Wednesday the Republic printed an account of the capture. Mr. Davis had been taken at Irwinsville, Georgia; and in an attempt to escape he had disguised himself in woman’s clothes. Cinda refused to believe that. “Mr. Davis wouldn’t humiliate himself!”
Vesta had brought the Republic home, and she urged: “It’s right here in the paper, Mama!”
“Newspapers have printed so many lies these four years, I’ll never believe them again.”
Vesta laughed. “Well, you can read for yourself.”
Cinda could not resist doing so. She still held to her disbelief; but apart from the lies about Mr. Davis, there were things in the paper worth reading, and believing. Yankee patrols, finding idle Negroes pitching pennies in Third Street, where young people used to walk out to Gamble’s Hill, had marched them away and put them to work at cleaning streets. A good thing! She saw an advertisement which said that Stone and Rosston’s circus was performing in a rain-proof pavilion at Main and Third. Probably the circus had attracted the Negroes to the neighborhood. There were other advertisements eloquent and sad. People sought to sell watches or jewelry, or they offered extravagant security to borrow money; a hundred dollars or a thousand or ten thousand. She thought she could guess the identity of some of the advertisers, and wished to weep for them. There were columns of testimony from the trial of Mrs. Surratt and those men who had conspired to kill Mr. Lincoln. It would be like the Yankees to hang a woman! The paper said carts and wagons were dumping garbage into the ravine at Fourth and Leigh, and the foul odor made noisome the whole neighborhood. Portable houses two stories high, which could be erected in a few hours, were being put up in the burned district. There were many burglaries reported, and a man named William Tyree saw a Negro in a Second Street market selling onions, and complained to the Provost Marshal that the onions had been stolen from his garden, and positively identified them as his. The Provost Marshal gave Mr. Tyree back his onions; but Cinda thought the Yankee officer would enjoy telling his friends in the North about the Virginia man who could identify his own onions! Probably when the story came to be told, Mr. Tyree would be described as a Southern gentleman, an FFV at the very least. Cinda went to tell the others this jest, finding herself moved to a mirth almost hysterical. She could not remember when she had laughed so hard and so long
That laughter marked for her the return of a more buoyant heart. After all, life seemed to go on. They had little or no money, but the big house, except that it was impossible to get glass to repair the broken windows, was as cool and comfortable and beautiful as ever. People had used to predict that when the Yankees came no one would be safe; they would all be murdered in their beds, and robbery, arson, insult would be commonplace. But none of these predictions proved true. Probably not even the prophets of woe had believed their own predictions.
She could laugh now at things that a month ago would have made her hot with anger. Richmond was full of gaping, vulgar Yankees come to peer and pry and wander through the city and gloat over the marks of suffering. Tilda every day brought stories of these visitors and their ape-like behavior; and once she spoke of a group from some little town in New York State.
“Six men and two ladies,” she said. “They stayed at the Spottswood, and they went to the Capitol, and one of them sat in the Speaker’s chair and pulled out some hair from the seat and took it as a souvenir!”
Cinda smiled. “Mercy! Are we so wonderful they worship what we sit on?”
“Oh, they were crazy for souvenirs. They split pieces off doorways, and whittled walls. They went to the White House and tried all the chairs and sofas; and everywhere they went, they gloated over the ruins, and kept saying at the tops of their voices that we got what we deserved. Even the Yankee officers who had to escort them were ashamed. One of the officers told Mr. Harrison—I saw Mrs. Harrison today—that at Brandon they stole handfuls of letters out of desks in the house, and they broke whole branches off the magnolia trees, and trampled the strawberry beds. In Mrs. Harrison’s place I’d have been furious, but she said she didn’t blame them any more than she’d have blamed so many hogs; said they didn’t know any better.”
Cinda nodded understandingly. Small wrongs were forgotten in the shadow of greater sorrow. Then too it was reassuring to be reminded that Yankees, despite their numbers and their wealth and now their victory, were a poking, thieving lot, no better than so many meddlesome monkeys. Let them take their stolen souvenirs and go home!
