Homeland
Page 9
I must and will write, though once again it is nearly ten, with the prospect of even-yet-earlier awakening tomorrow. Uncle Mordacai is taking Mother, Elinor, and myself to the mainland, to deliver the news to Ollie of the birth of his beautiful son Oliver Lincoln Smith, who is wailing fretfully in the next room. Mercy, very much set up in her own opinion of herself as far too adult to give way to bouts of babyish weeping, sleeps like a furled rose-bud in her basket, hung over with cheesecloth to keep the mosquitoes away.
You need to see all the thousand tiny islets of Merchant Row in morning’s first light—tabletops of granite each with its little tuft of pine-trees—garlanded about with diamond waves breaking, wreathed in crying gulls. You need to see the lobster-boats going out of Green’s Landing when the Lady Anne sets forth, the air chill enough to require a shawl and the smell of the sea filling the whole of the world. You need to know what a deck feels like underfoot when the wind takes the sails and the sloop surges forward like a team of matched horses settling to gallop. I’d so love to see you sketching all this!
Dearest friend, I read the news of gunboat battles near Vicksburg, and huge Confederate raids in Kentucky, and I pray that you are safe.
SUNDAY, AUGUST 3
VISIT TO SIXTEENTH MAINE REGIMENT, IN CAMP AT AUGUSTA, MAINE
Uncle Mordacai took us across to the mainland in the Gull: Mother, Elinor, and myself. Recruits are still coming in, and the rows of little shelter-tents along the Kennebec look sloppy and half-finished, little more than strips of muslin draped in an inverted V over a pole about three feet from the ground, open to the elements at both ends. The men of Company B—Ollie’s company—haven’t gotten their shelter-tents yet. They share a single marquee, sleeping on bare ground. The men crowded around us, clasped our hands, stammered greetings, even men from other parts of Maine, men we had never met before. Someone gave Mother half a barrel to sit on, and I was handed a visibly unwashed tin cup full of the sort of coffee the Devil must brew in Hell. Mother gave Ollie the molasses-cookies she’d baked and he promptly distributed them among his mess-mates. Looking at their faces, as Mother told him the news of Peggie’s safe delivery, I realized that Mother wasn’t just Ollie’s mother now, but the mother each of them left back in Kittery or Bangor or Portland. I was the sister each of them grew up with. The news of little Nollie’s birth was to each man tidings of the birth of his own son, the safety of his own wife.
The men shouted congratulations and thumped Oliver on the back, but I wondered if he was ill, for he was curiously silent, and he looked so much thinner than when he’d left home three weeks ago. But only when he walked with us back to the train-station in the late afternoon, did he break the news to us: his Colonel had that day informed him that his enlistment was for three years, not three months as he had originally supposed when he joined!
Elinor of course put her arms around my waist and Mother’s, and declared stoutly, “Three years or three months, Ollie, does that change your country’s need? You know Peggie will understand” But Peggie wept until she was sick, when she heard the news upon our return, and could not nurse poor tiny Nollie. Between doing double duty, and comforting her, I was not in bed until long past midnight.
THURSDAY, AUGUST 7
One of the lobstermen who’s been over to Belfast says, Word is that the Rebels have attacked Baton Rouge. To the best of our knowledge, the Thirteenth (Brock’s regiment), though in Louisiana, is not at Baton Rouge … or wasn’t, as of his last letter. But Elinor’s Nathan is in the Fourteenth, as is John Henderson, whose brother Alex—in the same company—died of fever in New Orleans only weeks ago. Papa is still not yet back from Northwest Harbor (it is nine now, and growing dark) where he walked to learn more, if he can.
FRIDAY, AUGUST 8 NIGHT
Bless Will Kydd! Though he greatly objects to the War, he crossed to Belfast last night, the moon being nearly full, to fetch what news he could. With it, he fetched your letter. (With all this, he remembered to ask the postmaster if there was something for me!) He vows he will cross again tonight.
