They made that game last till dusk, till they were weak with laughter. Cinda decided that not chance but seniority should determine the order in which they approached the trunk; so Judge Tudor was the first. To their hilarious delight he gingerly lifted into view a chemise!
When Brett drew another like it, and Trav too, Cinda protested:
“No fair! The men are getting them all, and Heaven knows I need one!”
But she was reconciled when she picked up a petticoat. Tilda’s hand fell upon a lace collar, and Enid to her open disappointment got an absurd and useless little basket woven of reeds with a faded ribbon on the handle.
Rollin’s prize was a stocking. He argued that he was entitled to its mate, and Vesta told him not to be ridiculous. “What do you want a stocking for anyway?” she demanded. “You can just give that to me.”
“I need it,” he insisted. “A nice long stocking’s ever so much better than a sock to keep my knees warm these cold days, riding in the rain.” And when she in her turn drew its mate, he snatched it away from her; and they tussled for it happily, till he kissed her and she lay content and breathless in his arms.
The old trunk for a while seemed bottomless. The treasures they unearthed made them laugh, and sometimes made their eyes sting even while they laughed. “I must have packed all these things in it before we went to Europe six years ago,” Cinda decided. “Heavens, how long ago that seems! Just look at that!” Vesta had lifted out a white muslin dress flounced with yards of Valenciennes. “You had that when you were fourteen, darling!”
“I can sell it tomorrow,” Vesta declared. “It will bring as much as I paid for our turkey. Yes, maybe more!”
Brett laughed. “You needn’t be quite so thrifty, Vesta.” He looked at Cinda. “The Wilmington bank dividend is thirty-eight thousand dollars this year.” Tilda remembered Redford had some shares in that bank, so he was richer than ever.
“Oh, you can buy some Confederate bonds with that, Papa,” Vesta retorted. “There are enough treasures right here to take care of us. From now on I’m going to claim everything in the trunk that can be sold; yes, and impress the things we’ve already found.”
“Do you really think this trash is worth anything?”
Vesta smiled. “Papa darling, I can see you haven’t paid any bills lately. Just an ordinary calico that used to cost twelve and a half cents a yard is thirty dollars a yard now—if you can get it. Fifty dollars for chintz, a thousand dollars for a good merino, two thousand dollars for a cloak.” She dived into the trunk with exploring hands. “Why, Papa, there’s a fortune here! Look!” She produced an evening gown, and then another and a third. They were out of fashion now, but worth a fortune for their materials alone. One was of green silk with gold embroidery, one was of silver brocade, one of bayadere silk trimmed with lace; and she found boxes of artificial flowers and of accessories appropriate to the stately gowns. Of two velvet cloaks, one was beyond use; but the other was trimmed with fur that had escaped the moths. A great store of sky-blue yarn was priceless, and a bolt of Brussels lace. “Why, I can buy enough with all this to keep the pantry stocked for months!” Vesta promised.
Beneath these treasures, many odd objects were valueless except for the memories they evoked; half a dozen pairs of worn slippers, a few books, an assortment of toys most of which were broken. “You children played with them when you were babies,” Cinda told Vesta and Julian. There were lace bonnets made for small heads, and three pairs of dilapidated baby shoes. “Those were Clayton’s,” Cinda said, and pressed her hands to her eyes.
But Vesta would not let any sadness mar this evening, and she swept them all into merriment again. Tilda laughed with them, but this was her bitter hour. How different her life had been from Cinda’s. Brett was here by Cinda’s side, but Redford must be by this time on the seas, bound for Nassau and oblivion. Julian was here, and Vesta; and Burr was near, and his name was often on their lips. But Dolly was lost and gone, and Darrell was gone. Tilda did not even know whether Darrell was alive, and almost she hoped he was not. They were Streeans, all of them; Redford and Darrell and Dolly. To Darrell and Dolly she had given life, but it would have been better for the world if they had never been born.
The trunk at last was empty. Brett would stay till tomorrow night, but Rollin must ride back to camp. Trav took Enid and the children home; Julian and Anne departed with Judge Tudor. Vesta and Tilda, to let Brett and Cinda be alone together, went upstairs; and so the day was done. It had been happy and tender and fine; but Tilda, lying long awake, knew that tomorrow she must face reality again.
