Savannah, or a Gift for Mr. Lincoln

by John Jakes

  The young woman blew loose wisps of fair hair away from her eyes. “Go on, please, Hattie.” The child untied the pig’s rope and drew her into a hall leading to the rear of the house.

  “Thank you, ma’am. My name is Captain Hopewell. May I ask the nature of those broken objects?”

  “Toys. My daughter and a friend made toys because the stores are empty. These—gentlemen—smashed them.”

  Stephen waved his Belgian pin-fire. “Let’s have your name and unit. You first, Corporal.”

  Marcus responded with silence. The others cast uncertain looks at their leader. Stephen cocked his revolver.

  “I can’t hear you. Speak up.”

  The homely one cleared his throat. “Marcus O. Marcus, Eighty-first Indiana. Sir.”

  “Next.”

  “Private Peter Pence, same.”

  “And?”

  “Private Melancthon Spiker, ditto.”

  “When we met before, you were part of a detail led by a sergeant wearing a silk hat decorated with flowers.” Marcus’s sneer showed Stephen that the sergeant had no direct role in this, nor did the ugly perpetrator like him.

  “All right, gentlemen, now we can begin to clean up. Private Spiker, straighten that tree and pick up those broken toys. Corporal Marcus, you and Pence sponge the carpet.”

  Vee intervened: “Oh, no, please just shoo them out of here.”

  “But we should put the room in order. Then we’ll discuss appropriate charges.”

  “This is my house. I don’t want to bring charges. I just want to get shed of them.”

  Sara stepped forward to wrap the heavy woman with a comforting arm. To Stephen she said, “It has something to do with Christmas, I think.”

  Stephen addressed the stout woman. “You own this house—is that correct?”

  “Yes, I am Miss Rohrschamp.”

  To Sara: “Are you a relative?”

  “A guest. Mrs. Lester is my name.” Stephen’s heart went plummeting; belatedly he spied the plain gold ring on her left hand.

  The girl, Hattie, slipped back into the room. She advised her mother that Amelia was safely tied outside. Stephen said to Marcus, “Corporal, you and your men march out of here before these good ladies have a change of heart. Return to your camp. If you try to run off tonight, I personally guarantee we’ll have every spare cavalryman on your trail. We will resolve this tomorrow.”

  Corporal Marcus slashed the air to signal his comrades to the door. He managed a last muttered thrust. “Ain’t anything to resolve. We was only foraging liberally, per Uncle Billy’s orders.”

  The open door brought another rush of December air. The would-be looters talked loudly as they hurried down the steps. One of them, probably the ringleader, laughed. Stephen slid his weapon out of sight. “Should have turned them over to the provost guard. Unfortunately there isn’t one just yet.”

  “You behaved very gallantly, Captain,” Sara said. “I doubt we have anything more to fear from that rabble. Two of them were following orders of the homely chap, and he struck me as a coward, only brave when facing adversaries who are weaker, and outnumbered. We thank you for intervening.”

  “Oh, yes, we do,” Miss Vee agreed. “Allow us to give you a little refreshment. I think there’s a tot of peach brandy in the pantry.”

  Stephen knew he should excuse himself, but the prospect of a warming drink and a chance to converse further with the fair-haired young woman overcame his sense of propriety. Besides, there was that shiny piano—a Chickering, not badly hurt by the marauders except for heel marks and tiny clumps of mud all over the case.

  He realized he still wore his black felt hat, remedied that with a swift apology. “Very kind of you, Miss Rohrschamp. You too, Mrs. Lester, but I wouldn’t want to intrude on you or, ah, your husband.”

  “My husband passed away in the service of the Confederacy some time ago.”

  “My sincere condolences. I’ll stay a moment, then. A sip of peach brandy would be welcome.”

  Miss Vee had recovered her Southern manners. “Take off your coat, won’t you? Sit down there—that’s the most comfortable chair. We’ll clean the carpet in the morning. I’ll be right back.”

  Which left Stephen alone in the parlor with the widow Lester and her daughter.

