House Divided

by Ben Ames Williams

  When the boy knew the truth, he was the steadiest of them all. He spoke to Cinda. “Why, ma’am, I reckon you’ll have to write another letter to Mama.” She looked to the surgeons in helpless entreaty. “You tell her how it was,” the boy said, “and tell her you was with me, and that I was all right.” He smiled, and there was beauty in his eyes. “Tell her I wasn’t skeered, ma’am.” She nodded, careful not to weep, yet unable to speak. He spoke to the doctors. “Thank‘ee kindly, gentlemen,” he said. Then to Cinda: “Now ma’am, you been holding on a long time. I reckon you must be real tired. You just take your thumb away.”

  Her whole arm and side ached from the steady pressure she had maintained; yet she said to Dr. McCaw: “I can hold it.” But he shook his head.

  The boy smiled at her. “It’s all right, ma’am,” he murmured.

  She met his eyes for a moment, bound he should not see tears nor hear a sob. Then with a swift movement she caught him up in her arms, held his head close against her breast. In a few seconds he was dead.

  This boy might have been Burr; so it was wonderful to find when she came home an extraordinarily long letter from Burr, dated at Williamsport two weeks before.

  Dear Mama and all—I’ve seen Papa and Uncle Trav since the battle. They were all right and so am I, but pretty tired. We’ve been on the go for over three weeks now, and from the twenty-fourth of June till the second of July we were between the Union army and Washington, making as much trouble for them as we could. We captured a wagon train right outside Washington, and some of the wagons tried to get away and we caught them on a hill and I could see all over Washington. The wagons were loaded with oats, and our horses needed grain, so that was good luck; but guarding the wagons slowed us down pretty badly, so we didn’t join the army till they’d had two days’ fighting at Gettysburg. Captain Blackford went to General Lee’s headquarters that night and he says General Lee was sick with dysentery. We had a hard fight the next day, but the worst part of it for me came afterward. I was detached to come with General Imboden guarding the ambulances. It rained all the time. The whole trip was awful. The wounded were loaded in ambulances and on wagons; and the wagons, the canvas tops leaked, so the men were drenched all the time; and the rain and wind scared the horses and mules so they kept trying to run away, and wagons kept upsetting into the ditches, and we’d just leave them, because orders were not to stop for anything. There wasn’t even straw in most of the wagons, so the wounded men bumped around on the rough road, screaming and crying and dying and you couldn’t do anything to help them. Some of them kept begging us please God to kill them or to dump them out and leave them or anything. The road was jammed all the way from Gettysburg over the mountains and down the other side. As far as Cashtown it’s fairly level, and that wasn’t so bad. All the wounded men who could walk tramped along with the wagons. But climbing the pass above Cashtown was terrible. There must be four or five miles of steep climb along a winding road through a deep ravine and woods, a hard pull for the horses and worse for the men walking and worst of all for the men in the ambulances, jolting every which way, with their legs and arms shot to pieces, and the bones coming out through the skin, and rolling around like so many logs when the wagons jolted over the ruts.

  I had to go on from Cashtown to the head of the column. You couldn’t see anything, but you could hear the men crying and screaming and begging somebody to kill them. After we finished the climb, the down grade was almost worse. I’d have gone crazy but I sort of refused to listen, remembering other night marches we had made that were fun, if you weren’t so tired you just went to sleep in the saddle. There’d always be somebody joking, making us laugh. One night on our way to Gettysburg it was pouring, and an old man in a house we passed opened his window and yelled to know who we were, and somebody yelled: ‘Mister, you’d better take your chimney in! It’s going to rain.’ That kept us laughing till daylight.

  But there wasn’t any laughing on this ride. We didn’t go through Chambersburg. Some country people showed us a short cut. I guess even the Pennsylvania farmers were sorry for our wounded. We took the Pine Stump Road—that’s what they called it—through Walnut Bottom and New Guilford to Marion. You never heard of those little places, but I’ll never forget them if I live to be a thousand. We came on here through Greencastle. The first ambulances got here day before yesterday, and the rest of them, those that didn’t break down and have to be abandoned on the way, were still coming yesterday all day, so I guess the whole train of wounded must have been at least thirty miles long. There must have been eight or ten thousand walking, and thousands in the wagons. I don’t suppose as many men as that ever suffered as much all at the same time before. Even not being wounded, I was so tired I ached all over so badly that I wanted to just lie down and cry, so you can imagine what it must have been for them.

