by Lynn Austin
“He says he’s giving them five minutes to disperse or the guard will open fire. Nobody is leaving, though. The looting has stopped, but even with bayonets pointed in their faces, no one is leaving.”
The tension was as sharp and brittle as the fragments of glass beneath our feet. But before the five minutes were up and the guard would be forced to fire, President Jefferson Davis arrived. Gilbert and I edged toward the window to watch as Davis climbed onto a wagon that had been turned sideways across the street.
“Go home,” he shouted to the crowd. “The Yankees are the enemy, not one another.”
“We’re hungry!” someone called. “We can’t afford to feed ourselves or our children.”
“But if you steal,” the president replied, “then farmers won’t bring any food at all into the city. We’ll starve for certain.” He reached into his pockets and pulled out all of his change, flinging money into the street. “Here . . . take it. It’s all I have. I don’t want anyone injured, but this lawlessness must stop. You have five minutes to disperse or you will be fired upon.”
Davis took out his pocket watch and held it in his palm, waiting. The first three or four minutes seemed to pass very slowly as no one moved. Then the crowd gradually began to drift away, leaving only the Home Guard and a very relieved president and governor when the five minutes were up. I sagged onto the nearest chair, feeling weak.
“Those thieves didn’t steal your new shoes, did they, Gilbert?” I asked shakily.
“No, Missy, they right here on my feet.”
“Good.” I remembered how Gilbert had pulled me away from the flying glass, how he’d protected me from the looters, and I vowed I would repay him someday. I would help win his freedom.
“I believe we’ve done enough shopping for one day,” I told him when my strength finally returned. “Let’s go home.”
More than a month after I said good-bye to Robert, I sat in the drawing room one evening, reading one of my father’s new books, when Gilbert tiptoed into the room and whispered in my ear.
“There’s someone outside who needs to talk to you, Missy. Says he knows your friend Robert.”
Daddy, who’d had more than one after-dinner drink, was snoring loudly in a chair beside me, his book falling closed on his lap. I followed Gilbert out to the backyard.
The middle-aged man waiting for me in the shadows by the carriage house was beefy and florid-faced, with reddish hair and beard. He wore suspenders and a shopkeeper’s apron and smelled very strongly of fish.
“My name’s Ferguson,” he said, lifting his hat. “A Lieutenant Robert Hoffman sent me a message saying I should contact you.”
“Where is Robert? Does this mean he made it home safely?”
“I have no idea. I never met the gentleman. And the less you and I know about each other, the better. My contact in Washington said to tell you he spoke to the lieutenant. Said maybe you’d be willing to supply us with some information that would be useful to our cause.”
I suddenly felt as though a million eyes and ears were watching us, listening to us. “I don’t have any information at the moment, Mr. Ferguson. But if I did . . . how would I get it to you?”
“I sell fish at a booth in the farmers’ market on Eighteenth and Main. Know where that is?”
“Yes.”
“Fold the information inside a bank note and hand it to me when you pay for your fish.”
I glanced around nervously and saw Gilbert standing at a respectful distance, guarding me. I noticed that Ferguson had left the backyard gate open, as if prepared to flee in a hurry if he had to. I was embarking on a dangerous course.
“Is that all?” I asked.
“If either of us is caught, we’re gonna swear on our grandmother’s graves we never met.”
He tipped his hat again and hurried off into the shadows. When the gate closed quietly behind him I knew I had just opened a door through which I could never return.
Chapter Twenty-one
April 1863
On the night of my father’s party, our house seemed to come alive, like Rip Van Winkle waking from a long slumber. For the first time since the war began two years ago, we had people crowding into every downstairs room, food and spirits spread across our dining room table like a banquet, and brilliantly lit chandeliers filling every dark space with light and cheer. Tessie and Ruby served at the buffet table wearing starched white aprons. Gilbert padded among the men, refilling their glasses, the leather of his new shoes squeaking jauntily. Esther had outdone herself, cooking for days, refusing Daddy’s offers to hire an extra cook. Now, after the spectacular meal, laughter and music spilled from the drawing room as our sated guests forgot the war and their privations for a few stolen hours.
