by John Jakes
George sipped the cold cider. It had a bite worthy of a saloon. Noting that his preceding remark hadn’t reassured his wife, he said, “He’s a tough, adaptable fellow, your father.”
“But he’ll be sixty this year. And California isn’t safe. In this morning’s paper, I read a dispatch about Southerners plotting to set up some kind of second confederacy on the Pacific coast.”
“That’s a common rumor these days. One week it’s California, the next Chicago.”
“I still say the trip would be too long and hard and dangerous. Father’s old and all alone.”
He smiled. “Not quite. He travels with an eminently dependable guard and companion. I mean that Paterson Colt with the barrel a foot long. I’ve never seen him without it. Don’t you remember when he wore it to our wedding? Furthermore, he’s expert at using it.”
Constance wouldn’t be soothed. “I just don’t know what I’m going to do.”
George finished the cider and looked earnestly into the blue eyes he loved so well. “Pardon my impertinence, Mrs. Hazard, but I don’t believe you can do anything. I didn’t notice a request for permission in that letter. It merely says he’s going, and he wrote it on April thirtieth. I expect he’s halfway across the Sierras by now.”
“Oh, good Lord—the date. I was too worried to notice it.” She snatched the letter from the chopping block, glanced at the first page, and softly said, “Oh!” a second time. He jumped down and hugged her to help as she’d helped him. They left the kitchen, going upstairs, where he undressed for his bath.
“I’m sorry if I seemed cross downstairs,” she said while he peeled off sweaty cotton drawers. Naked, he wrapped his arms around her again.
“Not cross. Understandably concerned. I’m afraid I was sarcastic with you. I apologize.”
“We’re even.” She locked her hands behind his head and gave him a kiss. They held motionless for ten seconds, comfort flowing from one to the other. Such moments were as close as George ever came to understanding the nature of human love.
He took note of the physical side asserting itself. “If we keep this up, I won’t get a bath.”
She sniffed. “Which you definitely need.”
With a mock roar, he flung her backward on the bed, tickling her till she gave her usual plea for mercy. He set off for the bathroom, turned back at the door. “We do have some problems we can do something about. Cameron’s invitation, for one.”
“The decision’s yours, George. I don’t want to be any closer to Stanley and Isabel than necessary. But I know you feel there are more important considerations.”
“I wish I didn’t. Congressman Thad Stevens said Cameron would steal a red-hot stove.”
“I have a suggestion. Why don’t you go to Washington and talk to some of the Ordnance people? It might help you decide.”
“Splendid idea. I can’t do it till we solve the problem of the castings, though.” He thought a moment. “Do you think I could stand to work near Stanley? I took control of Hazard’s away from him, banned his wife from this house—I even hit him once. He hasn’t forgotten. And Isabel’s vindictive.”
“I know that all too well. You must take all of that into consideration. But if you do accept, I’ll follow with the children as soon as I can.”
His nod showed his troubled state of mind as he walked out of sight. She remained seated on the bed. The room was still; the curtains hung straight; the breeze had died. She understood her husband’s uncertainty because she shared it. Old beliefs and relationships had been shattered by this crisis the press had already named “a war of brothers,” even though no major battles had been fought. Just as she worried about her father, George feared for the well-being of his friend Orry and for Madeline, the woman Orry loved. How insignificant and helpless they all seemed; single strokes on some giant’s canvas whose final design no one could see.
Discussion of the Cameron offer resumed at supper. Looking refreshed in a clean white shirt, George told Brett that Constance had made a very practical suggestion. He would go to Washington before he made up his mind.
“Will you take me with you?” Brett exclaimed. “I could see Billy.”
“I can’t go immediately.” He explained the reason and watched her bright hope tarnish before his eyes. Guilty, he let his thoughts race. It wasn’t ten seconds before he continued. “But here’s another possibility. I have two important contracts that must go to my attorney down there. I suppose I could find some trustworthy older fellow around the office—he could take them. You could go, too.”
