House Divided

by Ben Ames Williams

  “How is he?”

  “Why—tired, of course.” Imboden spoke slowly. “I ventured to say the day had been hard on him, and he said it was a sad, sad, day for all of us. Then he said he’d never seen troops behave as splendidly as Pickett’s. He said it was too bad, said it two or three times: too bad, too bad, too bad.”

  Longstreet rubbed his hand across his beard. “You’ll be taking the wounded,” he remarked. “It will be a bitter journey for them.”

  “I’d rather be shot than have this duty.”

  “Yes, they’ll have a hard time. If they had their choice, I think most of them would prefer to stay here, to die or get well in Yankee hands.”

  “I suppose so,” Imboden assented. “But we can’t leave them behind.”

  “My wagons will be ready,” Longstreet promised; and he watched the other ride away. His thoughts were harsh with pity. No, we can’t leave the wounded behind. We can’t waste men, so we will gather up the poor broken fellows and haul them back to Virginia! Never mind their screams! Haul them back so the surgeons can patch them up! From now on we’ll need every man who can fire a gun. We’ll grow weaker now with every day; but we’ll fight on, fight on, fight on as long as we’ve a finger to pull trigger. So dump the poor devils in the ambulances and trundle them back to Virginia. Bounce them over the mountain roads. Never mind their screams. Haul them home. Patch them up and thrust a gun into their hands.

  They’ll wish they were dead, before they get back across the mountains to the river. Many of them will die before they see Virginia again. Yes, a lot of them.

  And the lucky ones will be the first to die.

  III

  Retreat to Appomattox 1863 -1865

  1

  June-July, 1863

  REDFORD STREEAN was worried about the price of nails; but the worry was rather a matter of sentiment than of cupidity. More than two years before, convinced that war with the North would provide many opportunities for profit, he had put what money and credit he could muster into commodities that seemed likely to advance in price. His first purchase was a hundred kegs of cut nails. There were only two nail factories in the Confederacy; and it seemed likely that not only would nails be in demand, but also, since metal would be directed to more warlike uses, they would be scarce. He had seen that original modest speculation show, at least on paper, a substantial profit; and when General Lee’s northward-moving army invaded Pennsylvania, the market price of his little trove of nails was five or six times their original cost.

  The amount involved was no longer of any real importance to Streean. By a discreet use of government funds diverted from the sums he handled in the Quartermaster’s department, he had made so many and such substantial profits on salt and leather and flour and bacon, and through his partnership with Captain Pew in running the blockade, that he could give away that little lot of nails and laugh at the loss involved. But they were his first venture and as a matter of pride he wished to squeeze out of them the last possible penny.

  The campaign of 1862, when Lee threw the Union armies back from Richmond and after a summer’s fighting invaded Maryland, had caused him no concern. The men then were ill supplied; probably half the soldiers were barefoot—he himself was holding some leather for a rising market, so he kept a careful eye on such matters—and he had been sure Lee could accomplish nothing with the hungry, tired, ragged army he led across the Potomac. This year, however, Lee’s army was fresh, inspired by a great victory at Chancellorsville, and more numerous and better equipped than ever before. Also, it was early summer and there were months of fighting weather ahead. Lee might quite possibly seize Baltimore and even Washington; for the army as it moved northward met no serious opposition anywhere. If the South held its own, or gained any real advantage, the peace party in the North would sweep Lincoln out of office at next year’s election, though it was true that President Davis feared an invasion of the North would strengthen Lincoln’s hand and had advised against this move. There were even some whispers that secret assurances from England promised that recognition of the Confederacy could be won by a successful summer campaign. Colonel Fremantle had been in Richmond a week or ten days ago; he had seen General Bragg in Chattanooga, he had visited Charlestown; and now he was gone to watch Lee’s army. Conceivably he was sent by England to report what he saw and thus to guide her decision.

  So if Lee’s campaign proved to be a success, the war might come to a sudden end; and if that happened the price of nails would fall. But if he sold them now and Lee was beaten and the price continued to advance, his nails would feel he had betrayed them. They were his lucky nails; if he failed them, they might take his luck away. They were stored in the cellar of his home; he sometimes went down to touch the neatly piled kegs, as though to consult an oracle.

