhaps even Beaufort. So we must all remain on the alert.”

  Massa Fuller nodded. “They announced in church this morning that we should be prepared to evacuate the town on a moment’s notice, if necessary.”

  Kitty wondered how they could sit here eating so calmly as they discussed the possibility of an enemy attack. Sixty warships sounded like a lot to her. She must remember the number so she could tell Grady later.

  “Reverend Walker said they would ring the church bells tomorrow at noon,” Missy added. “He told us that with Union troops approaching, we need to gather in our homes for prayer.”

  “I hate having my family so scattered,” Massa said.

  “Where are your two boys, Roger? They’re not old enough to fight yet, are they?”

  “My older son, Ellis, is. He joined a South Carolina regiment and was sent north to Virginia. He fought in the Battle of Manassas last July, in fact, and now he’s part of our defense forces up there.

  My other son, John, is still a cadet at the Citadel in Charleston.”

  “You’re from Charleston aren’t you, Mrs. Fuller?” Lawrence asked.

  “My father has a town house there, but also a plantation on the Edisto River.”

  “I assume you’ll go to Charleston if you have to evacuate?”

  “I don’t think it will be necessary for her to go that far,” Massa Fuller said before Missy could answer. “Not in her delicate condition. I thought perhaps you could go to my plantation for a few days, dear,” he said, turning to Missy. “I’m sure it won’t be for long—a week at the most.”

  “Then why go away at all?” she asked.

  Massa exchanged a quick, worried glance with his guest. “Well, we’re quite certain that the forts will remain secure,” Lawrence explained, “but one of our fears is that a warship might slip past them and sail up the Beaufort River to bombard the town from offshore.”

  Kitty recalled the horrific bombing of Fort Sumter, and the thought of all those flaming shells falling from the sky onto Beaufort made her want to pack up and run right now. From the expression she saw on Missy’s face, she knew her mistress felt the same way.

  “The evacuation is only a safety precaution,” Massa said. “Everyone expects to return once the Yankees are chased away.”

  Missy smiled uncertainly. “I’m not sure what to pack, in that case.” “Not much, dear,” Fuller said. “Some personal belongings and any small valuables. The furniture and silver and so forth can remain here. Jim and Minnie and the others will look after things.”

  “Unfortunately, our most valuable resources can’t be moved out of harm’s way,” Lawrence said, “our land, our field slaves, our crops. And since they can’t be moved, our way of life depends on protecting them at all costs.”

  When the dinner was finished, Massa Fuller signaled to his butler. “We’ll have our coffee now, Martin.”

  “Sorry, sir. But I don’t think we got any more.”

  “Yes, I’m sorry, Roger,” Missy said, “but supplies have been very difficult to get since the Union blockade began.”

  “I’ll see that you get some coffee,” Lawrence said. “I have connections.” “You may bring us our dessert now, Kitty,” Missy said. “And kindly clear the table.”

  Kitty quickly gathered their dishes and hurried downstairs with them to the warming kitchen. When she returned to the dining room with dessert a few minutes later, another uniformed gentleman had joined them. His arrival raised the level of fear and tension in the room, as if the newcomer had poured turpentine on a comfortably blazing fire.

  “I’m so sorry to disturb your dinner,” Kitty heard him say, “but I’m afraid the message is rather urgent. Both of you gentlemen are needed at once. We just received confirmation that the Union fleet has sailed past Charleston and is heading farther south as we speak.”

  “Coming here?” Missy asked with a look of alarm.

  “I’m afraid it is a very real possibility,” the gentleman said. “We’re warning the citizens in Beaufort and the surrounding Sea Islands to be prepared to evacuate
their homes and plantations on short notice.”

  The beautiful, flawless day shattered completely. The horror of Fort Sumter that Kitty had witnessed from afar was about to be unleashed on her and on the people she loved. She wanted to run now, not wait.

  Massa Fuller was already on his feet. He came around the table to help Missy Claire with her chair. “Lawrence and I are going to have to leave for the fort at once,” he told her. “You understand, don’t you, dear? The servants will take good care of you. You’ll be fine. There’s nothing to worry about, I assure you.”

  “If you have any type of sailing vessel,” the newcomer added, “and any Negroes you can spare, kindly bring them. We’re assembling a flotilla at Seaside Plantation on St. Helena Island to evacuate our soldiers from Fort Beauregard, if it becomes necessary.”