Brett was planning departure to the Plains. He had consulted the Yankee officers at the Freedmen’s Bureau, and he reported to Cinda what they told him. “We’re expected to make contracts with our people. The negroes agree to go on working just as they always have, and we agree to feed them and house them and take care of them. The only difference is that after the crop is made they get a third of it. I suggested that negroes don’t know what a contract is, and of course they can’t read or write; but the Bureau says they can make their mark, and if any of them don’t do their work we can take them to the Provost Court and have them punished.”
She laughed with him at the absurdity of imagining that Negroes would pay any attention to a contract. “But at least they’ll work as long as you feed them, and as long as they haven’t any money.”
“Well, they will if the Yankees make them,” he agreed. He meant to try it, but there was a rumor that President Johnson would presently issue an amnesty proclamation; and Brett waited to hear its terms. While he waited, the new Governor of Virginia came to Richmond. Mr. Pierpont had been a Union man, and President Lincoln had set him up last February as Governor of as much of Virginia as was held by Union armies. Now he moved his capital from Alexandria to Richmond; and Richmond men anxious to see orderly government re-established arranged a reception, and Mr. Macfarland and Mr. Haxall and Mr. Goddin were chosen to assure Mr. Pierpont that Richmond and all Virginia were prepared to work with him for the restoration of good order.
He was expected on Thursday, but his steamer was delayed till the next day; and a deluge of rain thinned the procession which to the accompaniment of a salute of thirty-six guns at Rockett’s and of fifteen at Capitol Square escorted him to the Capitol. Neither Cinda nor any of the household went to witness his arrival, but the Republic gave a detailed account of the occasion. Governor Pierpont in his speech referred to the days when war came, and to his efforts to hold Virginia in the Union; and he said proudly:
“We did save a large part of West Virginia, and were fast embracing the eastern portion also, but those who commenced this rebellion were bent on vile, needless, cruel destruction; and the charred ruins of Richmond attest how well they accomplished their nefarious design.”
Vesta was reading the speech aloud to them. Cinda said, half amused: “I don’t think we’ll ever really love Mr. Pierpont, not if he talks like that!”
“Well, he was speaking to Northerners, mostly,” Vesta explained. “Or to men from Western Virginia.” She added, smiling at something she read: “The reception was very stiff and formal at first, but then they served refreshments, solid and liquid. Listen to this: ‘In a short time the best feeling and cheer prevailed in the assembly. Conspicuous among them—’ I suppose because they were more intoxicated than the others. ‘Conspicuous among them were Senator Lane from Kansas, and the Honorable Mr. Norton from Illinois.’ ”
“Well, let Mr. Pierpont go ahead and govern, for all of me,” Cinda commented. “I expect we’ll get along in spite of him.”
And in fact Richmond every day seemed to draw nearer to normal ways. Sometimes she thought the process too rapid. There was a May Festival out on Church Hill, in which a number of young ladies took part, and Miss Julia Picot was named Queen of the Festival and there were refreshments afterward at Mrs. Parkinson’s home; and the band and the glee club of the Twenty-Fourth Massachusetts regiment provided music for the occasion. “But it’s curious.” Cinda spoke in a sarcastic tone. “It’s curious that we don’t know any of the young ladies who took part; at least n
one of those whose names are in the paper.”
Yet the Yankees were certainly trying to restore good order. The idle Negroes were the greatest problem. General Patrick, the Provost Marshal, addressed a mass meeting at the African Church and urged them all to leave Richmond and return to the farms and go to work, or to find jobs in the city; but Brett said next day:
“If any of them took his advice it doesn’t show! There must be thirty or forty thousand of them still here.”
The soldiers patrolling the streets became increasingly stern in smothering any disturbance. When a battle of sticks and stones and fists broke out on Fifteenth Street between Negroes on one side and worthless white men on the other, scores of combatants were hustled away to prison. There were still many thefts and robberies and even burglaries, but a hundred or more of the prisoners released from Castle Thunder during the fire were still at large; so not all those crimes could be blamed on the Negroes.
