by Ginny Dye
Moses took his first easy breath when they were behind the closed gates, but he knew it was just a matter of time before violence exploded again. The police were certain to retaliate now that one of their own had been killed. Many of the soldiers from the Third were still in the streets. His gut told him they would catch the worst of it, but he knew it would be nothing but foolishness to venture out again.
He hurried to the top of the fort walls. Soon the walls were lined with soldiers peering over to watch the action in the streets below.
Matthew, Robert, Peter and Crandall were eating an early dinner about five o’clock when they saw a crush of people moving down the street toward South Memphis. They knew from the angry expressions that something bad had happened. Exchanging anxious looks, they pushed back from the table, and rushed out of the restaurant.
Robert grabbed the arm of one passerby. “What has happened?”
“The niggers are rioting,” the man sputtered, his eyes wild with anger.
“They shot down a policeman,” another man offered as he moved with the crowd. “The policemen have sworn revenge. They are going to shoot down the damned niggers!” His eyes glittered with satisfaction. “It’s about time something was done. The police aren’t going on their own. We’re going to help them!”
Robert and the other men remained on the sidewalk, watching with dismay as the crowd grew to hundreds of white people. With what he could tell from appearances and accents, all of them appeared to be working-class Irish. And all of them seemed to have guns.
“It’s beginning,” Matthew said grimly.
Robert nodded. “Moses is down there.” His stomach clenched at the thought of something happening to him. The man who had once saved his life and had since become his good friend, was about to be in grave danger. He shook his head. “We should have left yesterday like we planned in the beginning.”
Matthew sighed regretfully. “I’m afraid you’re right. I wish I hadn’t agreed to Eaton’s request to stay longer.”
“We all agreed to it,” Robert said quickly. “No one is to blame.” He turned stared in the direction of the fort. “We can’t leave Moses down there on his own,” he said grimly.
“This crowd is waiting for the police to lead them,” Matthew said urgently, his eyes scanning the street. “Perhaps we can get there first and find Moses.”
Peter nodded. “Go,” he said urgently. “Crandall and I will find Eaton. If anyone will know the truth of what is going on, it will be him. We’ll connect at our hotel later. I’m sure Eaton won’t return home tonight, so you might as well stay with us.”
Robert turned and started running. He felt Matthew fall in beside him as they dodged wagons and traffic, intent on making it to South Memphis before the bloodthirsty crowd did. When they turned onto Causey Street, they encountered another large crowd of police and white citizens surging south.
“That’s Chief Garrett,” Matthew gasped. “Perhaps he can maintain control.”
It took Robert only moments of watching the crowd to realize they were looking at anything but a cohesive, disciplined force. He shook his head, forcing himself to run faster. “They’re in no mood to take orders,” he snapped. “They are out of control.”
Suddenly he saw two black men heading toward them, lunch pails swinging in their hands, obviously coming home from work. Robert opened his mouth to yell a warning, but it was too late. Several of the police rushed toward the men who were staring back at them with wide, frightened eyes. The men turned to run, but the crowd fell on them like wild dogs. They attacked them with their billy clubs and pistols, clubbing them until both men fell on the street.
“Kill every nigger,” one of the policemen shouted. “No matter who — man or woman!”
Robert watched the violence grimly. “We should help them,” he muttered, feeling sick at the sight of the men’s battered faces.
Matthew grabbed his arm firmly. “Help will come. We have to reach Moses. This has just turned from an angry crowd into a homicidal mob. There will be no stopping them now.”
Robert took a deep breath and started running again. It was to their benefit that the crowd assumed they were part of them. Now he could only hope they would outrun them. He groaned when many of the men in the mob pulled out pistols and began firing bullets in every direction, but he kept running. “Do what I do,” he hollered back to Matthew, dodging and feinting as he moved down the street, hampered by the mud, but managing to stay at the front of the crowd. He pushed back terrifying flashes of the battlefield, focusing on the need to reach Moses.
Robert slowed and looked around wildly as the mob approached the intersection of South Street and Rayburn. The area was crowded with black people merely going about their business. Surely they had heard the guns. Why were they calmly moving down the street? He watched the expressions on their faces melt into fear and confusion when the firing resumed. Every black person in sight turned and began to run down Rayburn, many of them heading across the eastern branch of the bayou. “Run!” he whispered urgently. He turned to Matthew. “What is the fastest way to the fort? I’m hoping Moses expected trouble and has gone there.”
Just as Matthew pointed west down South Street, Robert saw a man burst from the grocery store on the southwest corner of the intersection. “Isn’t that the man you interviewed a couple days ago?” he asked.
Matthew nodded. “John Pendergrast. He’s the Irishman who owns that grocery store. He’s looking for trouble,” he added grimly. “He told me he’s been prepared for trouble ever since some blacks tried to burgle his store. He ran them off, but now that there is a mob, he will be dangerous. He’s been looking for payback for months.”
Robert turned to run toward the fort, but something held him in place. He watched as Pendergrast followed the crowd of rioters and the blacks who were fleeing. The grocer advanced on a man running about twenty feet in front of the rest of the mob, almost directly across from where Robert and Matthew were standing. Pendergrast raised his pistol, aimed, and shot the fleeing man in the back of his head. Robert groaned as the man pitched face forward into the street.