“You still won’t allow me to go alone?”
“Brett, we disposed of that subject weeks ago.”
“Not to my satisfaction.”
“Don’t get angry. You’re an intelligent and capable young woman. But Washington’s a cesspool. You don’t belong there by yourself—even if we disregard your unmistakably Southern speech, which makes you a target for all sorts of hostility. No, this other way’s better. I’ll find a man and have him ready to go within a day or two. Pack your valise and stand by.”
“Oh, thank you,” she said, rushing around the table to hug him. “Can you forgive my bad temper? You two have been so kind, but I’ve seen so little of Billy since we were married—”
“I understand.” He patted her hand. “Nothing to forgive.”
She kept thanking him, tears in her eyes. It was one of the rare occasions when Constance saw George flustered.
Later, in their play before love-making upstairs, she said: “Do you really have papers to send to Washington?”
“I’ll find some.”
She laughed and kissed him and drew him to her breast with great joy.
15
“THIS CARPETBAG’S HEAVIER THAN old Fuss and Feathers.” Billy groaned as he put it down.
“I brought you a lot of little extras I thought you’d need: books, three havelocks I sewed myself, socks, drawers, a new skillet, one of those small sewing kits for soldiers—”
“In the army they’re called housewives.” He plucked off his kepi and with his other hand reached back to close the door.
Both kept their voices low, as if wary of listeners. It was three on a sultry afternoon, and they were alone in a room in a boardinghouse. Though they were married, it struck Brett as deliciously wicked.
Stuffy and slope-ceilinged, the small room had but one inadequate window to admit the noise of the unseen street. At that, Billy had been lucky to find any accommodations at all after receiving her telegraph message.
“I’ve wanted to see you, Brett. See you, love you—” He sounded strange; shy and almost frightened. “I’ve wanted it so much I ache.”
“Oh, I know, my darling. I feel the same. But we’ve never—”
“What?”
Scarlet, she averted her head. He touched her chin.
“What, Brett?”
She didn’t dare meet his eyes. Her face burned. “Before, we’ve always—made love in the dark.”
“I don’t want to wait that long.”
“No, I—don’t either.”
He helped with the clothing, rapidly yet without roughness. One by one the layers were shed and tossed anywhere, and there came in the hot gloom that petrifying moment when nothing was concealed, and she knew he’d be revolted by the sight of her body.
The fear melted as he stretched out his hands. He touched her shoulders and slowly slid his palms down her arms, a caress each found tender and exciting. His loving smile changed subtly to a look close to exaltation. Her smile burst into view, radiant, and her joyous laughter accompanied equally joyous tears. Only moments later, she helped him hurry into her for the reunion that was all the sweeter because it was so swift and urgently needed by both of them.
Captain Farmer had given him an overnight furlough. Late in the afternoon, Billy took Brett on a tour of the area near President’s Park. The number of soldiers on the streets astonished her. They wore navy, they wore gray, and a few wore such gaudy outfits that
they resembled the household troops of some Arab prince. She also noticed a great many blacks wandering.
About an hour before sunset, they crossed a foul-smelling canal to an uncompleted park near the fantastical red towers of the Smithsonian Institution. Several dozen fine carriages had brought well-dressed civilians to watch a retreat exercise conducted by a volunteer regiment, the First Rhode Island. Billy pointed out its commanding officer, Colonel Burnside, a man with magnificent side whiskers. The regimental band played, flags flew, and it was all marvelously exciting and unthreatening; the hour at the boardinghouse had left Brett euphoric.
Billy explained that retreats, parades, reviews, and other public displays were very much a part of the military presence in and around the city. “But there will surely be a battle soon. They say Lincoln wants it, and it looks like Davis does, too. He’s got his most popular general commanding the Alexandria line.”
“You mean General Beauregard?”