  To sell or not to sell, that was his problem. He wavered in a long indecision. Panic in Pennsylvania? Perhaps he had better sell; but he waited through the late June days, postponing any action. Sunday, the twenty-eighth of June, there was a rumor that Lee had taken and destroyed Harrisburg, and he decided to sell; but before he could do so another rumor that Vicksburg had fallen made him change his mind and wait again. Wednesday, the first of July, the officer of the flag-of-truce boat at City Point said it was true that Harrisburg had fallen; but the Union army on the Peninsula had marched up close to the fortifications of Richmond. If Lee took Washington while Richmond fell, what then? On Thursday, President Davis was reported to be sick. That suggested he had heard bad news from Lee. Friday the Union force in front of Richmond withdrew. Had it gone to try to save Washington? Streean, weighing every fact and rumor, lost his appetite; but three men came offering him five hundred dollars apiece if he would see that they were detailed to government duties that would keep them out of the clutches of the conscription bureau till fall, and to pocket this money revived his confidence. He would wait a little longer.

  Saturday was the Fourth, but it brought no news. Streean spent a profitable hour with Mr. Myers, the lawyer, who had clients willing to pay as much as a thousand dollars to anyone who could get them out of the army. Sunday evening came Northern papers reporting an indecisive battle at Gettysburg. If the North called the battle indecisive it was probably a victory for Lee. Monday, street rumor said that Lee had annihilated the enemy; and Streean would have sold his nails that day had not Captain Pew come from Wilmington with reports of a tremendously profitable voyage and with a cool certainty that any rumor of a victory for Lee must be false.

  “He’s two hundred miles from his base,” Captain Pew pointed out. “He’s grown weaker with every mile, and the army in front of him has grown stronger.” He laughed confidently. “Don’t draw such a long face, Streean. We can’t beat the North, and we’ll never admit we’re beaten. This business will go on another two years, maybe more.”

  So Streean was heartened. Captain Pew gave some account of his trip. “I brought in one box of medicines,” he said. “Just a little box, so small I stowed it in my cabin; but I charged them five hundred pounds sterling as freight on that alone. And I had a lot of stays that cost me a shilling and brought three dollars in Wilmington.” But these were just odd items. He had taken out nine hundred bales of cotton, bought at eleven cents the pound and sold in Nassau for sixty; his return freight—cloth for uniforms, blankets, boots and shoes, boiler iron, copper, and zinc—was carried at eighty pounds sterling the ton. “And I brought enough light goods—silks, laces, linens—to pay all expenses of the voyage, so the rest is profit. We’ll net half what the Dragonfly cost us.” He grinned. “I brought a hundred barrels of beef. It was some condemned navy beef, billed out of New York to Liverpool; but they carried it to Nassau, and the freight was right. We scraped off the ‘condemned’ marks. The army can eat it.”

  “Did you have any trouble coming in?”

  “Well, we were chased. We had to run right in the breakers for two hours, with one of their steamers shooting at us; but at dark I stopped and she went on—she couldn’t
see me, but I could see her guns flash—and I put out to sea across her wake and she lost us.”

  “Did she hit you?”

  “Twice. It will take a week or two to patch us up.”

  “I suppose you know,” Streean remarked, “that the Government’s planning to start a line of steamers.”

  Pew smiled. “They won’t make more than a trip or two. The pilots would rather work for the trading companies. We pay better. They’ll lose the Government ships, run them ashore.”

  Streean nodded. “Nassau as lively as ever?”

  “More so,” Pew assured him. “They’re opening a fine hotel, the Royal Victoria, on the hill above the jail. The town built it and leased it to a man named Powell, to run. You can sit on the balconies and see all over the town and the harbor.”

  “Town built it?”