  We were supposed to go right on to Winchester, but the Yankee cavalry had cut our pontoon bridge here the last day of the fighting at Gettysburg, and the river had been so high since that it hadn’t been rebuilt. So we’re still here; so the surgeons have had a chance to work on the ones that are still alive. We’ve been ferrying some men across, the ones that can walk. They’d all walk if they could. They fight to keep from being put back in the ambulances again.

  Oh I ought not to write you about it, but I’ll never forget it. It was the worst thing I ever saw.

  But Papa and Uncle Trav are all right and so am I. I’m writing to Barbara too. Just a note. I couldn’t tell her all this, but I had to tell someone. You write her that you’ve heard from me, in case my letter doesn’t reach her. I haven’t seen Uncle Faunt. He’s probably on detached duty. He usually is. He’s all right, I’m sure. I love you all.

  Burr

  We may have to fight here, if the Yankees can catch up with us through this mud. But I don’t think they can.

  Cinda had already heard something of the horrors of that march he described, for many of those wounded were here now in her care. Burr’s letter made her live over that dreadful night with them. The letter had been written on the seventh of July, but next day they had another, written on the sixteenth and in better spirits; and at the month’s end came a letter from Brett, brief but reassuring. He was back at Culpeper Court House. “We’re camped two miles away, on the Sperryville pike,” he wrote, and he said Trav was fine. “And I’ve seen Burr. He says he’s written you. I saw Faunt yesterday. He’s just skin and bones, but he says he’s well.”

  Two weeks later, a warm Sunday evening toward sunset, Anne and Julian had come for supper; and they were all together on the veranda above the garden when Cinda heard the bell ring, heard Caesar go to answer, heard Brett’s strong happy tones. Without knowing how she got there she was in his arms, hugging him and laughing and crying and pushing him away so that she could feast her eyes on this dear bronzed man, then snatching him close again; and then Vesta thrust her aside to have her turn with him, and Anne was next. Julian, last of all, came swinging expertly on his single crutch, and Brett kissed him too; and he said admiringly:

  “Well, son, you’re as spry on one leg as you ever were on two!”

  “I’m all right for anything but riding,” Julian agreed. “And I’ll learn to do that before I’m through.”

  Cinda shivered with dread. If he could ride, would he wish to fight again? But this was not the hour for fears. “Come out where it’s cool,” she said. “We’re going to have supper out there.”

  But Brett wished first to wash the grime of travel away, and she went up with him, clinging to his arm; and Vesta called after them: “Now don’t you two talk about anything! Don’t say a word till we can all hear.”

  They promised, and at first Cinda wanted nothing but Brett’s arms around her; but when he came from the bathing room and began to put on fresh linen she asked quietly: “Was it as bad as we think, Brett Dewain?”

  “It was bad enough.”

  “The newspapers had been promising us a great victory, and everybody believed th
em. Even the speculators. Prices went down.”

  “The papers print what people want to hear. You must expect that.”

  “We’ve stood so much; seen our homes ruined, seen our sons killed, seen speculators get rich and politicians squabble while things grow worse all the time. Politicians got us into this. Why don’t they get us out?”

  “Our best men aren’t in politics, Cinda. We’ve let so many poor, shiftless, irresponsible people vote that good men can’t be elected, and good men in office won’t stay there. To be a politician is disreputable, so they go into the army. Men like General Kemper. In the Virginia legislature, he put through the bills to organize our state troops and to buy ammunition months before the war started, so we were at least partly ready to fight. If he were in Congress now, he’d see to it that the army was better supplied. We need such men there. But he resigned and went off to command a brigade at Gettysburg and got himself killed. Or at least badly wounded. I hear he’s still alive, in Yankee hands.”

  “Were we badly whipped, Brett Dewain?”