Pendergrast rushed forward with a triumphant expression, grabbed his victim’s arm, and rolled him over. “Blast it!” he muttered. “I am sorry I shot this man. I thought he was a no-good nigger man.”
“Idiot!” Matthew exclaimed. “He just shot Henry Dunn. He’s a fireman. I met him when I went by one of the fire stations with Eaton.”
Pendergrast looked up wildly. “Them niggers will pay for this,” he growled.
Robert stood frozen in place as he watched Pendergrast run toward the bayou, advancing on a short black man in army uniform. Evidently the grocer had decided more violence was the way to atone for his murderous mistake.
“Hey, you!” Pendergrast called. “Come back here. You will not be harmed.”
The soldier slowed, stopped, and turned back, his eyes wide with uncertainty.
Robert exchanged a quick look with Matthew. “Is he telling the truth?” There was so much chaotic confusion that he couldn’t make sense of what was happening, but the tightness in his gut told him the black man was walking into a trap. He opened his mouth to holler a warning, not caring if it opened him to suspicion. Again, he was too late.
As the soldier approached, a pleading expression on his face, Pendergrast smirked, pulled his pistol, and shot him in the face. Another policeman, seeing the soldier fall, put a bullet into his side. “We got him!” Pendergrast howled, rushing forward to hammer the fallen soldier’s head with his pistol. Then he straightened and walked away.
Robert felt sick. He saw two more blacks in uniform on the ground, presumably dead. He had not seen one black fire a gun or offer any resistance at all. “This is nothing but a slaughter,” he growled.
Matthew pressed his arm. “We have to get out of here,” he said urgently. “It’s only going to get crazier. Right now they are only shooting blacks in uniform, but that could change. Come on!”
R
obert pushed down the bile in his stomach and started running again. Moments later they broke out onto South Street.
Matthew’s prophecy came true.
The mob quickly spread east and west along the street, shooting and beating any black person they came upon. Crazy yelling and pistol fire added to the chaos as black people fled, many of them screaming with terror. A young servant collapsed on the sidewalk, blood streaming from a gaping wound. A teenage boy fell in the street, lifting his hand for help as the mob ran past. One man stopped to give him a brutal kick in the head. The boy’s hand dropped.
Robert and Matthew pressed up against the side of a building, watching helplessly as black people continued to fall. Soldiers were the primary target, but no one was exempt. “We have to stop this!” Robert gasped.
“Why would you want to stop it?” a voice snarled.
Robert whipped his head around, just then realizing there were many white people pressed against the buildings. Instead of the horror he was feeling, most of the faces reflected angry satisfaction. The man who had spoken to him was rotund and bald, his blue eyes glittering with something that looked like glee. Robert scowled. “It’s wrong,” he said angrily.
The glittering eyes flattened to a deadly cobalt as the man stared at him. “You some kind of nigger lover?”
Robert, in spite of his fury, quickly realized he and Matthew could also be in danger if he said what he was thinking. They had come to get Moses. They would do him no good if they were hurt or killed. They had fought their way out of messes since their college days together but taking on a mob was foolish. He merely shrugged, exchanged a glance with Matthew, and then moved out into the street, walking rapidly toward the fort. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw blacks coming out to gather up the fallen, but his relief died quickly when he acknowledged that most of them must surely be dead.
Moses felt sick to his stomach as he listened from his place on the wall. He couldn’t see much of what was going on, but the fusillade of bullets and the screams told their own story. Most of the men had been called into their barracks, but Moses, not being part of the unit, had been left alone. Anger and pain warred in him, pulling up memories and depths of feeling he had been trying to tamp down since the end of the war. He tried to force himself to breathe evenly, but his chest heaved with raw emotion.
His attention was caught by a flash of movement across the street from the fort gate. As he watched, he saw a man in uniform peer around the corner and then dash across the road toward the fort, terror written all over his face. Moses slid off the wall and hurried down to the gate just in time to see them open enough for the man to slip through. Only then did he recognize him as one of the soldiers he had met his first day at the fort. “Frank Williams?”
Frank whirled around, his lean face coated with dust. “Moses!” His face twisted with agony. “How many of the fellas are here?”
“Most of them,” Moses assured him. “What’s happening out there?”
“It’s bad,” Frank said grimly. “I was downtown when I heard rumors of a riot. I decided to check it out for myself. When I got to Main I found a bunch of police and white people attacking blacks. Then I saw Jimmy…” His breath caught. “We done served together since they let us in the army. They shot him, Moses. I watched him fall.” He shook his head. “I wanted to help him, but then I saw them shoot another soldier. I ran,” he mumbled, shame mixed with the pain in his eyes.
Moses gripped his arm. “You were wise to get out of there. Your uniform makes you a target.”
“That’s what I figured,” Frank agreed. “I got out of there as quick as I could. I knew I had to get to the fort. I ran down a cross street to Shelby, but I done found another group of people killing blacks.” His voice broke off as he shuddered. “Somehow I got away and came here.”
