Yankee in Atlanta

by Jocelyn Green

  Johnson left, and Noah scuffed a slow circuit around the barracks. Rounding building number sixteen, a lively conversation between two imprisoned Southern officers met his ears.

  “The justification of slavery in the South is the inferiority of the Negro. If we make him a soldier, we concede the whole question. And if slavery is to be abolished then I take no more interest in our fight.”

  “But Washington used Negroes as enlisted soldiers in the Revolutionary War, and they have advanced in intelligence very much since that time.”

  “I say again, if the Negro is fit to be a soldier, he is not fit to be a slave.”

  “There is no doubt that the proposition cuts under the traditions and theories of the South. But I am for it. Set free all who will enlist, and let us prosecute this war on something like an equal basis.”

  Noah nodded to them in greeting as he passed, though it was not their faces he saw. Instead, Saul, Bess, and a host of dark-skinned souls loomed before him. His stride quickened along with his resolve. Noah had defended his Southern homeland. Now it was time to side with freedom once again.

  Atlanta, Georgia

  Tuesday, November 8, 1864

  You still haven’t heard from him?”

  Not trusting her voice, Caitlin simply shook her head. Dreaming of Noah did not count.

  Jack sighed. “I need to go, too. Just finished voting for Lincoln’s reelection, and now I am to join General Thomas’s army up in Nashville. Sherman’s getting ready to move out for his winter campaign, too.” His crisp blue uniform reminded Caitlin that he was a man, and not still the fourteen-year-old boy who looked to her for mothering when Vivian’s grief stole her from the task. “Don’t you think you should go back to New York now?”

  “You know I can’t.” Even if she wanted to leave, the union provost marshal’s offer for transit north had expired.

  “Poor Mother. She wanted both of us home, and instead she gets neither.”

  Caitlin’s nose pinched as she grasped his hands and looked up into his shining hazel eyes. “I’m sorry I left you.” Her words barely fit around the sorrow clogging her throat.

  “When you were wounded in Virginia? And they mistook you for a Confederate soldier?” A smile curled on his lips as he shook his head. “That wasn’t your fault. And you forget, I never asked for your company.” He winked, softening the sting of his words. “You are not your brother’s keeper.”

  “Because I failed.”

  “No, sister. Maybe God had something else in mind for you. And He is more than able to be my protector without any help from you.”

  Caitlin cocked her head. “This doesn’t sound like the Jack I remember.”

  “Like I said. God is able. Maybe you’re the one who could use a lesson in trust now.” A roguish grin on his face, he handed her his copy of the Union Soldier’s Prayer Book, along with a stack of greenbacks. “Back pay. I won’t be needing it. Go home when you’re ready. You and Ana both.”

  Atlanta, Georgia

  Saturday, November 12, 1864

  Something’s burning.

  Caitlin wrenched awake and leapt out of bed. The cold wood floor slapped the soles of her feet as she ran to the window, and gasped. Though dawn was hours away, the sky glowed orange behind red tongues of flame and boiling, billowing smoke.

  Heart racing, she grabbed her cloak and shoes and dashed out of the house and through the streets until she reached the encampment at City Hall Square, mere blocks away.

  “What are you doing?” Pointing to the sky, she shouted at the soldier standing guard in front of City Hall.

  “It’s unauthorized, ma’am.”

  “What is?”

  “The fires breaking out among the private residences. Demolition is only scheduled for structures of military use. Depots, machine shops, warehouses, that sort of thing. We’ve been ordered not to touch dwelling houses, but some of the fires will spread by accident.”

  “And by arson.” Caitlin’s voice quavered with anger. “Is it not enough that you shelled the city for thirty-seven days already? Will you now burn the homes left standing?”

  The soldier cleared his throat. “Some soldiers will be undisciplined. General Slocum is offering a five hundred–dollar reward for catching arsonists. We’ll make sure it doesn’t happen here. We’ve got sentries posted.”

  “Not at my house, you haven’t.” She gave him her address.

  “We’ll send one right over. And if any incendiaries come through this way, we’ll stop them. Go on home and get some sleep, now.”

