House Divided

by Ben Ames Williams

  “No, I haven’t seen him. But Faunt’s all right.”

  “He’ll surely come home before long.” Enid spoke half to herself; then she said with a quick smile, almost affectionately: “All right, Trav, just to please you I’ll stay here quiet as a mouse. At least, for a while.”

  With her promise to reassure him, he returned to headquarters. That week, Yankee gunboats came up the James River as far as Drewry’s Bluffs; and though the batteries there prevented their further passage, General Johnston ordered Longstreet’s divisions to move nearer Richmond. They marched by the one road that led from Long Bridge westward, and when they came to a maze of many crossroads that ranged confusingly through a region of scrub oak and pine and worn-out farms, Longstreet kept his staff busy seeking out their best course, extending his advance toward the river till he was in position to bolster the defense there against any new venture of the Yankee gunboats.

  When the division had gone into bivouac, he summoned Trav. “Captain,” he said, “unless we are to abandon Richmond, we must soon make a stand. This country is all woods and swamps and cart tracks. If we’re to fight here we’ll have to know our way around. Get maps, and find guides who know the region.”

  Trav expected no difficulty in carrying out these instructions. He went to Richmond, to the War Department; but there was no detailed map of the countryside immediately around Richmond, and as far as he could discover no effort was afoot to have maps drawn. The Department was in confusion, since great masses of papers and documents had been sent away to Columbia beyond the reach of the Yankees, and Trav’s impression was that everyone was much more interested in leaving Richmond than in defending it. Certainly there were no maps; and he felt an angry incredulity at this discovery. He had always been a humble man, thinking of himself as slow and plodding and dull of wit; but men in authority were presumed to have wisdom and foresight.

  Since there were no maps, Trav turned to a search for guides who knew their way among the many little roads that threaded these swamps and forests. Across the countryside between Longstreet’s encampment and the James, he found wretchedly poor and hopelessly indolent white people living in miserable cabins, so listless and apathetic that they were ignorant of the roads even in their own immediate neighborhod. They knew the way to the nearest crossroads, or tne path to the nearest branch; but of the world beyond their immediate horizons they knew nothing. It seemed to Trav beyond belief that within a dozen miles of the Richmond he knew, the Richmond of ease and intelligence and gentleness and leisure, there could be this lightless world where dwelt men and women like animals, friendly enough, hospitable enough, courteous enough, but with no virtues to set them higher than a friendly, welcoming dog.

  Because of their ignorance, Trav was forced to explore for himself; and he made a rough map of the region south of the Williamsburg Turnpike, tracing three or four roads which ran parallel from the pike south and southeastward and which he thought might be useful in any further retreat toward Richmond, indicating crossroads between them, pacing off distances or estimating them. This was a region without conspicuous landmarks, a flat, faintly rolling plateau except where it broke down toward the river. On the plateau, each old field gone to sedge and pines was exactly like every other, each patch of woodland was cut from the same pattern as its neighbor. The roads themselves were indistinguishable one from another, and crossroads were few, and the roads meandered so aimlessly that it was impossible to remember every turn or to keep clear in your mind the directions to which they tended. Some of the roads seemed to have names; but not even people who lived upon the roads agreed on what these names were. Any one of the more or less parallel thoroughfares might be called the Charles City Road, or the Darbytown Road, or the New Market Road, depending on your informant. Any road that set out in a generally northwesterly direction would eventually, unless it dwindled to cart tracks and disappeared, come at last to the Williamsburg Turnpike and so to Richmond; but beyond that knowledge there was little of which you could be sure.

  When Trav reported to Longstreet, he spoke of the dark ignorance he had encountered. “Whole families, General: men and women and children who don’t know anything outside their own door yards, and don’t want to!”