He took her arm and slipped it around his as they strolled. “Yes. Once upon a time this army thought pretty highly of Old Bory. Now everyone calls him a scared little peacock. He didn’t help matters when he said our side wanted only two things from the South—booty and beauty. Pretty damned insulting.”
Our side. It had become hers by marriage. Whenever that occurred to her, confusion and vague feelings of disloyalty set in. Tonight was no different.
“Does Captain Farmer know when the fighting will start?”
“No. Sometimes I wonder if anyone does—including our senior commanders.”
“You disapprove of them?”
“Most of the professionals are all right. The Academy men. But there are generals who got shoulder straps through political connections. They’re pretty terrible. Arrogant as it sounds, I’m glad I went to West Point and into the engineers. It’s the best branch.”
“Also the first into battle.”
“Sometimes.”
“Scares me to death.”
He wanted to confess it scared him, too, but that would only worry her more.
For Brett, the glitter began to fall off the city as they walked to the hotel chosen for supper. They passed a pair of noncoms idling along, thuggish fellows. She heard one snicker and say all officers were shitasses.
Billy stiffened but didn’t turn or stop. “Don’t pay any attention. If I stepped in every time I heard that kind of remark, I wouldn’t have a minute for my duties. Army discipline’s terrible—but not in Lije Farmer’s company. I’m anxious to have you meet him.”
“When will that be?”
“Tomorrow. I’ll take you out to camp and show you the fortifications we’re building. Plans call for a ring of them, perhaps as many as fifty or sixty, surrounding the city.”
“Do you like your captain?”
“Very much. He’s an extremely religious man. Prays a lot. The officers and noncoms pray right along with him.”
“You? Praying? Billy, have you—?” She didn’t know how to complete the question tactfully.
He made it unnecessary. “No, I’m still the same godless wretch you married. I pray for one reason. You don’t disobey Lije Farmer. In fairness, I must say men with his kind of deep conviction aren’t uncommon in the army.”
Abruptly, he steered her away from the curb where two white men were punching a ragged Negro. Billy ignored that, too.
But she couldn’t. “I see abuse of slaves isn’t confined to the South.”
“He’s probably a freedman. Slave or free, nigras aren’t too popular around here.”
“Then why on earth are you going to war for them?”
“Brett, we’ve argued this before. We’re at war because some crazy men in your home state broke the country in half. Nobody’s mustering to fight for the nigra. Slavery’s wrong; I’m convinced of that. Practically speaking, though, maybe it can’t and shouldn’t be done away with too quickly. The President feels that way, they say. So do most soldiers.”
He felt uneasy attempting to justify his view. He wasn’t shading the truth, however. None but a fierce abolitionist minority in the army believed they’d gone to war to dismantle the peculiar institution. They had mustered to punish the fools and traitors who thought they could dismantle the Union.
Brett’s pensive frown suggested she wanted to argue. He was glad to see the gaslit entrance to Willard’s a few steps ahead.
In the bright, busy lobby, he noticed her still frowning. “Come on, now—no politics and no gloom. You’re only here for two days. I want us to have a good time.”
“Do we have to pay a call on Stanley and his wife?”
“Not unless you put a gun to my head. I’m ashamed to say it, but I haven’t seen them since I reported for duty. I’d sooner face Old Bory’s whole army.”
She laughed; the evening was back on a better track. At the dining-room entrance, he said, “I’m hungry. Are you?”
“Famished. But we oughtn’t to waste a lot of time on supper.”
Glancing at him with a smile he understood, she followed the bowing headwaiter. Billy strode after her, straight-backed, straight-faced, jubilant: “Definitely not.”
In the night, Brett woke, alarmed by a distant ominous rumbling. Billy stirred, sensed something amiss, rolled over to face her in the dark.
“What’s wrong?”
“What’s that noise?”
“Army wagons.”
“I didn’t hear it before.”
“You just didn’t notice. If this town or this war has one primary sound, it’s the wagons. They go all day and all night. Here—let me curl around you. Maybe it will help you go back to sleep.”