  Brett said thoughtfully: “I suppose so. Oh, we didn’t run away. The soldiers fought magnificently.”

  “People are saying Ewell was to blame for not winning the first day. And the same ones who said the invasion would win the war for us this summer are saying now Lee shouldn’t have gone north at all.”

  “It’s easy to be right afterward,” Brett reminded her. “Ewell missed a chance the first day, of course. He did well at Winchester; but that first day at Gettysburg he hesitated. I doubt whether a man with only one leg is ever a good commanding officer.” Cinda thought of Julian and her heart checked, but as though he read her mind Brett said quickly: “Julian’s not a soldier, Cinda. He’s all right.” She nodded, and he said: “I wish after the first day we’d drawn back into the mountains, so they’d have had to attack us. To fight them at Gettysburg was a defeat before a gun was fired.” He kissed her. “Come, let’s go down to the children.”

  On the balcony Vesta and Anne were plaiting straw hats; the cheerful litter lay all around their chairs, and Brett asked a question.

  “We’re making ourselves new hats, Papa,” Vesta said proudly, and perched the shapeless straw on her head. “Pretty, isn’t it?” He laughed at her, and she explained: “It will look better when it’s done. We get straw from the country and soak it in water all night, and plait it and sew the plaits together; and then we press them into shape and dye them pretty colors and put some feathers or flowers on them. They’re lovely!”

  Cinda saw, behind his amusement, tenderness and pride. “Hats are hard to come by, are they?”

  “Hard?” Vesta laughed. “Oh no, this is easy, much better than paying blockade prices. Five hundred dollars is nothing for a really good hat, and I simply won’t buy at the prices they charge. Why, merino is fifty dollars a yard, and even unbleached linen is twenty dollars. Everything has to come through the blockade, except Alamance plaid and things from the mills over in Manchester; so we just rummage in our trunks and take old things and make them over.”

  Cinda said quietly: “Sometimes we can buy dresses from our friends, when they go into mourning or when they have to sell things to buy food.”

  “I’m even learning to make my own shoes,” Anne boasted, and Julian said smilingly:

  “She doesn’t have to, Papa. After all, we’ve plenty of money. But she thinks it’s fun.”

  Cinda saw something stern in Brett’s eye, the reflection of a thought unspoken; but he spoke lightly enough. “I’m about out of shoes myself;” he declared. “I’ll give you an order, Anne.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t make men’s shoes,” the girl confessed. “I just take my old shoes for a pattern and make the tops out of some of Papa’s old broadcloth suits; but I have to have them soled by a regular shoemaker.”

  Cinda had picked up her knitting. He asked her smilingly: “Have you turned cobbler too? Or milliner?”

  “No, I just knit.” She met his eyes. “It’s something I can do without thinking.”

  After Caesar brought their suppers, Vesta had questions. Cinda thought Brett spoke evasively and only of nonessentials, relating small incidents that would amuse these young people. The prettiest girls, he declared, were at Winchester. “Along toward time to make camp I always kept my eye out for a pleasant smile; and then when we were settled I’d go back and invite myself to supper.” They laughed at the picture of him playing the gallant, but he said with pretended complacency: “Well, I had mighty few failures. A neat compliment was always good for a meal.” He chuckled. “And sometimes I sang for my supper.” He looked at Vesta. “You get that lovely voice of yours from me, you know.”

  “How did you manage in Pennsylvania?” Vesta asked. “Play beau to the little Dutch girls?”

  “Oh, we lived high,” he assured them. “Cherries were ripe everywhere, and we could buy anything we wanted.”

  “Why didn’t you just take things?”

  Brett shook his head. “General Lee didn’t allow any of that. No, the army paid for everything.” He added, in a different tone: “Confederate money, of course.”

  “What’s wrong with Confederate money?” Vesta protested.

  Brett looked at Cinda and she felt again a thought in him which he did not utter. “Well, it takes fifteen of our dollars to buy one dollar gold, for one thing.”

  He had spoken only of trivial things, but now Julian asked:

  “With all those pretty girls at Winchester, did you do any fighting there?”