On the last Monday in May—the day the slander that President Davis wore woman’s clothes in trying to escape his captors was admitted by the Yankees to have been a lie—Trav and Enid came from Lynchburg. They travelled by the Central, since not for another ten days would the Danville road be ready to renew operations. When they reached the house, Brett had gone to investigate a report that President Johnson had at last issued the proclamation of amnesty; but Cinda and the others were at home, and to see Trav again was great happiness. Cinda laughed at her own tears. “I declare, Travis, I don’t know why I should be sniffling; but you always were my favorite brother.”
Her gladness embraced Enid, too; but she thought that even in the short weeks since they last saw each other, Enid had grown older. There were lines at the corners of her eyes, and something bruised and hopeless in her expression. Cinda felt a sympathy for her which she had rarely felt before. Enid was so much younger than Travis; and no matter how dearly you loved him, Travis had never any gaiety in him, nor any youthfulness. She decided Enid was overtired, and took her away upstairs and bade June bring supper to her there; and she stayed while Enid undressed and made herself comfortable, asking her many questions. Lucy? Peter?
Lucy was grown up, Enid told her, trying to smile. “She makes me feel like an old woman, she’s so much the young lady. I know now how Mama must have felt, with me for a grown daughter when she was no older than I am now.” Lucy even had a beau, a most devoted beau. “Tom Buford. He was in one of those terrible Yankee prisons, at Elmira in New York State. He’s only just come home. They starved him till some of his teeth actually fell out. He says thousands of our soldiers died there, of smallpox or pneumonia, or from not having enough to eat.”
“I know. In the hospital I used to see our men come home so nearly starved that they just died.”
“I wish the Yankees would get into a war with someone else, so we could fight against them and get even for all the things they did to us!”
“A good many Northerners died in our prisons, too.”
Enid nodded. “I guess so. Trav says our prison at Salisbury was terrible. It was so crowded that lots of the prisoners had to dig caves to live in, or crawl under the buildings, even in the winter; and they all had pneumonia or dysentery or something, and they never got enough to eat.”
“I always supposed there was plenty of food in that part of North Carolina.”
“Well, there’s plenty of it up North, too; but the Yankees starved our men!” Enid’s tone was defiant. “So naturally we starved theirs! Trav says as many as fifty died sometimes in a day, at Salisbury. The carts would haul them away, piled up like logs. If they had any clothes on when they died, somebody stripped them. They hauled the bodies out and dumped them in a gully and sometimes didn’t bother to throw any dirt over them. Trav says even Salisbury people thought it was terrible to treat them so; but it certainly was no worse than what the Yankees did to our boys. Like Tom Buford.”
Cinda said sadly: “I think if people would remember the awful things in war—the things both sides do—there wouldn’t be any more wars, ever.”
She asked how the Longstreets were; and Enid said Mrs. Longstreet was about to have another baby. “Any day now. The General’s as proud as if it was their first.” She added: “He and Judge Garland have terrible arguments.”
“What about?”
“Oh, about what we ought to do, now the war’s over. General Longstreet thinks we ought to be good little boys!” Enid’s tone was scornful. “For once, even Trav disagrees with him.”
“General Lee says the same thing,” Cinda suggested.
“Oh, I suppose they all have to say it; but General Longstreet seems really to believe it.”
“Is he afraid of being arrested?”
“No, he says General Grant won’t let any paroled men be bothered as long as they behave themselves.”
Cinda presently heard Brett’s voice belowstairs, and she left Enid to sleep. “Get a good night’s rest, dear,” she said affectionately. “Sleep as late as you can.”
Jenny and Vesta were putting the children to bed, so she found Brett and Trav alone; and Brett had news.
“Burr and Mr. Pierce just arrived, Cinda. I saw them at the Spottswood. Burr’s coming right up, as soon as they’re settled.” Cinda, quick with happiness, declared they must both come here; but Brett said Mr. Pierce was worn out by the trip. “And Burr promised Barbara to take care of him.” Poor Burr was so gentle and so kind that he would always let Barbara impose on him. “Mr. Pierce wants to move back to Richmond,” Brett explained. “He’s come house hunting. He’ll find prices pretty high. Houses couldn’t cost more if there were a gold mine on every lot.”