The whole island holds its breath. Almost fifty island men are in the Fourteenth, a great many of them married men with families. Those who aren’t thinking of Charles Grey and Alex Henderson, surely cannot keep from their minds poor Charlie Noyes, and George Herrick and Billy Dunbar, who were returned alive but will never be anything but charges upon their families for the remainder of their lives.
It is as though the Angel of Death passes over the island this night: There was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where there was not one dead. Would that we could avert it, by prayer, or obedience, or blood smeared on the lintels of our doors!
I read that the shelling has ceased at Vicksburg, at least for the time being. By the time tonight’s words reach you, Susie, tonight’s fears will be part of the past. Yet in my heart I see you hiding in the cellar with Julia, I smell the churned earth and see the ruined homes of your friends, as if those events took place just today. Would matters be different, if women could vote? I don’t know. Elinor’s devotion to the cause of the War—and the equal devotion of your Aunt Sally’s friends—makes me doubt it. Would matters be different, if women could go out and get work, and support themselves and their families? If we were equals in the sight of Mammon as well as of God? I would like to think so. At least then we would not be waiting upon the choices of others, to learn how we must live the rest of our lives.
TUESDAY, AUGUST 12
NIGHT AGAIN
Sunday Ollie, and half a dozen others, had leave to come from camp: his first sight of his son and it now appears his last for some time. All leaves have been cancelled. The Sixteenth marches in a week, to Virginia.
Through my bedroom wall I hear Peggie sobbing again. Nollie is in here with Mercy and me, sleeping the sleep of exhaustion, for Peggie’s weeping kept him awake, and she is again unable to feed him. First cock-crow is only an hour away. Exhausted as I am, I find rest in reading even a page or two from David Copperfield. There is a comfort in knowing you’re probably doing the same. Like you, I long for only a five-minute conversation with you, face to face, now in the present, to see what is taking place around you by moonlight on the twelfth of August, not two months ago or two months hence. I am not a Spy in Enemy Territory, but a Sinner in the Land of the Righteous. My doubt is sin, but I doubt all the same. I am as unable to alter my doubts as I am unable to wish away my love for Emory.
MONDAY, AUGUST 18
When I knocked at the back door of Elinor’s house this evening my darling Mercy was brought out by Katie, with the curt information that Elinor “can’t look after her anymore.” Mercy was crying wretchedly, exhausted as if she’d been crying for hours, and had been neither changed nor fed. Inside I could hear both Columbia and Ned howling. I stared at Katie, mouth half-open that anyone would leave a two-month-old infant in such a state, and Katie said, “Nathan is dead,” and closed the door on me.
When I reached home, Mother told me that Nathan, and Otis Greenlaw from Southeast Harbor, were wounded in the Baton Rouge fighting, and sent down-river to New Orleans on a steamboat to be taken care of. The steamboat hit an underwater snag, and tore out her bottom. The boat sank, and all the wounded on-board, trapped within, were drowned.
I have written Elinor a letter, offering my condolence and whatever help she shall need, but I know it will go unanswered. Mother has been feeding wee Nollie cow’s milk, as Peggie’s milk has dried. He does well enough, but I will take Mercy with me tomorrow across to Isle au Haut, and see how that answers. Will, whose mother and grandmother are midwives, at least will have no objection to an infant’s presence on-board the Lady Anne.
My heart aches tonight, for Elinor, and Nate, and Peggie, and Ollie asleep on the ground with his head on his pack, ready to march away tomorrow. May morning bring hope with its light.