It didn’t. She lay for over an hour listening to the plodding hoofs, creaking axles, grinding wheels—the thunder below the horizon, warning of inevitable storm.
In the morning she felt tired. A large breakfast, including some passable grits, perked her up a little. Billy had hired a fine barouche to drive across the Potomac. They set out under a threatening sky, and there was real thunder occasionally, muttering counterpoint to the wagons she heard quite clearly now.
As they crossed Long Bridge, Billy told her more about Farmer. He was a bachelor, from Indiana, and had graduated from the Military Academy thirty-five years ago. “Just when a tremendous religious revival swept through the place. The captain and a classmate, Leonidas Polk, led the movement in the corps of cadets. Three years after graduation, Farmer resigned to become a Methodist circuit rider. I once asked him where he lived all those years, and he said on top of a horse. His home’s really a little town called Greencastle.”
“I think I’ve heard of Polk, an Episcopal bishop in the South.”
“That’s the man.”
“Why did Farmer rejoin the army? Isn’t he too old?”
“No man’s too old if he has engineering experience. And Old Mose hates slavery.”
“What did you call him?”
“Mose—as in Moses. The captain was put in charge of this volunteer company until the regular engineers return from Florida. The men decided Farmer is a good leader, so they christened him Old Mose. The name suits him. He might have stepped straight from the Old Testament. I still call him Lije—ah, here we are.” He pointed. “That’s one of the magnificent projects for which I’m responsible.”
“Mounds of dirt?”
“Earthworks,” he corrected, amused. “Back there we’re to build a timbered powder magazine.”
“Does this place have a name?”
“Fort Something-or-other. I forget exactly. They’re all Fort Something-or-other.” They drove on.
Alexandria, a small town of brick homes and numerous commercial buildings, seemed nearly as crowded as Washington. Billy showed Brett the Marshall House, where Lincoln’s close friend Colonel Ellsworth had been shot and killed. “It happened the day the army occupied the town. Ellsworth was trying to haul down a rebel flag.”
Beyond Alexandria, they came upon tents, a vast white city of them. Around the perimeter,
soldiers drilled in trampled fields. Mounted officers galloped in every direction. Bare-chested men dug trenches and dragged logs with chains. Brett could hardly hear Billy for the cursing and the bugling and the ubiquitous wagons.
She observed several squads drilling. “I’ve never seen such clumsy men. No two are in step.”
“They’re volunteers. Their officers aren’t much better. They stay up all night boning on Hardee’s Tactics so they can teach next morning. Even then they do a poor job.”
“I have no trouble recognizing you as a West Point man,” she teased.
On they went, through the vast changing landscape of mess tents smoking, horse-drawn artillery pieces racing and wheeling, regimental and national flags flapping, drums beating, men singing—it was all new, amazing, and festive, though a little frightening, too, because of what it signified.
They passed an unfinished redoubt and stopped before a tent exactly like the others. Billy led her in and saluted. “Sir? If this is not an inconvenient time, may I have the honor of presenting my wife? Mrs. William Hazard—Captain Farmer.”
The white-haired officer rose from the flimsy table strewn with diagrams of fortifications. “An honor, Mrs. Hazard. An honor and a privilege.”
He took her hand and shook it with slow formality. He had a powerful grip. Billy’s right, she thought, delighted. He could personate one of the prophets on stage.
“I am delighted to make your acquaintance and mightily pleased to have your husband in my command. I hope that happy situation will continue indefinitely,” the captain said. “Ah, but I am remiss. Please do sit down—here, on my stool.” He placed it in front of the desk. “I deeply regret my furnishings are inadequate to the occasion.”
Seated, Brett observed the truth of that statement. The tent contained nothing but a table, a camp bed, and five crates, each bearing the words AMERICAN BIBLE SOCIETY. On top of one lay a string-tied packet of tracts. In Charleston, she’d often seen similar four-page leaflets. The one in view was titled “Why Do You Curse?”