  Longstreet nodded. “Of course! Half the people in the South live such lives as that, Currain. Slavery’s partly responsible. The meanest white man looks down on the slave, and that makes him feel sufficiently superior so that he loses all ambition. The besetting sin of us Southerners is complacency. What the average Southerner calls thinking is just assuring himself he’s a better man than any Northerner, justifying what he has done and finding high moral ground for what he plans to do. And complacency is just plain dry rot. You think it astonishing to find these people ignorant of their own neighborhood; but what about the lazy stupidity of the War Department? Any soldier could have foreseen a year ago that we might some day have to defend Richmond and fight battles hereabouts.” Trav thought the big man’s words fell like rocks, with crushing weight. That slight deafness which he had sometimes suspected in the other nowadays grew more marked; and when Longstreet talked there was a hard, bludgeoning quality in his heavy tones. “Yet the War Department has not even troubled to map the roads, much less the hills, the swamps, the bridges, here within ten miles of Richmond.” Anger deepened his voice. “Why, by the Almighty, Currain, I’ll take any wager you can offer that McClellan knows right now more about the country around us here than any general in the Confederate Army!”

  Trav produced the crude map he had made. “This at least shows the roads we may want to use,” he explained. “These roads”—his finger traced them—“all lead to the Williamsburg pike and on to Richmond.”

  Longstreet studied the map with approval. “How did you get the distances?”

  “Paced some, guessed at some. I think they’re fairly accurate.”

  “You have more talents than appear on the surface, Captain. I’m glad to have this, but we may never need it. We’re to move again. The works along the James have been improved till they can stop any gunboats that try to reach Richmond, so I suggested to General Johnston that we shift our weight northward and cross to the north side of the Chickahominy. There we will be in a position to strike McClellan’s flank when he tries to pass the river.”

  Trav nodded. “I’ll be glad to move,” he admitted. “I’ve seen all I want to of these people down here. Once we get north of the turnpike there are bigger plantations. We’ll find gentlemen who know what lies beyond the nearest hill.”

  Longstreet had proposed that they place themselves astride the Chickahominy in its upper reaches, but although General Johnston drew his forces nearer Richmond he did not go that far. Longstreet’s divisions camped at the Fairfield race course, just off the Nine Mile Road and two or three miles northeast of the city. Longstreet lodged at the Spottswood, and Trav could have gone to Cinda’s; but Enid was there, and Cinda would expect him and Enid to share the same room, so he stayed in camp.

  But he rode into town for Sunday dinner and found Brett there. The Howitzer company had been withdrawn from Suffolk to Petersburg. Brett urged Cinda to take all the household to the Plains.

  “For Richmond may be given up,” he said. “The President’s family is gone, and George Randolph has sent his family away; and Mr. Memminger has a special train waiting, ready to start at a moment’s notice with what specie there is in the Treasury. I wish you’d go, take Jenny and Barbara, Vesta, Enid, the children. I’d like to feel you’re all safe away from here.”

  Cinda shook her head. “No. No, Brett Dewain, I won’t leave Richmond. Not till I’m sure about Julian. I can’t!” And she cried in sudden passion: “I can’t! Do you hear? I can’t, that’s all!”

  So Brett abandoned the point and they talked of other things. Trav thought Vesta’s first anguish had begun to abate, for her tongue had lost its edge. Enid asked whether Trav had seen Faunt, but he had not, nor had Brett. Before they sat down to dinner, Burr arrived, dusty fr
om the road. He reported some skirmishing along the Chickahominy, and an occasional affray between outposts; but McClellan seemed to be entrenching, and Burr thought no early attack on Richmond was probable.

  Trav said Longstreet agreed with this opinion. “He thinks McClellan won’t attack us as long as we keep retreating; says there’s no reason why he should.”

  “What does he think we ought to do?” Brett asked.

  “Well, I don’t always understand his terms,” Trav admitted. “He talks about a defensive offensive, or an offensive defensive. I don’t know the difference, but I think he means we ought to pick a good place and stand our ground till McClellan attacks us.”

  Cinda rose with a protesting word. “Oh, war, war, war! Can we talk of nothing else! Please, let’s not even mention it at dinner. Come!”

  So at the table they avoided this that filled all their minds. Afterward Burr and his father and Trav were for a while alone, and when they were at ease, Burr gave them news of Faunt. “He’s joined the cavalry. He’s in our regiment.” Burr hesitated. “Papa, he’s changed.”

  Brett glanced at Trav. “How, son?”