  But Caitlin did worry, and she didn’t sleep, though an armed guard in Union blue now patrolled Noah’s property. Rattled by the smoke and roar of fire, she traded slumber for vigilance while the horizon crackled and flashed.

  For three more days, Sherman’s engineers destroyed whatever could be used for war, and by night, wayward soldiers torched or ransacked private homes. With Ana huddled next to her on the bare parlor floor, Caitlin kept her shoes on and her senses on high alert.

  Atlanta, Georgia

  Tuesday, November 15, 1864

  Finally, inexplicably, there is wood for the fireplace. Warmth spread throughout Caitlin’s body, relaxing muscles kinked from weeks of shuddering in the drafty house. She stepped closer to the fire, smiling as the heat caressed her face. Finally, the chill is gone.

  “Wake up! Wake up!”

  Caitlin jerked awake to find Ana yanking on her arm. Wraiths of smoke crawled across the ceiling. The fire was not in the parlor hearth, but on the floor, spreading in a crackling pool from a blackened pine torch. The clock’s chimes jarred Caitlin’s nerves once, twice, three times, as flames flashed on its face.

  Scrambling to her feet, Caitlin grabbed Ana and stepped backwards, away from the searing heat. “Out!” She scooped up the girl, worried that a trip could break her brittle legs, and rushed her across the street to safety. No Union guards were in sight. “Stay here.”

  “What will you do?” Ana’s voice trembled as they faced their burning house.

  “I don’t know.” But I must do something.

  Dashing back to Noah’s backyard, Caitlin pumped water into a bucket, soaked her apron and tied it around her nose and mouth. Bursting back inside the house, she doused the floor. But by then, the flames had spread.

  November wind rushed through the holes in the roof and walls, whipping every spark into a blaze. Velvet curtains were fiery rags dripping from the rods. The oil painting melted and bubbled on its canvas, releasing noxious fumes as it burned. Flame sizzled across the picture molding until Caitlin was surrounded by a ring of fire.

  Shimmering waves of heat crowded her. Acrid smoke stung her eyes and clogged her throat through the fibers of her apron, which had already cooked dry as though she stood baking in an oven. Pulse loud in her ears, horror rooted her to the planks now hot beneath her feet as though hypnotized by the destruction.

  Only when the windows began exploding, and the second floor creaked and splintered above her head, did she turn her back on the rising inferno.

  Escaping into the night air, she crossed the street and captured Ana to her.

  “You shouldn’t have gone back!” Ana sobbed. “What would I have done without you?”

  Burying her face in Ana’s smoke-scented hair, Caitlin’s shoulders shook with grief for everything that had been taken from her, and from all the children of war. Wordlessly, she grasped Ana’s hand and hurried up McDonough Street.

  Dense, black columns of smoke were pillars on the horizon, and waves of fire rolled up into the sky, growling, blazing, furious. They receded, like an ocean tide, but still hung suspended over the city. Explosions and shattering glass punctuated the low roar of fire. As they turned left on Hunter and passed City Hall, rousing strains of “John Brown’s body goes marching on” met Caitlin’s ears. By the light of a flaming sky, a regimental band was serenading Sherman outside the house he had made his headquarters.

  Was this the army she had fought with? Did th
ey still sing of the righteousness of their cause, even as they ruined the homes of civilians? Right and wrong tangled in Caitlin’s mind until nothing seemed right at all. Everything was wrong. Her father’s death; her mother’s abuse; this wicked war that separated parents and children, siblings and sweethearts; made widows of young women, and turned innocent people homeless by the thousands. Caitlin had seen death and disfigurement on the battlefield, and those images were burned forever into her mind. But nothing had prepared her for this willful burning of a ruined city.

  “God!” she cried out, though her body could spare no tears. “Will this war never end?” The music of the Miserere, now played by the regimental band, was the haunting reply. The Italian opera song gave melody to Psalm 51:

  Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.

  Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

  For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.

  “Ma’am?” A soldier touched Caitlin’s elbow, and she turned her glassy stare upon him.