Trav said: “I’d sell the Clay Street house back to him.” Cinda looked at him in surprise, and he explained: “That’s why I came to Richmond, to sell the house.”
“But, Travis, where will you live?”
“We’re going back to Chimneys. I’ve been down there.” Cinda thought it must have been on his way that he heard those hideous tales of the horror of Salisbury. “Mr. Fiddler, my old overseer, is there.” Trav spoke to Brett. “He was with Hood in Tennessee, in the fighting at Franklin; but he’s all right, and Pegleg has kept the people together, kept them working.”
“Have you told Enid, Travis?” If he had, this might explain Enid’s haggard eyes, her look of despair; for Enid had been wretched at Chimneys.
“Yes.”
“She was never happy there.”
He said in hard tones: “We’re going back.” Cinda knew nothing would shake him. Enid might batter as she chose against the stone wall of his decision and get only bruises for her pains.
“There must be bushwhackers in the mountains around there,” Brett suggested. “Is it safe?” Cinda suspected that he too felt sympathy for Enid.
“They won’t bother us,” Trav said positively. “A man named Alex Spain led a band that made the Martinston region their headquarters; but he lives near there and his men too, and now they’ve gone back to farming and they’re really a protection. They chased one gang clear back to Tennessee, killed two of them and caught another and strung him up to a beam in his own barn; and they helped round up the Wade gang, up near Holman’s Ford on the Yadkin; gave four of them a trial and shot them. No, we won’t be bothered at Chimneys.” He added: “The wheat’s badly rusted, and rains have beaten it down, so we can’t hope for much of a crop; but I made some money trading in tobacco, so we’ll be all right till next year’s crop comes in.”
Brett said approvingly: “Well! You’re the business man of the family, Trav. I’ve nothing left except a reputation.”
“I can help you. I sold my tobacco for almost five thousand dollars —in greenbacks—and when I sell the house——”
“You can’t sell the house,” Brett told him. “Not under the terms of the amnesty proclamation.” Cinda had been only half listening, waiting for Burr’s step at the door; but she forgot Burr now as Brett explained: “We’re excluded from amnesty; all general officers and public o
fficials, and every one worth twenty thousand dollars who voluntarily aided the Confederacy. So you and I can’t sell anything.”
Cinda protested. “Why not, for Heaven’s sake?”
“Because we’re outlaws! Everything we have is liable to confiscation, so we can’t give good tide to anything we—think we own.”
“You mean to say they can take our house?”
“Well, they took Senator Semmes’s house in New Orleans, and a lot of plantations in Louisiana.” Brett looked at Trav. “Sold them, or leased them to free negroes, in forty acre lots.”
“That’s the most outrageous—” Cinda began, but then here was Burr; and in the bliss of holding him again in her arms, every trouble was for a while forgotten. He was thin, but he was alive and well after years of deadly danger; and he was here! Now for a while at least she need not share him with Barbara. She was sorry even to share him with Vesta and Jenny, who when they heard her call his name came running down the stairs; and she was furious when after half an hour Burr said he must go back to Mr. Pierce.
“He’s nervous, and he gets excited,” he explained. “I left him asleep, but he wakes up and worries.”
“Worries? What has he to worry about?”
Burr grinned in an embarrassed way. “Oh he’s got into the. habit.” And he said, like a confession: “You see, he put everything he had into gold and buried it in the cellar; and he worried about that. Of course by the time Sherman got to Raleigh the war was as good as over, so Sherman kept his men on their good behavior, didn’t let them bother anyone.”
Cinda thought spitefully that it would have served Mr. Pierce right if Sherman’s thieves had stolen his miserly hoard. Anyone who had saved anything out of the past ought to be ashamed of himself! She said in dry contempt: “Why, wasn’t Mr. Pierce clever? Brett was so stupid. He put all our money into Confederate bonds, so of course we’re just paupers now!”
House Divided Page 174