In the morning while she was dressing she heard the bell, heard Caesar go to answer and then come to Cinda’s room, heard a moment later Cinda’s delighted summons. “Vesta, Tilda, here’s a letter from Jenny!”
That letter had come by the hand of young Tommy Izard, just back from a furlough in Camden and in such a hurry to rejoin his command that he could not wait for thanks. To hear it, they gathered by Cinda’s bed, Vesta lovely in her lacy wrapper, Brett sitting beside Cinda while she read the letter aloud.
Dearest Everybody—I must just dash this off because I have a chance to send it straight to you and goodness knows when that will happen again.
Well, the children are perfect. Kyle rides as well as Clayton used to, and Janet is almost as good. I caught Kyle trying to make her jump the hedge yesterday and switched him soundly, but she says she’s going to do it today. Even little Clayton would like to. They’re as busy as puppies. As for me, I feel like a fighting cock; but of course my complexion is ruined, being out of doors so much. The people work hard, and they take good care of me. Banquo damns the Yankees with the best of them. I could go on for hours, but it would just be the same thing over and over, how well and how busy we all are.
Brett said in surprise: “That doesn’t sound like Jenny. She’s never so exuberant.”
Cinda nodded. “Either she’s trying to reassure us or the child’s in love.”
Vesta cried: “Oh, I hope it’s that, Mama! She’s so wonderful.”
Cinda smiled and read on. “‘Everybody’s expecting to hear any day that Sherman’s been cut off and whipped.’” She paused, looked at Brett. “She’s trying to reassure us,” she said, and he agreed, and she began to read again.
And everybody’s furious at President Davis for trying to impress slaves. They say the Government hasn’t any right to do it. Mr. Rhett says if the Government’s going to destroy the rights of the states, what are we fighting for? I think that’s silly. Even if the states have to give up their rights to win they ought to be glad to do it; but they say the Legislature is going to refuse to let the slaves be impressed, and tell President Davis to mind his own business; and the Governor says he won’t allow any more conscription in South Carolina, even if he has to exempt every able-bodied man in the state. I guess he already has. If they’re firemen or policemen or bank clerks or school teachers or judges or state officers or secretaries or aides or tax collectors—tell Papa I paid our taxes. I thought he’d want me to. Mr. McKeen’s the assessor here, and Mr. Kennedy is the collector—or if they work in factories or anything, he exempts them; and of course everybody’s something! General Preston says South Carolina’s the first state to commit treason against the Confederacy. If they do take our people, I don’t see how we can plant anything, but probably it won’t be as bad as it sounds.
Lots of refugees are here from Beaufort and the Low Country, and of course from Charleston now. They say the whole lower end of Charleston is deserted for fifteen blocks or so, for fear of the shells. Oh, did you know old Mrs. Chesnut is dead? I wrote you last spring, but perhaps my letters don’t reach you. The poor Colonel was heartbroken, but his head’s still high. He strides along, striking out with his cane—and he doesn’t see at all, of course—and if he hears footsteps he calls ‘Who’s there?’ and if a lady answers, he bows so grandly. Scipio goes with him everywhere.
But Heavens, I must stop and let this go. There’s
nothing to say anyway, except that we’re all simply wonderful, and we love you heaps, and everything’s fine.
Dearest love,
Jenny
For a moment after Cinda finished, no one spoke. Then she said, half to herself: “Yes, she’s lonely and frightened.” She looked at Brett. “I suppose the trains to Wilmington don’t run now.”
He met her eyes, completely understanding; but he shook his head. “The Weldon road was lost last summer,” he reminded her. “And the Piedmont, from Danville to Greensboro, keeps breaking down.”
“I see. But I can’t help it.” She spoke to Tilda. “I’m glad you can be here with Vesta.”
Tilda did not understand. “Why, Cinda?”
It was Brett who answered. “She’s going to Jenny.” Vesta squeezed her mother’s hand, not dissenting; but Tilda cried in astonishment and concern:
“Oh, Cinda, you can’t possibly, can you?”