By the time he was finished with his report, many of his comrades had gathered around. Their faces were grim as they listened.
“We got to get out there!” one exclaimed. “My family be out there.”
“We can’t leave our families out there while we hide away like cowards!” another cried angrily.
Colonel Kappner, once the commander of the Third, walked up from behind them. “You all have to stay in the fort,” he ordered. “More black soldiers on the street will only stoke the violence. I know you’re frightened for your families, but your presence could just put them more in danger.”
Moses, knowing he was right, watched the men’s faces. He could tell Kappner’s warning had gotten through to some of them but angry agitation filled most of the faces as the muttering continued. Some of the men returned to their barracks, but about one hundred of them continued to mill around in confused indecision.
It was Roy who finally stepped forward to take control. “We ain’t in the army anymore,” he hollered loudly. “Ain’t no one can tell us what to do. Especially when they ain’t paid us for six months! I ain’t hiding out in this fort while my wife and children are gunned down.”
Moses understood why Colonel Kappner wanted them to stay in the fort, but he also couldn’t blame Roy for what he was feeling. He would never stay in the fort if he knew Rose, John, and Hope were in danger. The not knowing would kill him, and if something were to happen to them, the guilt would eat him alive.
“That’s right!” another man cried, rushing toward the gate. Within moments, the one hundred men who had been milling around followed him.
“You coming, Moses?” Roy challenged.
Moses shook his head slowly. As appalled as he was by what was happening, and as certain as he was that nothing would keep him inside if Rose and his children were in Memphis, he also knew it would serve no purpose for him to join in the riot. “No.”
Roy’s lip curled as he stared at him. “I thought you came to help us.” His voice was thick with contempt.
Moses understood his anger. There was a part of him that wanted to join in the melee. He welcomed the opportunity to release his anguish and anger with violence. Another part of him, the part that compelled him to stay in the fort, was telling him this was not the battle he was meant to fight. He didn’t understand it, but he couldn’t ignore the certainty he felt. “Be careful,” was all he said.
Roy glared at him and then turned to run through the gate, pulling out the pistol he had tucked in his waistband.
Moses watched him go, exchanged a long, sad look with Colonel Kappner, and then walked slowly to his scouting position on the wall. He no longer knew what he was looking for, but it felt better than hiding out in the barracks.
Robert and Matthew were close to the fort when they saw the gates burst open and discharge a large group of black soldiers. Instinctively, they ducked into a narrow opening between two buildings. They had seen no more white rioters in the past several blocks, but they didn’t know what was going on behind them.
Robert peered into the group, frantic to know what was happening with Moses but also hoping he was not with the soldiers obviously intent on retaliation. In spite of the fact that Moses was not in uniform, his massive size would make him an easy target. He breathed easier when he didn’t see his friend, but fresh worries over whether Moses had already been wounded or killed filled him.
“Right now we’re nothing but white men,” Matthew observed quietly. “I don’t know how we’re going to find Moses. At this very moment we’re just an easy target.” He glanced at the darkening sky. “We don’t want to be trapped down here at night.”
“And I’m not at all sure we want to follow the soldiers,” Robert replied. “I don’t think they would give us time to explain who we are.” He managed to grin. “We’ve found ourselves in some interesting positions, my friend, but I’m not sure how to get out of this one.”
Matthew nodded, his eyes fixed on the fort. “We take refuge in the fort,” he said grimly.
“Peter and Crandall will be worried,” Robert protested.
“Worry is better than grief,” Matthew said shortly. “Moses is
smart. My bet is that he’s in the fort.”
“And if he’s not?”
“Then there is nothing else we can do tonight anyway,” Matthew said heavily. “I was the one who brought all of you to Memphis. The least I can do is try to get us out alive.”
“Robert! Matthew!”
Robert jerked his head around when he heard his name. His face split into a broad grin when he saw Moses peering down at them from the fort walls.
“I do believe we found Moses,” Matthew gasped with relief.
Checking to make sure no one was close by, the two men ran across the street and rapped on the fort gate.
It swung open immediately, but their way was blocked by two grim-faced soldiers. “Who are you?” one of them snapped.
“Friends of mine,” came the reply as Moses stepped into the light cast by the lanterns shining down on the yard.
The two soldiers, both white men from the Sixteenth Battalion, relaxed a little but held their guns ready. “That right?” one questioned.
Robert nodded. “Moses came to Memphis with us. When we heard about the riot, we came down to find him.”
The soldier who was speaking smirked. “Moses used to be your slave?” he questioned. “I heard some of the slaves aren’t real anxious to leave their masters. It’s good to know some of them still know their place.”
“There is not a single black person in this nation who would rather be a slave,” Matthew snapped. “The fact that you are ignorant enough to make that statement after serving with these men only shows how far we have to come. You’re a disgrace to your uniform! I’ll make sure to include your statement in my newspaper coverage of the riot, as well as the report I send to the government, Private Weathers.” He turned to Moses with a smile. “It’s good to see you, my friend. You had us worried.”