  He couldn’t decide which he wanted to get next to faster, the young woman or the Chickering. He certainly didn’t want to get next to Hattie, whom he’d classified as a gold-plated brat. She looked on with arms folded, her scowl reminding him of black thunderclouds on the eve of a storm sure to be destructive.

  While Vee foraged for brandy in the back of the house, Sara studied their visitor, and not without a certain nervousness. There were two reasons: Hattie’s unconcealed dislike of Yankee uniforms and all who wore them, and Sara’s own admiring appraisal of their benefactor.

  Rather awkwardly, he perched on the edge of the chair Vee had chosen for him. He had swarthy good looks, by no means ideally handsome, but pleasing. His voice was a hundred percent Yankee: nasal to a degree that grated on her ears. He told her that he was one of several news reporters attached to the army at the War Department’s insistence. He worked for a paper called the Eye, in New York, and she supposed that explained a lot about him.

  “You were raised there?”

  “No, upstate, but I’ve been in the city for many years.”

  “I’ve never seen New York.”

  “A pretty fascinating place. Rough sometimes. The people are pushy, nervy, because they’re crowded together. They knock you down if you’re in their way. Still, underneath they’re like people everywhere, grumpy or kind, according to the circumstances. New York’s the capital of everything—finance, music, theater, social striving, crime, vice—everything.”

  “I don’t believe I’ve actually met someone from New York before this.”

  That produced a broad smile; he stretched out his booted legs and relaxed. “Well, contrary to the stories they’re dispensing in Richmond, those of us above Mason and Dixon’s line don’t have horns and forked tails. We do have strong disagreements with you Southern folk about the unbreakable union and your, ah, peculiar institution—isn’t that what you call it?”

  Sara quickly moved Hattie from her stool and pointed her toward the kitchen. “Do see whether Vee is finding that brandy, dear. Our guest is thirsty.”

  Hattie gave Stephen a look and departed. Sara said, “I’m sorry she’s not sociable. She’s quite the little rebel.”

  “So I have deduced.” Stephen’s careful reply was designed to acknowledge the truth of the statement but without giving offense. Not only was the captain reasonably good-looking in a Mediterranean sort of way, but he was also intelligent—Sara didn’t know any men who slipped words like deduced into conversation. Polite, too—he and his army were the new masters of Savannah, but you would hardly know it from his behavior.

  Sara sat down opposite him. “I should imagine it’s lonely for any soldier, being away from his family this time of year.”

  “True. It’s melancholy even when you don’t have someone at home. In Canandaigua, that’s a pretty little town up near Lake Ontario, my only relatives are two cousins and a maiden aunt. I don’t see them often.”

  No wife, no children—she’d gone fishing just as he had a while ago. She changed the subject. “Those men you drove off—will they be disciplined?”

  “Mrs. Lester, I’d be less than honest if I said it’s a certainty. I’ll do everything I can, but there are a good many in the Union army who feel that Southerners are the only ones needing punishment. Then there is the necessity to move forward with this campaign. It takes precedence over everything. General Sherman badly wants to invade South Carolina and reduce it. Misbehavior of the kind we saw may be swept under the carp—” With a sheepish smile, he finished it by saying, “Overlooked.”

  Vee, with Hattie right behind, sailed into the parlor carrying a teacup and a stoneware bottle. “Here we are, here we are.” Vee uncorked the bottl
e ceremoniously. “I hope you care for the taste of peaches?”

  “Oh, absolutely.” Stephen accepted the teacup and took a generous sip. “Delicious.”

  Having decided the officer had no designs on her, Vee warmed to him. “Captain, until tonight, we wouldn’t have believed a man on your side of this war would come to our rescue.”

  While Stephen modestly basked in the compliment, Sara added, “I only wish we could offer a more tangible reward for your kindness.”

  A pointed silence ensued. Sara didn’t understand it until she noticed his dark eyes fixed on the Chickering upright. “Permitting me to sit and play would be a more than ample reward.”

  Vee said, “Oh, do you play professionally?”

  “Wish I could claim that. I fill in occasionally for others.”

  Enthralled, Sara exclaimed, “Fill in? Where?”