  “Not the Howitzers; no, we didn’t fire a gun.” He added: “We did some good work at Gettysburg, though. Not the first day. We were too late for that. But the second day and the third.” He told Cinda: “My horse got away from me the second day, with everything I owned on his back.”

  “Did you catch him?”

  “No.” He smiled. “My big excitement came when one of their shells knocked over a tree right in front of my gun. I had to climb up on the tree and cut the top off, so we could fire. It wasn’t any more dangerous up there than on the ground, but it seemed so. I felt almighty vulnerable, like one of those dreams when you think you’re in a crowd with not enough clothes on. I chopped that tree in two with my eyes shut!”

  Julian laughed with the others, but he asked: “Why didn’t we beat them, Papa?”

  Brett hesitated, his eyes sombre. “They were on a low ridge,” he said. “Behind stone walls and with batteries set on high ground at either end of their line. We had no more chance to break them than the Yankees had to break us at Fredericksburg. We made a grand try, though. That charge on the last day—well, no one can imagine it unless they saw it.” But as though reluctant to speak of the battle, he went on quickly, in a mirthful tone: “You should have seen us floundering through the mud afterward. I wished I was an alligator. Those miles back to Hagerstown were the longest, meanest, muddiest doggoned miles I ever saw. But we had a chance to rest while we were waiting for the river to fall. It was ten days before we got back into Virginia.” He added cheerfully: “We’ve a pleasant camp now near Blue Run Church, with plenty of grazing, and clean drinking water, and a prayer meeting every night in the church. It’s always crowded, too. The army’s getting religion.” His eyes met Cinda’s. “They’re so thankful to be home.”

  After supper, Rollin Lyle appeared. He too was on furlough, but only for a few days, with not time to go to South Carolina and return. Cinda had always been fond of Rollin, though the fact that despite a hundred open slights he humbly worshipped Dolly sometimes made her furious. She invited him to lodge with them, and he readily accepted.

  When she and Brett at last went upstairs and were alone, they did not at once go to bed. He was in a mood for talk. “Well, I’ve told you all my news,” he said. “What’s been happening in Richmond?”

  So she told him this and that, seeing him content to sit and smoke his cigar and listen, relaxed and at peace in this quiet place that was home. “I’m busy at the hospital, spending almost all day
there; but I shall spend more time here, with you at home. They need me, but you need me too, Brett Dewain. There are wounds that don’t show, but that need healing just the same.”

  He smiled, not speaking, and she talked on. The speculators, since Gettysburg, were worse than ever. Redford Streean, of course, was prosperous. “I don’t see how any man in the commissary or the Quartermaster’s department can look the rest of us in the face after this war is over.” Some people thought that when that day came, everyone who was richer after the war than he had been before ought to be made to give up the difference. Brett said quietly that it would then be too late; and she nodded. “I suppose so, but we ought to do something.”

  Flour was fifty dollars a barrel, she said. “But the Warwick mills at least try to be decent. They sell one barrel to a customer for thirty-five dollars.” There was talk that the Government might fix prices for everything.

  “If they do, people won’t sell,” Brett predicted. “The farmers will stop bringing things to market. No one is going to sell anything unless what he gets is worth more to him than what he sells.”

  She nodded. This was probably true; but something in his tone frightened her a little and she spoke more quickly. General Hood was in Richmond, recovering from his wounds. His arm had been saved, but it was shrunken and of no use. Vesta had met him, thought him the gentlest, shyest man she had ever seen. Vesta was managing the house now, forever talking about making dyes out of herbs and alum and copperas and soda and such outlandish things, and planning to learn to use a spinning wheel and even a loom if they could find space to set one up. She was doing all the household shopping. Someone had said prices were so high that you took your money to market in a basket and brought home your purchases in your pocketbook; and everyone thought that so clever that now everyone was saying it. “If I’m expected to laugh at that remark once more I shall throw a fit and kick and scream,” Cinda declared. Richmond was full of refugees whose homes were in Yankee hands. Some of the finest people in Virginia were among them, ladies working as clerks in the government offices to earn a living, selling their jewelry and their books and even their clothes, sending their Negroes sometimes from door to door to peddle their pitiful treasures.