  “Our guard is gone, and our house is on fire.” She pointed to the fire now leaping into the sky from Noah’s roof.

  Within moments, a hastily assembled crew of Union soldiers rushed to contain the blaze.

  When morning came, Caitlin squinted with burning eyes through air that was peppered with ash. Noah’s house was half-skeleton, stained with soot, and sagging. As the last of Sherman’s troops marched out of the smoldering ruins singing, “Glory, glory hallelujah,” Caitlin and Ana scrubbed smoke from a shell they still called home.

  New York City

  Friday, November 25, 1864

  “And don’t come back until you’ve talked it out!” Aunt Vivian practically pushed Edward and Ruby out the door, insisting on watching Aiden for the evening. Since she had received letters from both Jack and Caitlin, assuring her of their well-being, she had much more energy to nose into her nephew’s marriage.

  “Did you tell her?” Edward asked Ruby as he helped her into the carriage.

  “I didn’t have to. I think yesterday’s Thanksgiving dinner was even more uncomfortable than last year’s, when your father insisted on calling me ‘the girl’!”

  A rare smile cracked Edward’s stony face.

  “Of course, that was also the day you gave me the sewing machine. The perfect gift. Thank you.”

  Her lips tipped up, and Edward nodded as he hitched the carriage up to the horse. “I was happy to give it to you.” He would have done anything for her then. And now? Things were different. Edward climbed up next to Ruby, reins in hand, and clucked his tongue to the horse.

  “I—I miss you.” Ruby’s voice was soft, but weighted.

  “I miss you, too,” he admitted.

  “You can forgive your father for keeping your aunt a secret. Can’t you forgive me for keeping mine? I’m sorry, Edward, you can have no idea how sorry I am. Please. Don’t let this ruin us.”

  He steered toward Broadway and let her words settle on him like snow. “I don’t suppose I ever gave you a chance to explain yourself.” The carriage wheels jolted over the cobbles. “Well, I’m listening.”

  “Thank you,” Ruby whispered, and Edward could not tell if she were speaking to him or to God. But when she draped her hand on his knee, he knew she was trying. He smiled to encourage her, and her eyebrows arched.

  “Let’s see,” she began. “I was hungry. Starving. And then I met Phineas …” In bits and pieces, her story came out, revealing the whole truth about the role Phineas Hastings had played. Posing as a respectable fellow, he had once courted Charlotte Waverly, who later befriended Ruby in Washington. But before that, his mother had employed Ruby as a domestic here in New York. When Phineas suspected Ruby had learned of his illegal profiteering in shoddy uniforms, Phineas had raped her, and ruined her character for any sort of decent work. She had turned to prostitution thinking she’d already been soiled, and at least one act would buy her a few weeks in which to figure out a new way to survive. Only, without Matthew’s financial support, and without a job as a domestic, there was no other way to eat.

  “Then Aiden was conceived.”

  So Phineas had been right. Aiden wasn’t Matthew’s son.

  “And I wanted to die. I wanted him to die inside me.”

  If Edward had read this awful tale, shock and judgment may have prevailed. But the way Ruby told it, with such brokenness, it broke his own condemnation apart. As her story unfolded in tearful tones and halting rhythm, he finally heard it for what it was. This was a story of a woman redeemed. Ruby, like the woman in John 8, had chosen to go and sin no more. She had grasped onto grace and allowed God to transform her.

  Phineas Hastings’ words rushed back at Edward now. So you really believe what the Bible says about forgiveness of sin, redemption, and all that? You really believe that God can snatch people from their downward spirals and set them on a course of righteousness?

  “I believe. Ruby, I need to ask your forgiveness. I’ve been mean and spiteful lately, only confirming that you had a good reason to keep this from me. I’m sorry you were so fearful of my reaction that you carried this burden alone.” He shook his head, conviction snatching his words for a moment as he realized how closely he’d resembled a Pharisee. “I was full of Bible knowledge, yet quicker to judge than to love. I am deeply, deeply sorry.”