  “Oh, ah, various venues. Social clubs where gentleman congregate. I wanted to train for the concert stage, but my parents were too poor for lessons. Also, I found out at a young age that I wasn’t really suited. I’m too easily diverted by life’s pleasures. I may be a trifle lazy—I’ve been accused of it by my editor.” His grin banished any possibility that he thought it a serious fault. “How would you feel about it, Miss Rohrschamp? May I?”

  “You may, you may,” she trilled. Grinning, Stephen took his place on the bench.

  He flexed his fingers. He folded the music rack down, then raised it. He shifted slightly to the left. He pushed up the cuffs of his clean but unadorned sack coat of army blue.

  “Allow me to play an anthem for you. This terrible schism that’s taken so many lives on both sides will soon be over, and we’ll all be saluting the same flag again.”

  Before Hattie could blurt that he’d better not include her in his predictions, Sara laid an index finger across her lips. Stephen launched into “The Star-Spangled Banner,” played loudly, with many a flamboyant shake of his curly black hair. At the end of the piece, the ladies applauded, more politely than enthusiastically.

  “All right, here’s something perhaps more to your liking. A man named Dan D. Emmett wrote this for his minstrel troupe. Four years ago, the Lincoln Republicans picked it up as their marching song. Somehow it migrated down this way.” While Sara was still sorting out those facts, Stephen struck the first notes. To the piano he added a pleasant baritone. “Oh, I wish I was in the land of cotton—”

  Sara joined in. “Old times there are not forgotten.”

  Vee pressed one fist to her bosom and with her other hand saluted the heavens while making it a trio: “Look away, look away, look away, Dixie’s land.”

  They sang all the verses, Sara clapping with the beat, Vee raising her hems high enough to allow her to march to and fro. When the song ended, even Hattie clapped.

  Momentarily downcast, Vee said, “Is that really a Northern Republican song?”

  “Really”—he nodded—“though like so many other parts of history, I expect that’ll be forgotten.”

  Her throat curiously dry, Sara asked Vee for a sip of the peach brandy. Vee was surprised but sent Hattie to fetch another cup. For the first time in many a month, Sara felt deliciously secure and happy, due to the presence of this intriguing man from New York. Stephen took a deep breath.

  “What a treat to play again. I thank you sincerely. I must be moving along, but I can’t leave without a song of the season. How about this one?”

  He played the opening bars of “Jingle Bells.” Miss Vee pounced. “Wasn’t that written in Boston?”

  “Yes, by a Reverend Pierpont, a Unitarian, I believe. He composed the song in 1856. We were still one country then,” he added with a trace of testiness. “Is the geographic origin of a song important to you, ma’am?”

  “Of course it isn’t,” Sara said before her friend could mention her boycott of compositions by abolitionist clerics. “This is the season of forgiveness. Play, Captain. Play and we’ll all sing.”

  Sing they did, softly at first, then with more fervor and volume. By the second stanza even Vee seemed to enjoy herself. The exception was Hattie, who sat on her stool with her arms crossed, refusing to join in despite piercing looks from her mother.

  Shortly afterwards, Stephen bade them good night. What lingered in his mind as he rode south through the occupied city were the broken toys, the visions of empty Christmas stockings they conjured.

  Sara also had things on her mind. The captain’s merry smile. The joy he found in his music, poured out for all to share. Her own surprise at liking a Northerner even a little…

  Mysteriously, Wordsworth intruded: favorite lines from an 1807 poem about a wood dove’s plaintive cooing.

  He sang of love, with quiet blending,

  Slow to begin, and never ending;

  Of serious faith, and inward glee;

  That was the song—the song for me!

  The house lay still; turmoil in the city had died away. Hattie breathed lightly in the trundle bed below. All at once Sara felt guilty and foolish. She mustn’t betray her dear dead husband. She’d have no more truck with the enemy, no matter how charming.

  Stephen rode his mule through the city next morning. The air remained cold, the wind less like the expected Southern breeze than like a December bone-chiller blowing across the Hudson palisades.