The prominence and prestige of Daddy’s friends amazed me— cabinet members, senators, army generals, city officials. The only men of importance who were missing, it seemed, were General Lee and President Davis. Of course, the St. Johns had been invited, and I was relieved to see Charles’ father laughing with mine, his suspicions and accusations seemingly forgotten.
As I circulated through the drawing room, engaging my guests in conversation, accepting their compliments and congratulations, Charles’ mother waved me over. With her was a group of government wives.
“This is a lovely party, Caroline,” Mrs. St. John said. “You’ve done a wonderful job. Caroline is engaged to my son, Charles, you know,” she bragged to the others. “She’ll be a fine asset to him someday, don’t you think?” They nodded and murmured in agreement.
One of the ladies took my hand in both of hers and pressed it warmly. “Thank you so much for a splendid evening, Miss Fletcher. My husband, Lewis, really needed this diversion. He works in the War Department, and ever since those spies were captured last week he’s been under a great deal of pressure.”
The very word spies made me shudder. I had read about their arrest in the paper.
“You mean, your husband knew that horrible Mr. Webster?” Mrs. St. John asked.
“Yes, he worked as a clerk in the War Department. We knew his wife, too. They’ve both been arrested. It seems they were both spies.”
“I heard that he was a double spy,” one of the ladies said. “He sold Yankee secrets to our government as well as selling ours to the Yankees.”
“It will all come out in the trial, I suppose. If he’s convicted of espionage he’ll be condemned to hang. No telling what they’ll do to his wife.”
“They say there are all sorts of spies living among us,” one of the generals’ wives confided. “They even come to gatherings like this one. They hear every word our leaders speak in private and take it straight to the enemy. And they do it for money—can you imagine?”
“That’s what upset my Lewis so much—the way those people deceived us all. Mr. Webster worked side-by-side with him. His wife even wore a secession badge. They worshipped with us at church, worked in the hospitals—and all this time they’ve been lying to us.”
“I think they should both hang,” the general’s wife said. “Their treachery not only cost the lives of our men on the battlefield, but it put all of us at terrible risk. If the Yankees were to take Richmond, heaven only knows what they would do to us.”
Mrs. St. John shuddered. “God will repay them for their deeds.”
I stared at the floor, terrified to meet anyone’s gaze, certain that these women would see me for what I was. Fear of being caught, of being hung for treason, vibrated through me. I wanted this party to end. I wanted nothing to do with passing information to Mr. Ferguson, to Robert, or to the Yankees. I couldn’t remember why I had ever decided to do such a thing in the first place. I glanced up to see if anyone had noticed my anxiety, and I saw Tessie standing a few feet away. I could tell that she wanted to speak with me, but she hadn’t wanted to interrupt. I thanked God for the timely escape.
“Excuse me please, ladies. I believe my servant needs me.” I hoped my voice sounded normal.
I clung
to Tessie’s arm as we walked into the dining room. At first she didn’t notice anything wrong with me or realize that I was hanging on to her for support.
“Esther’s wondering when you want us to serve the coffee and dessert,” she began. Then she looked at me for the first time. “What’s wrong, honey? You looking like you about to faint. You need smelling salts?”
“The women were talking about those two spies who were caught . . . the Websters.” My heart pounded against my corset stays. “I . . . I don’t think I can do this, Tessie. What Robert asked me to do is too hard.”
She rested her hands on my bare shoulders, steadying me, reassuring me. “No one saying you have to, honey. And no one blaming you if you can’t. Seems like you done plenty already.”
“Thanks.” I saw Tessie’s love for me in her warm brown eyes and felt my strength slowly returning.
All of a sudden Tessie gave a little gasp of surprise. A look crossed her face that I’d never seen before, a look of wonder and inexpressible joy.
“What is it, Tessie? Tell me.”