  “Well, he and I and a man named Mosby in our regiment wen through the lines to Williamsburg to try to find out something about Julian. Mrs. Taylor took us in. We stayed in the house in the daytime; but at night, every night, we went to that field where Tommy was killed. Uncle Faunt made us open every grave there, to look for Julian. The dead men weren’t buried very deep. It was a terrible place. No one goes near it now except the pigs rooting up the bodies. Sometimes they hadn’t left much of a man. The ladies in Williams burg tried to make the negroes—clean things up, but they can’t keep them at it.” He met his father’s eyes. “Papa, I don’t believe Julian is there. I just won’t believe he’s—in a place like that.”

  Trav saw sweat beads on Brett’s brow. “I’m sorry you went there, Burr,” Brett said.

  “Well, anyway, we didn’t find Julian.” Burr continued: “But it’s awful to see a man like Uncle Faunt kneel down beside something the hogs have rooted up and chewed at, and scrape the dirt off to see what color the man’s hair was, or how big he was, or something. It isn’t decent, Papa! The worst of it was, he didn’t seem to mind doing it! And then one rainy evening we were out there just after dark, and we heard someone coming, so we slipped into the woods and hid. It was two Yankee soldiers. They had some bottles of whiskey or wine or something, and they were drunk already. They came along past us, and they said something about the smell of that field, and laughed; and Uncle Faunt stepped out and shot both of them.” For a moment no one spoke, and Burr repeated: “He shot both of them, Papa. They didn’t even have guns. They fell, but one of them was still alive, and Uncle Faunt shot him three more times.”

  Brett said after a moment: “I’m sorry you saw that.”

  “I could see his face,” Burr said. “He didn’t—well, he didn’t even look like Uncle Faunt!”

  Brett sent him away. “Go to your Barbara, son. Forget all that if you can.” When they were alone, he looked at Trav, and looked away again and for a while neither of them spoke. Then Brett said: “Trav, Cinda told me about those old letters.”

  “I know.”

  “That’s what’s wrong with Faunt,” Brett suggested. Trav thought this might well be true. Brett added: “You and Cinda are level-minded people. You know that it doesn’t matter. But Faunt has lived so much alone. It matters to him.”

  Trav tried to find words to express what he wished to say. “Faunt and I aren’t much alike,” he said. “But I’ve been mad myself, once or twice, thinking about all that; madder than I’ve ever been before. If it can make me as mad as it does, I suppose it’s worse for Faunt.”

  Brett said in sure tones: “You’re all right, and Cinda’s all right. Tony may go smash, unless being back at Chimneys cures him. Tilda won’t much care. But Faunt—” he hesitated. “I wish Burr hadn’t seen that.”

  After a moment Trav asked: “Brett, what can have happened to Julian?”

  Brett said hopelessly: “I don’t know. I’ve written some friends of mine in Washington. He may possibly be in a Yankee hospital somewhere. The Yankees took good care of our wounded at Williamsburg, you know; took just as good care of them as of their own. Perhaps some day we’ll hear.”

  “Cinda can’t have any peace till she knows something.”

  “She ought to go to the Plains. Richmond’s on the edge of panic right now. Any least thing may make people here lose their heads, go plain crazy. Not even Congress has had the courage to stay. President Davis—” Brett smiled grimly. “Well, you know that old proverb: ‘The Devil was sick, the Devil a saint would be.’ The President was baptized last Tuesday morning, and confirmed that same day. As soon as people knew that, every departing train was crowded, and the stores sold every trunk they had in stock.” He added: “I’m not sure Cinda could get away now even if she would go.”

  “General Longstreet thinks we’ll fight for Richmond.”

  “Well—if we’re going to fight we’ll have to do it soon.”

  Trav wished to see Enid before he returned to headquarters; but when he asked for her, Cinda said she had gone out. “She’s gone to see Dolly,” Cinda told him. “They seem to enjoy each other.” At dusk, since Enid had not returned, Trav rode back to camp.

  Through the fortnight since Williamsburg, in addition to his map making, Trav had been busy with the problem of supply. Even here in the very suburbs of Richmond it was astonishingly hard to feed the men. The government issue of rations was scanty; and to buy corn or meal or meat meant paying enormous prices. Once Trav exploded to the General. “I’m beginning to think every man in the commissary is either a speculator for his own profit or a half-witted fool!” he declared.

  Longstreet chuckled. “Don’t often see you lose your temper, Captain.”

  “Sorry, sir.”