  Conquered Georgians—women, youngsters, grandfathers, veterans with bandaged heads or padded crutches—filled the sidewalks, going about their business as if no army of invaders had come to town. It contrasted with Atlanta, where Stephen had composed dispatches about scenes of fire, riot, misery—thousands abandoning the city on Sherman’s order, dragging their belongings through muddy streets, fighting or bribing their way into wagon convoys bound south to the railway depot at Rough and Ready.

  Despite the morning’s activity, in every street and square he saw signs of suffering. Artillery had demolished the roof of a small doctor’s building, rendering the surgery unusable. Nothing remained of a stable but black timbers fallen like jackstraws on a carpet of ash. A cracked window in a cottage displayed a thin wreath of evergreen; a scarlet ribbon added a touch of faded color. As Stephen jogged by, an old man carrying firewood raised a free hand, not friendly so much as to acknowledge Stephen’s presence, the army’s presence, without a visible demonstration of wrath.

  Christmas, Stephen thought. Whipped as they are, starved as they are, they’re catching the spirit. He wished he could.

  The season and temporary respite from the march affected the occupying troops. They joshed and sang “John Brown’s Body” off-key as they marched or rode in the sandy streets. The encampment at Forsyth Square, where he’d spent the night in a wall tent with Davis of Harper’s and two temporarily unemployed telegraphers, buzzed with anticipation of arriving mail, newspapers, back pay, passes for sightseeing: this was a city, after all, a quaint one that looked nothing like the prairie hamlets of Illinois and Iowa. Already Stephen had been invited to a scheduled horse race, a Christian fellowship meeting, a high-stakes card game, a boating excursion on the Savannah. Sherman’s army was in fine spirits; it had won through to the sea with minimal losses and showed determination to reward itself with a festive yuletide.

  At headquarters of the 81st Indiana, he was directed to the adjutant, Captain Gleeson. The captain was discovered in his blue trousers with his galluses down on his hips; he was about to start his morning toilette with a razor and scrap of soap. Stephen inquired about men answering the description of Marcus and his cohorts. The captain told him where they could be found: Sergeant Winks’s forage detail.

  “Winks? I have a feeling I’ve met him. Tall skinny fellow? Wears peculiar clothes?”

  “A great many of our foragers array themselves like peacocks. It’s tolerated. Winks is a Putnam County rustic—you can’t expect good taste. At least in Indianapolis we have a modicum of civilization. Winks was an exceptional forager until recently. As we drew closer to Savannah, he brought back less from each venture into the countryside.
Why do you want him?”

  “I happened along when his men invaded a private house on York Street last night. They did a goodly amount of damage before I drove them out. Winks must hear about it.”

  “Their commanding officer too.”

  “Let Winks take care of that. May I ask, sir—do you happen to know when General Sherman arrives?”

  “This morning, later.” Gleeson waved his razor in lieu of returning Stephen’s salute, then turned to address his whiskers in the small mirror hung on a nail. The mirror was a triangle broken from a larger silvered glass; Stephen didn’t want to know how Gleeson got it.

  Following the captain’s directions, he passed between tents laid out in the usual soldierly grid. At the junction of two aisles he nearly collided with Private Pence. The looter gaped, whooped, and ran.

  He soon found Winks’s wedge tent, two halves laced together over a ridge pole and staked at the sides. The front flap was up. Stephen overheard a colloquy between a handsome young Negro in old clothes and the long-haired sergeant who carried on conversation while patching a dingy suit of underwear with a square of red flannel. He used a needle and thread from a little leather housewife lying beside his camp stool.

  Stephen remained outside the tent, unnoticed, while Winks said, “I never swallowed an oyster and don’t suppose I’ll start now.”

  “Captain, you ain’t never tasted a truthfully rich an’ delicious oyster pie like I can bake up for Christmas dinner.”

  “First you’d need oysters, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yessir, but—”

  “And to get them you’d need a rowboat, I assume?”

  “That’s gospel truth, but—”

  “And before any of that you’d need a pass permitting a darky to roam freely, so—” Stephen stamped his feet as though to restore circulation.

  The sergeant saw Stephen, and his shoulder straps. “Sir!” He threw aside his sewing, tried to stand and salute at the same time; he had to stoop to avoid the ridgepole. “Beg your pardon, we didn’t notice you there.”