In an instant, panic replaced her joy. When she rested her hand against her stomach protectively, I knew. Josiah had gone back to the war with Jonathan last November, five months ago.
“You’re going to have a baby, aren’t you?” I said.
Tessie nodded fearfully. I smiled and pulled her into my arms. “It’s all right, Tessie. I’m happy for you.” I felt the tension leave her as she hugged me in return.
“Let me see you,” I said when we finally separated. I don’t know why I hadn’t noticed before. Tessie’s slender, hourglass figure was fuller, the waistband of her skirt an inch higher. And a quiet joy overspread her face.
“I felt the baby move just now,” she said shyly. “Ain’t no feeling like that in the whole world. Ain’t no way to describe what it feels like to have him kicking . . . and knowing there’s a life inside there. He’s part of me, part of Josiah, yet he his own person. You’ll see for yourself, someday, with Massa Charles’ baby.”
Life. A new child. Life was going to go on, to triumph even in the middle of all the suffering and death. At that moment I wanted the war to end more than I ever had before. I wanted Charles to come home to me, safe and alive. I wanted to create a new life that would be his and mine and yet its own.
And I wanted Tessie’s child to be born a free person, free from the fear and uncertainty his parents lived with. I remembered why I was doing this, why I was risking my life to help my nation’s enemies.
“Tell Esther to serve dessert,” I told Tessie.
“You ain’t mad at Josiah and me?”
“No, of course I’m not mad. I’m happy for you.”
But as I hugged her once more she whispered in my ear, “Please don’t tell your daddy.”
“I won’t.” I pulled myself together and walked straight into Daddy’s library where the men were enjoying their cigars. I played the charming hostess again, asking if everyone was enjoying himself, if he needed anything. “We’re serving dessert in a few minutes if you’d like to make your way back to the buffet table,” I said. But mostly I listened to their conversations, committing every scrap of information to memory.
“The Commissary Department has their own problems,” a cabinet minister was saying. “Imagine trying to come up with enough rations to feed some fifty-nine thousand men at Fredericksburg— and that’s not counting the cavalry. During that blasted food riot last week, the looters took slabs of beef right out of our government warehouses.”
I wandered over to another group of men who were talking with my father. “The Federals have us outnumbered two-to-one at Fredericksburg,” an infantry major said. “We’ve got to send Lee some more troops before the Feds attack.”
“I don’t know where reinforcements would come from,” a second officer said. “There are fewer than three thousand on active service here, guarding Richmond . . . General Wise has only about five thousand on the Peninsula . . . Imboden has maybe twenty-five hundred at Staunton. No other reinforcements can be brought to Lee in a reasonable amount of time.”
“What about the men with Longstreet at Suffolk?” Daddy asked. That was where Charles and Jonathan were.
“He has three divisions. Their effective force, all told, is not even fifteen thousand men.”
“I understand that D.H. Hill has been ordered up from North Carolina to reinforce Longstreet. They’re saying he might take their place so Longstreet can reinforce Lee.”
Daddy suddenly noticed me for the first time. “Did you need to speak with me, Caroline?”
“I only wanted to tell you gentlemen that dessert and coffee are going to be served in the dining room shortly.”
“And it’s real coffee, too,” Daddy said, grinning. “I brought it back from South America myself.”
I drifted over to another group and heard Mr. St. John say, “The defenses around Richmond are strongest at Meadow Bridge and Mechanicsville Turnpike.”
“Which artillery units are manning those gun emplacements?” someone asked him.
“There are no guns in position,” he said quietly. “We haven’t enough to spare. The works are intended for field artillery. All we have there at the moment are Quaker guns.”
Jonathan had explained to me what Quaker guns were—huge logs painted black and set up behind breastworks to look like cannon.
“Did I hear you say there was coffee, Caroline?” Mr. St. John asked.
“Yes, in the dining room with dessert,” I said, smiling. “And it’s the real thing.”