Love,
C
Susanna Ashford, Vicksburg, Mississippi
To
Cora Poole, De
er Isle, Maine
c/o Eliza Johnson, Elizabethton, Tennessee
THURSDAY, SEPT. 4
Dearest Cora,
Hurrah and welcome to the lovely Miss Mercy Poole! Of course she’s the most beautiful baby in the world—she’s your daughter! And thank you for sending me news of Justin. I enclose a letter for him, if you would be so good as to forward it. I have thought a great deal about what you said in your letter: that we can not know what will befall either of us, before the War’s end. As you know, I’m something of a Pagan (particularly in comparison with your mother), and I fear I grow more Pagan every time the Reverend Crouch edifies us with Sunday sermons about how God is going to send every Yankee straight to Hell. Yet, there is a great deal of comfort in your faith, that all things—even the horrible ones, like losing Payne, and hiding in the cellar last June with shells landing three streets away—are the work of God, designed for His own Purposes that we do not understand. I do wish He would explain them just a little more clearly, though!!!
I laughed to read your Mother’s version of Nursery Tales For Little Ones. But, I am astonished she missed the one about the little children who mocked the prophet Elisha’s bald head. As I recall, Elisha called two she-bears out of the woods (are there woods in the Holy Land?) and they proceeded to tear those bad children to pieces. It’s in Second Kings Chapter Two. Every time Tommy has the colic I can tell it’s one of Aunt Sally’s favorites.
It’s ironing-day here. I’ve left Julia my share of the mending (I would rather muck out stables than sew!), and will spend the afternoon in the kitchen with Cookie and Nellie, hearing all the gossip that nobody talks about in parlors. In every town of any size below the Mason-Dixon Line there are really two separate towns: the free blacks and the house servants of everybody in town all know each other, the way the “quality” whites all do. Cookie doesn’t mind me helping because I won’t tell Aunt Sally, if Cookie spits on the iron to test it.
THAT NIGHT
With the doors and windows all thrown open, and the river breeze coming through, the kitchen isn’t really bad to be in, even with the stove going for the irons. And I love the way the clean, warm linen smells! Still, I’m glad ironing-day’s over for another two weeks.
The moon is almost full, setting over the river. I’ve heard nothing yet of where Henriette or her children might be, though that just may be because she’s as bad about writing as Pa. Still, having lost Gaius, every time I see Tommy I feel a sadness, at having now lost Gaius’s children, as well.
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 8
Yet another letter from you! Enclosed in one from Mrs. Johnson, who seems to be moving here and there among her relatives in the mountains. But, it made me so angry my ears got hot. It’s one thing for my brother Payne to go to war when he was eighteen—he’d been a cadet in the Military Academy, and everybody knew he wanted to be a soldier. But for someone to shame and coerce your brother to abandon his wife—even if it’s only until apple-picking time—is inexcusable. And Elinor can keep her silly verse.
Would you have married Emory, if you had the choice to be or do something different? At least, if you’d had a profession, you could be following it in Boston, instead of being stuck on Deer Isle in the snow with the Daughters of the Union telling you you should divorce Emory because of his politics!
What I’m saying is, I’m delighted you have the chance to teach school. I take back what I thought about Elinor. I’d almost take back what I said about Ollie joining the Army (since his doing so opened this door for you) … but not quite.
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 11
It’s funny, Cora: I usually hate making jelly, because it’s always the hottest day of the year, and I burn my hands and get smoke in my eyes and every fly in Mississippi comes to watch … But there’s that moment when the jelly “sets up” and I feel as pleased as if I’d just finished building the Great Pyramid of Egypt, all by myself. I burned my wrist so I can not hold the pen properly—and it’s a quill pen, too, since there isn’t a nib to be had anywhere in town for any money.
[Damn—heavily crossed out]
Curse the blockade.
With regard to Mr. P, thank you for reminding me of Elizabeth Bennet, and how we need to reserve judgement, even though we think we know we’re right about a person. But the other thing P&P taught me (and Persuasion even more) is, that people’s hearts can change. That people can change. In the meantime we can only, like the heroine of Bleak House, keep ourselves cheerful and useful, no matter how many evil lawyers all around us get shot or wicked rag-and-bone dealers burst into spontaneous flames …
Yes, you are absolutely insane for taking pleasure in changing your beautiful daughter’s diapers. I love Tommy, but there are limits and that quite lies beyond them!!!
I suppose it is my destiny to love insane people.