Brett chuckled. “If anyone can, she can.”
Cinda kissed him as tenderly as though they were alone. “You’re my dear husband. Brett Dewain,” she said.
16
November, 1864-February, 1865
TRAV would remember that last winter in front of Richmond as would remember that last winter in front of Richmond as a time when he longed to do something, and do it quickly, but could not know what to do. He had moments of ravening hunger to strike the enemy while he was still strong enough to do so; to strike them in his own person, with his own hand. He regularly wore that long sword which his father once had borne; and to supplement the LeMat which Von Borcke had given him, he belted on a heavy revolving pistol patterned on the Colt Navy model and made by Griswold and Grier at their Georgia armory. Except that the frame was of brass—for iron was scarce in the Confederacy—it was a duplicate of the Colt. Trav gave his weapons solicitous care, drawing the charges and renewing them every damp or rainy day. He was a little self-conscious about his warlike gear, but not even General Longstreet seemed to find it amusing.
“We’re going to need every man before we’re through,” he said. “And every bullet.”
But that hour of need was to be a long time coming. Too weak to attack, they could only wait for the enemy’s move. In late autumn, in order to secure his flank, Longstreet set his men to strengthening the works toward White Oak Swamp; and at Trav’s suggestion every road that might be useful to the enemy was broken up with heavy plows, so each rain left them bottomless pits of mud, and bad weather presently put an end to effective movement.
Thereafter, between their forces and the regiments on their front something like a truce was reached. The scattered firing by the pickets ceased, and on occasion the men bartered with the enemy for small luxuries. Trav resented this. To wait the winter through, with sure defeat coming nearer every day, preyed on him and drew his temper short; he said explosively one day to Longstreet: “They make friends too damned quickly, General. Can’t we stop that?”
Longstreet smiled. “Man was designed to be a peaceable animal, Currain; to live in trees and to survive by avoiding danger, rather than by fighting. His natural weapons aren’t strong enough to protect him against even small wild creatures. A few rats, if they work together, can kill and devour the strongest man; yes, even a few ants can do it. But man was ambitious to be the master, so he invented weapons. He learned to make nooses, to strike with clubs, to stab, to hurl projectiles. He learned how to kill, so that he could come down out of his tree. He’s taught himself to kill; but it’s a lesson he has learned, not his natural bent. And it’s a lesson he easily forgets. We make men into soldiers, killers; but as soon as we leave them to themselves, they stop fighting and become men again.”
But though he did not interfere with this friendliness between the lines, Longstreet kept his men at work, digging bombproofs, building entrenchments, opening fields of fire, strengthening in every way the defenses they must hold. He wished for cavalry, but the horses were worn out after months of heavy work and scant feed, and General Lee had found it necessary to let many cavalry units withdraw from the front to rest and recuperate their mounts. A day or two before Christmas, Longstreet told Trav that he had suggested to General Lee that the cavalry be mounted on mules.
“Though probably if we tried it, the men would desert in a body, with a few hot remarks about tradition. We’re all thinking too much of the past, Currain, and not enough of the future. I’d like to hear some fine word from General Lee that would turn our minds in that direction.”
The General declined Cinda’s invitation to share their Christmas. “That’s just the day ’Lys Grant might try to take us off guard.” Trav reminded him that at the request of Dr. Platt, the rector of St. Paul’s in Petersburg, General Grant had stopped all bombardment of the city on Sunday, so that worshippers might attend church undisturbed; but Longstreet said: “That doesn’t prevent his attacking our lines, Sunday or Christmas or any other day. No, I’ll stay here. Tell Cousin Cinda to ask me another time.”
His headquarters were in a house on the Williamsburg road, a short hour’s ride outside the city. Not infrequently he and Trav spent the night at the house on Clay Street, and between Longstreet and Lucy a pleasant fondness grew. The bearded man teased her about Garland. What would she say to his bringing Garland to Richmond, instead of leaving him to pine in Lynchburg with his mother? A pity, surely, to keep young hearts so far apart! Lucy, at first confused and hot with pretty blushes at his jesting, learned to answer him in kind. She might coquet with him, declaring that she could not be really fond of Garland when she knew an older man who was so wonderful and for whom—since, alas, he was already wed—her heart was breaking. Playing this comedy with him she passed more and more quickly into young womanhood.