I didn’t follow them into the dining room. Instead, I hurried upstairs to my room and wrote down everything that I’d heard.
The next morning I told Esther she deserved a rest after all her hard labor, cooking for all those people. “I’ll go down to the farmers’ market and buy some fish for dinner,” I told her. “Gilbert can drive me. Is there anything else you need while I’m downtown?” I could tell by the long, solemn look she gave me that she knew. All my servants knew what I was doing.
“No, there’s nothing I need. But you be careful down there,” she said. “Some rough people be shopping in that place.”
“Missy knows we praying,” Eli added softly. “She knows.”
Ferguson’s fleshy, red face was easy to spot in the farmers’ market. He stood hunched over a butcher’s chopping block, his apron splattered with fish scales and blood. I watched him raise his cleaver in the air and lop off the head of a large fish, then slit it down its underside with a fillet knife and scoop its entrails into a bucket. He wiped his hands on the bloody towel hanging over his shoulder before taking the customer’s money, then he motioned to the next person in line. My stomach lurched, but whether it was from the stench of fish or my own unease, I couldn’t say. I waited in line with the others, wondering how many of them had information wrapped inside their money.
When my turn came, I pointed to the large rockfish I’d chosen. I watched Ferguson decapitate it, gut it, wrap it, but he paid no more attention to me than he had to anyone else. He wiped his hands on the towel and held one of them out for my money. I passed it to him, my notes from last night’s party folded tightly inside.
This will end it, I thought. The Rebels camped at Fredericks- burg are outnumbered two-to-one. Charles is far to the south in Suffolk. He won’t be involved in this impending battle. This time the war will finally end.
Ferguson stuffed my money in his apron pocket without even glancing at it, just as he’d done with all his other customers. “Who’s next?” he asked.
Please, God, I silently prayed. Please tell me I’m doing the right thing.
The battle we had all expected finally occurred at Chancellorsville during the first few days of May. But the outcome wasn’t at all what I expected. Once again, Lee’s outnumbered forces silenced the Union’s cries of “On to Richmond,” defeating the Yankees and driving them back across the Rappahannock River. The people of Richmond rejoiced. I couldn’t understand what had
gone wrong.
I happened to be downtown as the Confederates paraded the captive enemy soldiers through the streets in long lines, and I heard the mocking cheers of those who had come out to watch.
“ ‘On to Richmond,’ eh, boys? . . . Guess you finally got here. . . . What took you so long? . . . Bet you never thought you’d be coming by this route. . . . Hope you enjoy your visit. . . .”
The Confederacy had paid an enormous price, though—more than twelve thousand casualties. Once again, the hospitals filled to overflowing. Among the wounded was one of the South’s bravest and most beloved generals, Stonewall Jackson, accidentally shot by friendly fire. All of Richmond waited anxiously after hearing that the surgeons had amputated his arm, praying fervently for his recovery. But on Sunday, May 10, General Jackson died.
Daddy and I, like everyone else in Richmond, were deeply grieved by the news. As we sat in the library that evening, talking about the cavalry officer’s amazing career, someone knocked at our front door. I heard Gilbert answer it, heard him invite the caller to come inside, but when an unkempt, sinewy backwoodsman appeared in the library doorway, I instinctively drew back. Daddy rose to his feet, about to scold Gilbert for letting such a rough hewn stranger inside. Then the man spoke my name.
“Caroline . . .” The voice was Charles’.
I recognized him then, beneath the rugged exterior, and I leaped up and ran to him. How can I describe the miraculous feeling of Charles’ arms surrounding me again, the glorious sound of his drowsy voice, deep and soothingly smooth?
“Don’t cry, Caroline . . . don’t cry. Listen now. You’ll have us all in tears.”
I would never let him go again but keep him with me always, a part of me. I ran my hands over his hair, his bearded face, his shoulders and chest, making certain he was real and alive, safe and unharmed. I alternated between holding him, looking at him, holding him—wanting to feel the strength and power of his embrace yet wanting to gaze at his beloved features.