  “Yes, of course. I’ll take Martin and Jim with me,” Massa told Missy Claire. “I’ll leave Grady here to drive you to the plantation.”

  “And what if the fort falls?” she asked. “Will you join me at the plantation?”

  He frowned as he shook his head. “If we’re forced to retreat, our unit will be reassigned to the mainland to protect the Charleston & Savannah Railroad. I’m sorry, Claire, but I’m afraid that I’m committed to this war until it’s over.”

  Kitty followed Massa Fuller outside as he collected Martin and Jim, and gave instructions to the rest of his slaves before leaving. “You must be prepared to get my wife out of Beaufort if the battle starts,” he told them. “I’m confident that it will only be for a short while. Once we’ve chased away the Yanks like we did at Sumter, you can all return. Minnie, I know you’ll take care of things here while we’re away. Grady, I’m trusting you to drive your mistress to safety. You know the way home to the plantation. Take good care of her, Delia. You too, Kitty.”

  His words eased some of the sick feeling in Kitty’s stomach. At least her own little family would remain together. But as she watched Missy Claire and Minnie saying tearful good-byes to their husbands, Kitty couldn’t help wondering about her future with Grady.

  She was in the warming kitchen, fixing Missy’s breakfast tray the next day when sounds of distant artillery fire echoed through Beaufort for the first time. “I know what that is,” she told the others. “It’s cannons. That’s just what it sounded like when the battle at Fort Sumter started.”

  Missy was already out of bed by the time Kitty reached her room. “I don’t know what to pack,” she said. “You have to help me.” She looked as frightened and forlorn as a small child. She stood in the center of the room in her bare feet, her arms folded around her middle as if trying to shield her unborn baby from harm. In an instant, Kitty’s heart went out to her mistress. She quickly forgot all the times Missy had been mean to her, forgot all about Missy’s threats to send her back to Slave Row, and silently vowed to do whatever she could to protect Missy and her baby.

  “Of course I’ll help you, Missy. You sit down now, and eat a little something for that baby’s sake. I’ll bet he’s hungry even if you ain’t. You leave all the packing to me.”

  She steered Claire back into bed and settled the breakfast tray on her lap, then glanced around the room at all of Missy’s things, wondering where to begin.

  “Roger said to take only the essentials,” Missy said. She sounded dazed. Her usual sharp tone and demanding manner had vanished, turning her into an altogether different person. For some reason, this woman frightened Kitty even more than the real Claire did.

  “Yes, ma’am. Which carriage are we taking? I can pack your big steamer trunk or a bunch of smaller satchels, but I need to know how much room there’s gonna be.”

  Missy shook her head, staring blindly at the window across the room as if trying to see the distant warships through the drawn curtains. Kitty went to her side and placed the fork in her icy fingers. “Here, you better eat them eggs before they get cold. I’ll go down and ask Grady which carriage we’re taking.”

  He wasn’t in the kitchen or in the yard. Kitty hurried into the stable, thinking he might be with his horses. “Grady?” she called out.

  “Up here,” he replied.

  She hurried up the steep steps to their room and saw him carefully removing all of Kitty’s pictures from the walls. He’d asked her if he could have them right after they had jumped the broom, and he’d pinned them up on all the walls himself.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Packing. I ain’t leaving these behind.”

  He turned his back to remove another one, and the tenderness with which he handled it—the fact that he’d thought to pack them at all—left her speechless. For a moment she forgot why she had come.

  “You needing something?” he asked.

  “I need to know which carriage we’re taking if we have to leave Beaufort. I need to know how much of Missy’s stuff it can carry.”

  “It’s up to her. We’ll take whichever rig she orders me to take.”

  Kitty could tell by the set of his jaw that he was angry about something. She was afraid to ask what it was. “I think you’d better decide, Grady. Missy ain’t herself. The sound of them guns this morning scared her half to death.”

  “They’ve stopped now.”

  Kitty was surprised to realize that they had. She wondered what it meant. “Even so, Missy’s real worried about Massa Fuller. And her baby.”

  “Good. Let the white folks be worrying about their loved ones for once.” He turned to remove the last picture, then silently straightened them into a neat pile, aligning all the edges.

  “Can’t you just tell me which carriage we’re taking?” she asked.

