As Julia reclined upon the bed, resting her eyes, she felt a strange, prickling chill and sat up to draw the quilt over herself—and gasped to discover that she was not alone. “Ulys?” she cried, quickly recognizing his head and shoulders, sharply distinct a few rods in front of her, about as high above the ground as if he were on horseback. He regarded her so earnestly, so reproachfully, that her heart plummeted and she scrambled backward on the bed until her shoulders struck the headboard. “Ulys!”
She heard footsteps on the stairs, and suddenly the bedroom door swung open. “Julia?” Katharine asked. “Did you call?”
Julia had turned at the sound of the door opening, but she quickly tore her gaze away from Katharine and returned it to Ulys—but he was gone. “I saw— Ulysses was here. In this room, moments ago.”
“Little Buck? But I just saw him outside in the yard playing with Fred.”
“Not my son. My husband.”
“The general isn’t here.” Katharine sat down on the edge of the bed. “You must have been dreaming.”
Julia pressed a hand to her chest and willed her heart to stop racing. “It was no dream. He was several rods away, but I saw him as clearly and distinctly as I see you now.”
“Well, that’s proof it was a dream,” said Katharine soothingly, patting her hand. “You can’t see anything clearly at that distance, nor is this room large enough to contain anything several rods away.”
Confronted with irrefutable logic, Julia felt foolish. “I would have sworn it was Ulys, truly him, truly here.”
“You’re thinking of him constantly and you’re nervous about your travels. It’s only natural that you’d have a troubling dream.”
Julia conceded that Katharine was probably right, and after taking another moment to allow her shock to subside, she resumed packing the children’s clothing, filling two sturdy trunks for them and a third for herself.
Katharine and her husband escorted Julia and the children to the evening train bound for Cairo. Thankfully, the children were cheerful and well behaved, and Julia managed to get some sleep despite the incessant rattling of the car. In the morning she overheard two gentlemen discussing a battle that had occurred in Missouri somewhere south of Cairo, and all of her anxieties returned in an instant, for Ulys had surely been at the center of any engagement.
At last the train reached Cairo, and as it pulled into the station, Fred, peering eagerly through the window, suddenly shouted, “There he is, on the platform! There’s Pa!”
The other children crowded the window to see for themselves, and before the train had stopped entirely, Ulys climbed aboard, strode down the aisle, and took Julia in his arms. “My darling,” he murmured, kissing her in front of the children and the other passengers without a hint of embarrassment. “At last you’ve come. The children are well?”
“See for yourself,” she teased, as if he could do otherwise as they promptly fell upon him, flinging their arms about his waist and demanding kisses. With some effort and lots of laughter, Julia and Ulys managed to scoot them off the train before it steamed away to its next destination. As the porter stowed their luggage on a carriage Ulys had hired, Julia managed to take him aside. “I heard you were in a great battle,” she said quietly. “I had a vision of you that same day, though perhaps it was only a dream.”
He urged her to tell him what she had seen, and at what hour, and when she finished, he shook his head slowly. “That is singular,” he said, his gaze fixed on her face, curious and appraising. “Just about that time I was on horseback and in great peril, and I thought of you and the children, and what would become of you if I were lost. I was thinking of you, my dear Julia, and very earnestly too.”
“I thought the look was reproachful,” she admitted. “I thought you were displeased with me for not coming sooner.”
“I ought to have been, but I knew you had a good reason for not coming,” he assured her. “You’re here now, and we’ll make up for lost time, the six of us.”
As they drove off, Ulys told her he had written her a long letter the day after the battle, and it was probably waiting for her back in Galena. On November 6, he had stealthily moved his troops by riverboat from Cairo to the Confederate stronghold at Columbus, Kentucky. The next morning, he discovered that enemy troops had crossed the Mississippi and had camped at Belmont, Missouri, so he transported his forces to the Missouri shore, marched on Belmont, and surprised the rebels in their encampment, scattering the men and destroying their supplies. The Confederates quickly reorganized, and, strengthened by reinforcements from Columbus and heavy artillery across the river, they counterattacked, forcing Ulys to retreat to the riverboats.
“We were very soon out of range and went peacefully on our way to Cairo,” he said, patting her hand reassuringly, reading the worry in her eyes. “Every man felt that Belmont was a great victory and that he had contributed his share to it.”
“As they should,” said Julia shakily. Belmont had been his first major battle as a general, and she was too busy thanking God that he had come through it unharmed to care about the details of the victory, what territory had been gained or ceded, what artillery captured or lost to the enemy.
“Keep in mind that until then, my men were green,” Ulys said. “Untested, most of them, and yet in our withdrawal there was no hasty retreating or running away. Their discipline under fire gives me confidence in them, and I’m sure it gives them confidence in themselves. I’ve no doubt I’ll be able to lead them in any future engagement without fear of the result.”
Julia clasped his hand in hers and managed a smile, but she said little more as they drove along.