  Ruby wiped the tears from her eyes. “I’m sorry I deceived you! It was selfish of me, and—”

  A scream split the air, then another, then more, until the night was shredded with them. Shrieking women streamed out of one Broadway hotel after another, including the Astor House, the Metropolitan, and the St. Nicholas, snapping Ruby’s and Edward’s attention toward the billowing plumes of smoke coming from the windows. Throngs packed the street to see the commotion, until the clanging bells of horse-drawn fire engines split them apart. Wooden houses were evacuated, and the crowd whipped into a frenzy.

  “It’s a Confederate plot!” someone shouted. “Find the Rebels!”

  “Hang them from a lamppost!”

  “Burn them at the stake!”

  Edward watched the color drain from Ruby’s face. The Washington Infirmary. She almost burned down with it in November 1861. Was she reliving that horror right now? “That’s enough. We’re going home.”

  Atlanta, Georgia

  Wednesday, November 30, 1864

  Hunger clawed Caitlin as she marched with a case knife in her apron pocket, and two baskets in her hands. Lone chimneys from burned-down houses—Sherman’s sentinels—marked her path as she trudged toward the barren Atlanta battlefield. Forests that once obscured the view to Stone Mountain had been cut down by the armies’ fierce fight, and the bitter wind swept through the land, uninhibited. Caitlin’s skirts beat around her legs, and her hair whipped into her eyes. When she came to a marshy spot, she knelt and carved into the ice-encrusted earth, until minié balls were freed. This is bread for Ana, she told herself as she dropped the lead into the basket.

  A commissary relief store had been set up in a tent back in town, announcing it would trade food for lead. Never mind that the lead will be formed into more Confederate weapons. In the face of starvation, patriotism mattered little. This lead that had been forged to kill would now sustain their lives. This is what mattered. That they would live.

  Another woman and her slave were on hands and knees digging for lead as well, crying audibly as they did so. The white woman choked back a sob and said, “Lord of mercy, if this be Thy holy will, give me fortitude to bear it uncomplainingly …”

  Caitlin’s throat tightened. But she must hurry. Ana, on crutches provided by the Union doctor, and unable to stand the hike, was waiting in a half-burned home where no fire was lit to keep her warm. Cold needled Caitlin’s feet, and her dry hands cracked and bled as she scraped at the frozen earth.

  But when she brought the baskets to the commi
ssary ten hours later, the kindly gentleman in faded grey emptied them of lead and returned them full of coffee, sugar, meal, and meat. They would live another week.

  New York City

  Saturday, December 10, 1864

  Six inches of snow turned New York City into a scene from Currier & Ives. Vivian McKae delighted in the refreshingly clean mantle, though she knew beneath it, the metropolis was as dirty as it ever had been.

  Her smile faltered. Could the same be said of her? On the outside, everything sparkled. Her brother had been restored to her, she was welcome to live in his fine home, and she had been assured that both Jack and Caitlin were well.

  Yet a single, unconfessed sin sullied her spirit. Bernard. She had killed him, and she had meant to. She was a murderer. Yes, she had brought this to God and believed He forgave her, but keeping the truth from the civil authorities was a sin she could live with no longer. Neither Jack nor Caitlin depended on her anymore. In fact, no one needed her at all. Her imprisonment would hurt no one but herself.

  Quietly, Vivian donned her cloak and crunched the snow beneath her feet as she stole away to the precinct. A brief prayer, combined with the crisp air scraping her skin, invigorated her for the task ahead.

  Once inside the warm building, memories surged around her. This was where Bernard had worked. This cigar-tobacco scent hanging in the air—that was his scent, when it wasn’t masked by whiskey. She shuddered even now. The man had been a monster.

  “Can I help you?” A young man scratched his jaw.

  Vivian stepped forward. “I need to speak with a detective, please.”

  “Regarding?”

  “A murder.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “A moment, please.”

  He disappeared around a corner, then returned with an older man with a grey mustache, tugging at his collar as he walked. “This way, please.”

  Vivian followed him until he plopped down at his desk and motioned for her to be seated opposite. “Now. What’s this all about?”