  “Yes. Yes, they’ve money to burn. They’ve paid off the public debt from harbor fees. Imports and exports this year will run close to ten million pounds sterling, four or five times last year. There’s cotton piled on every wharf, so much that when you get there with a cargo you have to wait till there’s room to unload it.” His tone stirred, half with mirth. “I tell you, Streean, it’s one of the sights of the world. I like to sit on deck and watch the people on Bay Street, black and white, thousands of them, every one drunk either with rum or money. There are only a few buildings between Bay Street and the water, so you can see the whole show.”

  Streean wetted his lips. “Good harbor?”

  “Good enough, long and narrow, with an entrance at either end. Hog Island lies across from the town. There’s a thirteen foot channel, and fourteen or fifteen feet along the wharves. Channel’s so narrow you can hardly turn around. I’ve known steamers to back out across the bar. The hurricanes hit it hard. There’s a chain along the bottom of the harbor to catch dragging anchors. Yellow fever in the summer, and hurricanes summer and fall. All the houses have battens on the windows, shut them during a hurricane. But in winter it’s a gay, pleasant place. Mrs. Bayley, the Governor’s wife, and Mrs. Murray-Aynsley, and Mrs. Hobart give charming little dinners. Lodging ashore used to be filthy, but the new hotel is fine.”

  “Difficult to do business?”

  “Oh no. Mr. Adderly’s the consignee for most of the cargoes that come in, and he runs things. King Conch, they call him. He takes no nonsense.”

  Streean took Captain Pew home for supper, and Dolly gave him a pretty welcome, teasing like a lovely child. “What did you bring me, Captain?” A tiny flask of perfume and a bit of rare lace delighted her. Darrell had gone with Captain Pew on this voyage, and Dolly asked where he was. He had stayed in Nassau, Captain Pew explained, to watch for profitable cargoes for the Mosquito and the Bumble Bee, the other two blockade-runners which from the profits of their partnership they had acquired.

  Dolly laughed lightly. “Cargoes? I don’t believe that for a minute. You know he planned to go to Chimneys about the first of June, but he stayed on here till he went to Wilmington with you, and he wouldn’t say why. If you ask me, I think he was flirting with someone, till he got tired of her; or else he ran away to Nassau to keep out of her husband’s way.”

  “If he did, he didn’t confide in me,” Captain Pew assured her. “But I don’t think Darrell’s easily frightened by husbands.”

  Tilda was not at home when Streean and Captain Pew reached the house, but she came in time for supper. Since Mrs. Brownlaw decided that the starvation diet in Richmond was bad for her health and went to live with her daughter on a Georgia plantation where there was no shortage of good things to eat, Tilda had somehow stepped into her place, directing much of the volunteer work by the ladies of Richmond. Streean found this highly amusing. Arriving now she greeted Captain Pew and thanked him for the sacks of coffee and of sugar which he brought her. “I’ve had such a day,” she sighed. “So much to be done, and so many ladies eager to help; but if someone didn’t boss them around—” To imagine Tilda, who seemed to him so ineffectual, bossing anyone around made Streean chuckle.

  At supper Captain Pew spoke again of the chase which might have turned out more seriously than it did, when for two hours or so the Dragonfly was under long-range fire; and Dolly cried: “Why didn’t you shoot back and see how they liked that?”

  He smiled. “We trust our wits and our heels, Miss Dolly; not our guns. In fact we don’t carry any, no big guns. Blockaders would rather carry freight than the extra weight. There’s more profit in it. Besides, if we fought back we’d be sunk—and maybe hung if we were caught.”

  “It must have been wonderfully exciting!”

  “Why, not particularly, I should say. Except that our engineer was a coward. We took a shot through the bow and he came running on deck, scared white; so I stuck a Colt in his face and drove him below. I had to sit on the engine room ladder and keep an eye on him till we were clear.”

  “I wish I could go on a voyage with you some time,” Dolly cried.

  Tilda said: “Nonsense! Don’t be ridiculous!”

  “I don’t see anything ridiculous about it!”

  “It’s too dangerous.”

  “Darrell goes.”

  “Well, Darrell’s a man. It’s no place for a young lady!” Tilda appealed to Captain Pew. “Is it, Captain?”