  “Oh, I don’t blame you. It’s good for a man to get mad once in a while.”

  Trav grinned. “You take your own medicine, don’t you?”

  The General nodded. “Yes, when I run into stupidity, I get hopping mad. It’s a good thing I find myself doing stupid things now and then, or I’d have less patience than I have.”

  Trav saw he was in a mood for talk. “Does that happen often?”

  “Often enough. Two weeks ago, for instance, I thought General Johnston was stupid to fall back this far, let McClellan come on to the river, repair the railroad bridge, build new bridges. I thought we ought to meet him in the lowlands along the river. But if we’d camped in the swamps, half the army would be down sick by now. As it is, McClellan’s losing men as fast as if we fought him. If he waits long enough, his whole army’ll be in the hospital.”

  “Our men don’t like the waiting,” Trav suggested.

  “Time’s fighting on our side, though,” Longstreet insisted. “You know Jackson’s hammering the Yankees in the Valley. I’ve always thought action there was the best defense of Richmond. Jackson has nothing but second-raters in front of him: Fremont, Shields, Banks, not one of them worth their salt. Let him sweep them back to the Potomac, and Lincoln will call McClellan to defend Washington.” As so many times before, he repeated: “The Valley is our sally port. A stroke there will always relieve any pressure upon us here.”

  But there was no immediate sign that he was right. McClellan day by day consolidated his position; his balloons hung high above his lines so that the observers in them could overlook all of Richmond. The next Sunday when Trav rode in for dinner at Cinda’s, Dolly and Tilda were there; and Dolly prettily demanded that he get rid of the balloons.

  “I just can’t stick my nose out of the house for thinking of those old Yankees watching every single thing I do!”

  Trav said he doubted that McClellan’s men were very much interested in even the most charming young belles. “It’s soldiers, regiments, guns they’re watching for.”

  “Well, just the same, I think it’s impudent of them, and too rude f
or words.”

  Dolly’s merry nonsense made even Vesta smile. Trav thought Vesta looked badly, but she was become her gentle self again. Something in her expression reminded him of that rich rapture of fulfillment which she had worn like a visible beauty in Williamsburg, the night before Tommy was killed. Watching her and Dolly now he wondered why he should like Vesta so much, like Dolly not at all. There was something about Dolly, despite her charming ways, which was deliberately provocative, yet unrewarding. She was all promise, no performance. Vesta was not so prodigal of promises, yet you could count on her. Dolly was more like Enid. She had Enid’s thin mouth, and no matter how bright her lips, when she was not smiling they set in a hard line.

  Longstreet seemed to be wrong about the probable effect of Jackson’s work in the Valley, for on Tuesday they heard that General McDowell had marched from Fredericksburg, presumably to unite with McClellan’s right and increase the threat to Richmond. Johnston began a slow regrouping of his forces to meet this danger, and he called his generals into conference; but Longstreet came back from that council of war in a quiet satisfaction.

  “It turns out I was right after all,” he told Trav next morning. “Stuart says McDowell. has countermarched back to Fredericksburg, so Jackson has frightened Washington, and McDowell is recalled to guard the capital.”

  “Will we just go on waiting?”

  “For the present, yes. I ventured to suggest that we could maneuver McClellan out of his position at Beaver Dam Creek and strike him when he moved; but General Johnston says he has the wrong officer for the work there.”

  But the waiting was almost done. Thursday there was a skirmishing reconnaissance along the borders of White Oak Swamp, and Friday Trav heard scattered and spasmodic firing in that direction; but he was more attentive to the stormy, darkening sky. With the weather-wise eye of the farmer he foresaw a downpour. Longstreet went to headquarters for another council; and he had not returned when toward five o’clock, out of a still and ominous hush and under the pall of early darkness cast by a curtain of black clouds, there rose a hurrying wind and rain. The wind became a gale so strong that tents and shelters were swept away, and the bowed tops were ripped off the wagons in ribbons of shredded canvas. The strength of the wind and the bludgeoning of the rain made it impossible for men to walk or stand. They huddled in every lee while the storm-dusk turned to the darkness of night. The wind presently blew itself away, but the rain fell in a drowning sheet that churned the earth to soup into which, even though they were motionless, the heavy-laden wagons seemed visibly to settle.