Before the war, Cairo had been a charming, bustling town, or so it had always seemed to Julia as she viewed the peninsula at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers from the deck of a passing steamboat, but on that day it struck her as desolate, the streets almost empty save for a few citizens who hurried along on foot, their expressions haunted and anxious. The river surged high and angry in the banks around the city, and Julia shuddered as she wondered how near the rebels were, if even at that moment, snipers had their rifles trained upon the carriage.
Ulys had established his headquarters in a gracious, three-story stone residence on a main street in a fashionable neighborhood, keeping his offices on the first floor and residing on the second. Julia settled the children in a pair of adjacent rooms, and she was pleased to discover that Colonel Hillyer and his family would be sharing the house—his wife, Anna, whom Julia had known and admired in St. Louis, and their three young children, Willie, Jimmie, and Mamie. Their landlord had hired a colored man to do the cooking and serving at table, and the services of a pair of housemaids were soon acquired.
Ulys was often in the field or sequestered at headquarters with his aides and officers, but Julia delighted in his company whenever he could spare the time. Often she, Anna, and the children rode out in an ambulance to observe Ulys reviewing the troops, an exercise that Julia soon noted usually preceded a significant movement of the army. She watched proudly as Ulys—her General Grant—rode down the columns inspecting the soldiers, the stirring music of the army band and the sweeping white mane and tail of his beautiful light sorrel, Jack, adding to the pageantry of the scene. Afterward, many of the gallant heroes would crowd around the ambulance to pay their respects to Julia and Anna, bowing and smiling. When asked if she was pleased with the review, Julia always responded that nothing could be more interesting, more thrilling, than watching the columns of brave and gallant men. “There is poetry in every movement,” she enthused, and was rewarded by the proud, admiring smiles from all who overheard.
• • •
At the end of November, Ulys and Julia decided that she should take the children to St. Louis to visit their grandfather, for it was impossible to say when she might have another opportunity. When Ulys saw them off at the landing, she clung to him fiercel
y. “We’ll see each other again soon, I promise,” he said. “Don’t fear for my safety, Julia darling. I won’t be harmed.”
“Yes, I know.” And somehow she did. Whatever dangers he faced on the battlefield, she knew he would always return safely to her.
When they arrived in St. Louis, Papa sent his carriage and a servant to meet them at the landing, and soon the children were scrambling through the front door of the much-beloved house on Fourth and Cerre Streets, at the very moment the bells of Sacred Heart Convent rang out the noon hour as if to welcome them home.
Julia had feared that she would find Papa much aged from the strain of the national conflict, but if anything, his outrage and righteous indignation seemed to have rejuvenated him. She discovered a new, defiant light in his eye when he rose from his favorite chair to bid her welcome, and as he tousled the boys’ hair and queried them about their prowess in their boyhood pursuits. “Nellie, my beauty,” he greeted his granddaughter, smiling so tenderly upon her that Julia felt a pang of wistful love and vowed to forgive him every unfair demand, every slight against her beloved Ulys.
With all the fuss and excitement surrounding their homecoming, it was not until the family had exchanged warm embraces and shared all the news that Julia noticed a curious absence. “Where’s Jule?”
“I hired her out to the lawyer Mr. Edmund Slate,” Papa replied.
“Yes, Papa, I know you did, but why is she still there?” She turned to Nell, perplexed. “Didn’t you receive my last letter? I’m sure I remembered to say that I wanted her help during my visit. I was counting on it, and I daresay looking forward to it.”
“One maid is like any other,” said Papa, waving a weathered hand dismissively. “They all can do hair. They all get you girls in and out of your frocks the same way. Emma’s maid can look after you both. You won’t be here long enough to warrant disrupting our agreement with Mr. Slate.”
Julia was deeply disappointed, but she managed to keep her vow of forgiveness and tolerance for a few days—not coincidentally, the precise length of time Papa refrained from denouncing the Union and Ulys and all who served its so-called oppression of the South. “You realize that you condemn your own son,” she chided him one evening after supper. “Captain Frederick Tracy Dent, Ninth United States Infantry?”
“Frederick is stationed in San Francisco. He’ll have nothing to do with this unconscionable Yankee aggression.”
“You say that as if he chose to be in California. If his regiment is transferred to the field of war, you’ll find that his loyalties align with my husband’s.”
“Not so, daughter. If ordered to take up arms against his native South, Frederick would resign his commission.”
Julia’s correspondence with her brother and sister-in-law suggested otherwise, but again and again Papa provoked her, expounding at length on the constitutionality of secession whenever they entertained dinner guests, all of whom shared his sympathies. Julia felt quite alone on such occasions, a sole defender of the Union in St. Louis as she had been the lone champion of the South in Galena.
Once, while watching from the back porch as the children played in the garden, dressed in their warmest wraps as they chased a few icy snowflakes drifting lazily down from a bright blue-and-white sky, she endeavored to be a dutifully uncomplaining audience for Papa’s latest diatribe against Mr. Lincoln. After Papa had consumed nearly a half hour lambasting the president as an Illinois ape who either hadn’t the brains to comprehend the Constitution or flagrantly ignored it, he had so exhausted her patience that she finally exclaimed, “Why don’t they make a new constitution if this one is such an enigma?”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“A new constitution, you know, one to suit the times.”