  “Why, Miss Dolly would be safe enough aboard ship,” Captain Pew declared. “But a lady might have some unpleasant experiences in Nassau. Yes, or in Wilmington. There are some rough men there.”

  “I could dress up like a boy,” Dolly declared. “I could wear some of Darrell’s clothes. You know I could, Mama. I could fool anybody. Couldn’t I, Captain?”

  “I doubt whether you could deceive anyone with an eye for beauty, ma’am.”

  “Maybe not you, but I wouldn’t need to deceive you! Couldn’t I go some time when Darrell’s going, Mama?”

  But Tilda, with authority in her voice, said simply: “No.” Streean saw that even Dolly was learning a new respect for her mother; the girl pouted, but she did not argue.

  Captain Pew lodged with them for a fortnight while the Dragonfly was being repaired. He spent as much of his time with Dolly as she would permit; but since she had many beaux, and divided her favors impartially among them, Captain Pew had no monopoly. She was as likely as not to go brightly off with some gallant young officer and leave him to his own devices. Streean sometimes wondered how long she could keep him dangling. He himself certainly would not have risked making Captain Pew as ridiculous as she did.

  One evening after Streean had the reassuring news that Lee had retreated from Gettysburg to the Potomac, Enid came uninvited and stayed to have supper with them. Streean thought at first she must be ill. She had always seemed to him a casually pretty woman with a provocative suggestion of impropriety in her demeanor; but she was not pretty now. Her hair was in slovenly disorder; her color was bad, her eyes inflamed; and he saw for the first time pinched lines at either side of her nose. He was so struck by this that he spoke of it.

  “Cousin Enid, what have you been doing to yourself? You look half-sick, tired.”

  “I?” She laughed nervously, protesting: “Heavens, you should never tell a lady she looks badly.”

  “Oh, you couldn’t look badly if you tried; but you do look tired.”

  She made a careless gesture. “Don’t let’s talk about me. Captain Pew, I only just heard you were in town; and you hadn’t come to pay your respects to me, so I had to come and see you!” Supper began to be served, and she cried: “Heavens, I must run! I had no idea it was so late.” Tilda, of necessity, urged her to stay, and Captain Pew said courteously:

  “Miss Dolly and I will see you home.”

  “I can’t,” Dolly told him. “Lieutenant Barwick just insisted that I go to Mrs. Marmont’s with him to do charades. But Captain Pew will be your gallant, Aunt Enid.”

  Streean saw the Captain’s jaw harden, but he said nothing; and Enid stayed, and when the waiters had been brought she asked: “Captain, didn’t Darrell go to N
assau with you?” Captain Pew nodded, and Enid asked: “Where is he?”

  “In Nassau. He had some business there.”

  Streean, watching Enid, thought she might have asked another question, but Tilda spoke. “Enid, have you heard from Trav since the battle?”

  “Oh, I never get a word from him when he’s away. I might as well be a widow.”

  “It’s about time we had Lee’s report,” Pew remarked, and Streean said:

  “The Enquirer claims President Davis had word that the invasion was successful and that we took eighteen thousand prisoners; but I don’t believe it.”

  Enid agreed with him. “Neither do I. Trav says you can’t ever believe General Lee’s brags. He says we always lose more than we gain, every time we fight.”

  Tilda protested: “That doesn’t sound like Trav.”

  “Oh he doesn’t say it to everyone, just to me.” Enid’s tone was spiteful. “Of course, he’s your brother, Tilda; but if you heard the way he talks when we’re alone sometimes, you wouldn’t believe your ears.”

  “Well,” Streean commented, “we lost twenty-two thousand men when Pemberton surrendered Vicksburg; so even if we captured eighteen thousand at Gettysburg, the balance is against us.” He was watching Enid, and with a certain anger, resenting her readiness to criticize Trav. Streean had always liked Trav better than the other Currains. This was partly because he could feel toward Trav, who seemed to him a dull and stupid man, a certain condescension; partly because Trav was less likely than the others to show open disapproval of his words or actions. The fact that to them he was always “Mister Streean,” that sometimes as though sure he dared not resent it they let him see their dislike and their contempt, was too plain to be ignored.