Your own,
Susie
P.S. I become insane contemplating what’s going on at Bayberry, because I’ll bet my last three sheets of drawing-paper that Regal never got even a corn-crop in the ground, much less tobacco. If my brother manages, on top of everything else, to lose the plantation because he can’t pay the mortgage, I’ll—I don’t even know what I’ll do. Go on living on charity, I suppose.
S
Cora Poole, Deer Isle, Maine
To
Susanna Ashford, Vicksburg, Mississippi
c/o Eliza Johnson, Elizabethton, Tennessee
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 1862
Susanna,
Devastating battle news. Wednesday evening the lobstermen all saying there were rumors on the mainland about fighting in Virginia; dead and wounded in numbers so high I can not believe they are not exaggerated. Oliver is there, and twenty other island men. Papa came back from Yale. So much work to do, to get the apples in, and the cider made, and start on the cheeses, with only Peggie to help, and me only from sunup today until it was too dark to see: with this standing beside us, an invisible spectre, like the terrible Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. At night Papa and Mother sit quietly in the kitchen, reading the Bible to one another: Be strong and of good courage, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee, withersoever thou goest. Their courage shames me.
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23
News like a blaze of light in darkness. Will met me at the wharf this afternoon with news that’s up and down the wires all over the country: that in the wake of our victory in Virginia (if so ghastly a massacre can be so called), President Lincoln has issued a Proclamation, freeing the slaves in the South. As I stood open-mouthed, amazed, that after all these years that horror and disgrace on our nation—on humanity!—has been finally struck down, Will added, “But, ‘tis only in the South, not in the States that stayed loyal to the Union. And only in those Rebel States that don’t give up and re-join the Union by January first.”
I felt shocked, angry, and furious with President Lincoln. How dare he treat the freedom of hundreds of thousands of human beings like a parlor-trick, to threaten the Rebels with? What is in your heart about this, Susanna? What is in your thoughts? I asked you once before—how long ago that seems!—about slavery, and Uncle Tom’s Cabin. What do the people around you in Vicksburg—both black and white—think of this? As I walked home, with Mercy riding in the little sling I’ve made for her, I passed Elinor’s house, as the sun was going down. It stands back from the road, on the tall hill above Green’s Landing. I paused by the gate and could see from there two men stacking cordwood—her father’s employees, from the store or the marine-yard—and a woman dressed in deepest mourning. I remembered how Elinor and I had sat on her bed with our hair down our backs, talking of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and slavery, and our duty to see that somehow, the wretched slaves would be freed, until past midnight.
I think if Nathan had not been so lately dead, I would have let myself through the gate and walked up to speak to her. To cry, We did it! We did it! Maybe Will is right, and this “Proclamation” of Mr. Lincoln’s is just a “smart” move by a politician
who cannot win a military victory. But it is the small end of the wedge. On that foundation, freedom can and will be built.
But I walked on.
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 29
And just as well that I did. At church yesterday Pastor Wainwright preached a sermon of thankfulness for the Proclamation. As we were leaving, I heard Elinor scolding him for the praise he’d given to a “half-hearted piece of politics” that would “disgrace a common pickpocket.”
But to make up for that, this afternoon when I came down to the wharf at the Town Landing to come home, Will met me with a letter from Ollie, which he’d gone all the way to Belfast on purpose to fetch. My brother is well, for his regiment was held in reserve, and did not see battle. Still no letter from you. I have gone back to David Copperfield, with its gentle reassurance that people come and go in our lives, and return again in time. Haying is done, and gathered into the barn. Apple-picking time has come and gone.
Your friend,
Cora
Susanna Ashford, Vicksburg, Mississippi
To
Cora Poole, Deer Isle, Maine
c/o Eliza Johnson, Elizabethton, Tennessee
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 5, 1862
[lost]
Cora Poole, Deer Isle, Maine
To
Susanna Ashford, Vicksburg, Mississippi
c/o Eliza Johnson, Elizabethton, Tennessee
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 28, 1862