Trav envied the General his ability, during these interludes in Richmond, to put aside his cares. At headquarters there was no respite. Each day’s reports from divisional and brigade commanders brought new anxieties. Too many soldiers were applying for sick leave without sufficient cause; and the daily losses, a man here and a man there killed by enemy sharpshooters, provoked gloomy thoughts. To die in the heat of battle might serve some purpose; but to die from a random shell or a casual bullet, though it did no good, left you just as dead. On the South Side there was more activity, but in Longstreet’s lines north of the river there was little to do except listen to disturbing news and read desperate letters addressed to the soldiers by wives at home who were half-crazed with weariness and with worry for their hungry children. Each morning brought reports of fresh desertions; the numbers began to run to scores.
But Longstreet and his divisional commanders held their men better than the generals on the Petersburg front. “We’re more comfortable here, for one thing,” Longstreet explained when Trav spoke of this. “And also, we’ve not so many conscripts. Pickett on the South Side has ten deserters to Kershaw’s one here; five hundred and twelve desertions in one ten-day period to Kershaw’s forty-one. That is to Kershaw’s credit, but it’s no discredit to Pickett.”
Trav knew that Longstreet’s affection for Pickett—an affection which Trav had never shared—might color his words; but he did not speak; and Longstreet went on: “The men can’t be blamed. We can shoot them—or at least we could if President Davis would let us—but we can’t blame them. They’re ill-fed; they know there’s no longer hope of victory, and they know that the faint hearts in high places who can escape are doing so. The men stand to it better than their officers. Too many of our soft-fingered Richmond dandies plead sick to dodge duty in the winter mud; and the men see these officers take sick leave and fail to recover from their trumped-up ailments. Right now, in my thirteen brigades, I have a major general and seven brigadiers absent. With faltering at the top, Currain, it’s a wonder the ranks are as steady as they are.”
The number of desertions steadily increased, particularly after the failure of the Hampton Roads conference, when Confederate commissioners proposed peace and President Lincoln replied that a return to the
Union was his only condition. The whisper went through the ranks that this was no longer a fight for freedom, but only to save Jeff Davis’s skin. Trav had from Captain Blackford a hint of the despair in high government circles. Mrs. Blackford had come to be with her husband, and they had rooms in the home of Dr. George, at the corner of Grace and Jefferson. The house was one of a row, and Mr. Hunter, the Secretary of State, lived at Mr. Stegar’s, next door.
“The walls are thin,” Captain Blackford said. “And after the commissioners returned from Hampton Roads we could hear him sigh, all night long, and groan, and pace up and down.”
It had not occurred to Trav that men like the Secretary of State had their hours of solitary torment and despair. Trav rarely tried to put himself in another’s place; but Captain Blackford’s word made him wonder. Did President Davis sometimes in lonely darkness sigh and groan and wring his hands and pace the floor? Did Mr. Benjamin? General Lee? General Longstreet?
Not General Longstreet, no; Trav was sure of that. Others might falter and despair, but not Longstreet; no, nor the officers nearest him, who took from him their inspiration. General Field and General Kershaw were as steadfast as ever. Since Kershaw became a divisional commander, he had fought with Early in the Valley and shared the humiliation of defeat at Cedar Creek; yet when he brought his division back to its work in the First Corps the men were disciplined and reliable. Because General Kershaw was a Camden man, and he and Brett and Cinda were old friends, Trav had some personal acquaintance with him. He wore a heavy mustache so low that it was like a beard; his upper lip appeared to be clean-shaven while his chin was almost concealed by that remarkable mustache. But though it was easy to smile at the visage he chose to present to the world, he was a steady and a competent divisional commander.
Trav believed the First Corps would hold its fighting strength as long as Longstreet himself survived, and one day he said so. Longstreet’s eyes lighted with pride.
House Divided Page 155