  He didn’t reply. His stubbornness frustrated her.

  “Then I’ll decide,” she said quietly. “We’ll take the biggest one, okay?”

  He answered her question with a shrug. Kitty sighed and hurried back to the house.

  She and Delia were packing the last of Missy’s things into her steamer trunk later that morning when the church bells began to toll. “Does that mean something?” Delia asked with alarm. Kitty remembered what Missy had said yesterday after church.

  “It must be noon. Everybody’s supposed to stop and pray for their families at noon.”

  Missy collapsed into the slipper chair as the bells continued to toll. Tears brimmed in her eyes, then rolled down her pale face. “What am I going to do if something happens to Roger? Oh, God, I’m so alone! I wish this would end!”

  Delia knelt on the floor in front of the chair and took Missy’s hand in both of hers. “You want me to pray with you, honey?”

  “No!” she said, pushing Delia’s hands away. “If it weren’t for you Negroes, we wouldn’t be in this mess!”

  Kitty froze, fearing Delia’s reaction. But it wasn’t at all what she expected. As the little woman pulled herself to her feet again, the compassion in her eyes was genuine. “I know this is a hard, hard time for you, Missus Fuller. Me and Kitty better just go away now and let you talk to the Lord by yourself.”

  “I want Kitty to stay,” Missy said. “She’ll sleep in here with me tonight. She can fix herself a pallet on the floor.”

  A messenger came to the door a while later and told Missy that the fleet of Yankee warships had indeed massed at the entrance to Port Royal Sound. Everyone’s fear had become a reality. The warships weren’t going to attack Charleston or Savannah, but the port of Beaufort, halfway between the two cities. Confederate forces at Fort Walker and Fort Beauregard were preparing to fight to protect their city.

  For Kitty, the hardest part was waiting. After a night of restless sleep, listening for the battle to begin, she awoke to the sound of distant skirmishing. But once again, the guns fell silent a short time later. “I wonder what they’re waiting for?” Delia said at breakfast. “They gonna fight or ain’t they?”

  “Maybe the Yanks are waiting for more ships to arrive,” Grady said.

  Kitty stayed by Missy Claire’s side for another long day and night, the distan
t guns ominously silent. On Wednesday a storm struck, and Kitty imagined the Yankee ships being forced to ride it out, tossing like toy boats on the darkened sea. The rain was still falling in sheets that afternoon when she and Missy heard crowds cheering and drums beating a few blocks away in downtown Beaufort. “Go see what happened,” Missy ordered.

  Kitty wrapped a shawl around her shoulders and ran outside into the cold rain. She was soaked and shivering by the time she returned home with the news.

  “It’s a whole bunch of fresh soldiers,” she told Missy through chattering teeth. “They come all the way down from Columbia to help out at Fort Beauregard. Somebody said that a thousand volunteers came up from Savannah, too, during the night. Massa Fuller gonna have plenty of help now, don’t you worry.”

  Missy smiled for the first time in days. “God is answering our prayers,” she said. “Those Yankees will turn and run just like they did at Manassas.” Even so, Kitty had trouble sleeping that night, her stomach twisting like a dishrag as she imagined bombs falling on the town.

  The storm ended during the night, and a brilliant sun dawned on Thursday morning. Kitty halted on her way outside to the kitchen for Missy’s breakfast, dazzled by millions of tiny rainbows of color and light that sparkled from all the water droplets. She was still savoring the beautiful sight when she heard the first explosions. This time they didn’t stop. The long-awaited battle for Beaufort had begun. Massa Fuller’s town house was farther away from the forts than Massa Goodman’s house had been from Fort Sumter, and there was no view of the fighting this time, but the rumble of battle was unmistakable. Kitty turned around and ran straight upstairs to her mistress.

  “Oh, God,” Missy moaned. “Oh, God, they aren’t going to stop this time, are they? It’s going to be a terrible battle and … and Roger is in the middle of it all.”

  Kitty slid open the jib window and they went outside together to stand on the upstairs piazza, gazing toward the harbor. The only thing they could see through the moss-draped tree branches was a billowing cloud of smoke, rising in the distance. When the cannonading grew to a continual roar, all of Beaufort’s church bells began to ring. Missy stood frozen in place, her face pale with fear, her hands resting protectively against her stomach.