Papa looked aghast. “One does not simply write a new constitution.”
“Why not? Our times are vastly different now. We have steamers, railroads, telegraphs, etcetera. The gentlemen who wrote the Constitution could not possibly have imagined what we contend with today.”
“Good heavens.” Papa clapped a wrinkled hand to his brow. “The problem isn’t the Constitution but Lincoln’s refusal to abide by it. Grant put this nonsense in your head, I’ve no doubt.”
“That’s not so. I came up with it entirely on my own.”
“That’s even worse,” he retorted, shaking his head as he hauled himself out of his chair and made to return inside. “This never would have happened had Old Jackson been in the White House. Jackson would have hanged a score or two of them, and the country would have been at peace. I knew we would have trouble when I voted for a man north of Mason and Dixon’s line.”
Astonished, Julia called after him, “Do you mean to say you voted for Mr. Douglas after all?” But the back door crashed shut after him, and she doubted he had even heard the question. The sudden quiet made her wary, and she turned to see the four children watching her solemnly.
“It’s all right, my darlings,” she said. “You know how Grandpa gets about politics.”
Fred nodded seriously, but Jesse looked dreadfully worried.
Later that night, after Julia tucked the children into bed, Nellie’s little hand slipped from beneath the covers and took hold of hers. “I love Grandpa very, very much,” she confessed, “but when he says mean things about Pa, it hurts me in my tummy and in my heart.”
“I understand completely, darling,” she said gently, brushing Nellie’s soft, dark locks from her eyes. “I hurt exactly the same. But I’ll always love Grandpa, even when he says things that I know are wrong about people I love, and you must always love and respect him too.”
Nellie nodded and promised that she always would. Julia smiled, kissed her smooth brow, and put out the light. When she stole quietly from the room, she discovered Papa standing in the hall, frowning. “Those who eavesdrop rarely hear any good of themselves,” she whispered sharply, brushing past him on her way to her own room.
The next day, Papa displayed remarkable restraint and what was, for him, contrition. Not a word against Ulys escaped his lips, and he waited until the children left the room to mutter invective against the Union. Later that afternoon, he even managed an apology of sorts.
The children had been full of nonsense all day, and Julia had just pulled Jesse off Buck and had sent both naughty boys to separate corners when she heard a carriage come to a halt outside their door. Papa’s butler answered, and a moment later Papa himself poked his head into the parlor. “Daughter,” he said, a hopeful smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “You have a caller.”
Julia instinctively touched her hair to be sure no unruly locks had come free of her coiled braids. “Please show her in. Or him,” she added, just in case.
“I think you should meet her in the foyer instead.”
Curious, Julia nodded. “Buck and Jesse,” she warned, “you are not to budge from those corners. Fred will tell me if you do.” She ignored their plaintive sighs as she followed Papa into the hall—but she stopped short at the sight of a tiny colored woman standing just inside the front door, a bundle tied up in calico under her arm. “Jule,” she exclaimed, hurrying forward to welcome her, halting an arm’s length away. Her maid was so much thinner than Julia remembered, and her gaze carried years of misery. “How good it is to see you!”
“Thank you, Miss Julia.” Jule had not removed her wrap, the familiar lovely, warm, dove-gray shawl she had knit from yarn salvaged from an old sweater of Papa’s. “If you won’t be needing me, I’d like to go see Gabriel, please.”
Before Julia could dismiss her, the sound of Jule’s voice brought the children running, and they happily embraced her, each professing to have missed her more than the other three. Jule smiled and tried to hug them all at once, and the calico bundle fell to her feet. Without thinking Julia stooped to pick it up, and then held it awkwardly while the children and their nurse enjoyed their reunion.
Julia already felt the pangs of homesickness, and the thought of the long steamboat ride alone with the children filled her with misgivings. She recalled how easily Anna Hillyer managed her three youngsters with the assistance of their Irish nurse, and she wished she did not have to do without help.
Upon further reflection, she wondered—why should she?
With a new lightness to her step, Julia fairly flew down the stairs to consult Papa, and when he gave his approval—with the usual cautions—she quickly found Jule in the children’s room, where she was folding Nellie’s pretty dresses and placing them carefully in her trunk. She had filled out somewhat since returning to the Dent household, and the strain around her eyes had eased. Her ginger skin was as warm and luminous as ever, her hair ebony without a single strand of silver. Julia was suddenly conscious of how her own waist had thickened, how she had begun plucking the occasional gray hair from her crown.
“Jule,” Julia said, clasping her hands together with delight, “I have wonderful news.”
Jule eyed her warily. “And what might that be, Miss Julia?”
“You’ll need to pack your bundle, because you’re coming with us to Cairo.”
Chapter Nine
DECEMBER 1861–APRIL 1862
Jule must have been even more surprised than Julia had anticipated, for her first reaction was to stare at her, expressionless, before she resumed folding Nellie’s dresses, more quickly and crisply than before.
Mrs. Grant and Madame Jule Page 12
