Last Cavaliers Trilogy

by Gilbert, Morris

  During the winter, when both of the armies listlessly huddled in their winter quarters, Clay managed to get leave several times to ride back to Richmond and see Chantel. But that first year of their marriage, they were together few enough times that Chantel could count them on her fingers. Though she worried, she refused to lose hope. In her heart she believed that Clay had been so grievously wounded and had been healed, and that had been God’s plan to bring them together. All during that endless year, even as the Confederacy slowly disintegrated into a smoking ruin, she was certain that she and Clay would live out their days, together, in peace.

  By the end of March 1865, General Lee knew that the end was near, and he could no longer guard Richmond. The army moved west to join other forces in the Shenandoah Valley. Clay sent Chantel and Jacob to his parents’ home in Lexington. Grant, with nothing to stop him now, occupied Richmond and dogged Lee. The forlorn retreat of the Army of Northern Virginia lasted only a week. It ended at Appomattox Court House.

  General Grant rode up to Wilmer McLean’s fine two-story home. He was shabby and dusty. He had on a single-breasted blouse made of dark blue flannel, unbuttoned in front, showing a waistcoat underneath. His trousers were tucked into muddy boots. He had no spurs, and he wore no sword. The only designation of his rank was a pair of faded shoulder straps with four dimmed stars.

  The aides he had sent ahead were waiting for him, and a group of Confederates, dressed in rather worn full-dress uniforms stood around the home.

  Grant dismounted. “He’s already here?” he asked an aide.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Grant nodded and hurried into the house.

  Clay had found the remnants of the Louisiana Tigers, and Armand Latane was there, in his full-dress uniform. It was clean, but it was faded and patched, as was Clay’s uniform. They watched as Grant and General Phil Sheridan went inside with several other officers.

  “And so it’s over,” Armand murmured. “At last. I joined, I fought, I thought that we would win. Until the winter, in Petersburg.”

  Clay said quietly, “You know, when I joined, I just knew the South would win. I kept thinking that, even after Grant came after us and kept pushing us back, throwing more and more men at us. But on the day Jeb Stuart was shot, I began to think that we were going to lose. It’s as if all my hopes were in him. That was wrong. No one man can win a war. But I couldn’t help it. Not one day since that day did I ever think again that we would be able to beat them.” The two could say nothing more.

  Finally the door opened, and the two generals came out. Clay sighed deeply when he saw Robert E. Lee. He was dressed in a new uniform, spotless and crisp. A great heavy sword, the hilt bejeweled, was at his side. He stood erect, his bearing as always dignified and grave, but deep sadness was written on his face. His eyes went out over the fields and valley below, where his army waited for him to speak to them for the last time. He mounted Traveler, his beautiful, graceful gray horse, and settled his hat on his head. As he rode through the silent gray ranks, he said, “Go to your homes and resume your occupations. Obey the laws and become as good citizens as you were soldiers.”

  Clay stacked his musket, setting it upright alongside Armand’s. “I hope I never have to raise my hand to another man again,” he said wearily. “All I want is a quiet life, a simple life, with Chantel.”

  Armand laid his hand on Clay’s shoulder. “My friend, your life might be simple, yes. But with Chantel I doubt it will be quiet. You got the prize, my friend. Never forget that.”

  “Never,” Clay repeated firmly. “I never will.”

  He could see his house, up on a rise, with a small green valley below it. It was almost a mile off the main road. He rode slowly, for Lightning was weary. Clay himself had grown thin and was a much weaker man than he had been before wintering in Petersburg. But as he drew nearer to his house, he suddenly felt a surge of energy that somehow translated itself to Lightning. The horse raised his lowered head as in the old days when he had caught the scent of battle, and with the slightest touch of Clay’s heels, he began to canter and then to gallop.

  Chantel was sitting on the veranda, sipping tea and knitting. At the first distant sounds of hoofbeats, she looked up alertly. Then she jumped to her feet, lifted her skirts, and took off down the road at a dead run.

  Clay slid off Lightning even before he stopped. Chantel threw herself into his arms. For a long time they stood there, clasped in each other’s arms, saying nothing. Finally Clay put one finger under her chin, lifted her face, and kissed her. The kiss, too, lasted for a long time.

  Lightning stopped for a moment, but as they stayed clasped in their embrace, he unconcernedly trotted past them and went to the shade trees on the side of the yard, where there was a watering trough.

  Arm in arm Clay and Chantel walked toward the house. “It’s over,” Clay said, marveling. “It’s over, and I’m home. And the biggest miracle is that you’re here. My wife. I love you dearly, my wife.”

  “I love you dearly, too, me,” Chantel said, laughing. “It’s good that you’re home. You’re too skinny, you. Maybe I catch an alligator and cook it, fatten you up.”

  “Even alligator sounds good right now,” Clay sighed. “It’s been a long time since I’ve eaten a good, solid meal.”

  They went up onto the veranda, and Clay started to go in, but Chantel pulled at his arm and said, “Sit down here for a minute with me. I should get to see my husband alone for a little while when he comes home from this war.”

  They sat down in two rockers, Clay pulling his so close to Chantel’s that she couldn’t rock. But she obviously didn’t care. They held hands and looked out over the peaceful valley.

  Clay said, “On the way home, I thought a lot about what I would like to do, Chantel.”

  “And what is that?”

  “Well, first I want to be the best husband who ever lived,” he said lightly. Then he sobered a little and continued, “I’m sick of fighting. I’m sick of killing and hurting men. I want to do something good, something to help people instead of hurting them. I think I’d like to be a doctor.”

  With delight Chantel clapped her hands. “Oh Clay, you would be such a good, such a fine doctor! And you can get rich and buy me lots of pretty dresses!”

  “I surely will,” he said, grinning. “All you want.”

  “But that’s not the only reason I would be glad you’ll be a doctor,” she said firmly. “There is another reason. You must hurry, Clay, and start studying right now.”

  “What? Why?” he asked, bewildered.

  “Because,” she said slowly, “around about September I’m going to need a doctor.”

  He stared at her wide-eyed. Then his gaze fell to the knitting on the little low table by Chantel’s chair. Slowly he reached down, lifted it up, and saw with shock that Chantel was knitting a pair of baby’s booties.

  “This—we’re going to have a baby?” he breathed.

  “Yes.”

  “In—in September?”

  “Yes.”

  Clay jumped up, Chantel jumped up, and he put his hands on her waist and held her high in the air and whooped like a madman.

  They were just like a young couple who had lived in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in 1855.

  They could have been Flora and Jeb Stuart.

  the

  SURRENDER

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER ONE

  Miss Mary Anna Randolph Custis walked out onto the porch and paused, as she usually did, to look around and savor the day.

  It was a hot, hard, bright morning in August of 1829. The sky was a deep blue with no cloud puffs to soften it. Below the gracious home on the hill was the lazy Potomac River and just beyond lay the city of Washington, DC. The distance mellowed the outlines of the shabby town, and heat shimmers made it appear dreamlike.

  Mary lifted her head and sniffed appreciatively as she caught the elusive scent of roses, the last blooms in the luxuriant rose garden by Arlington Mansion.

&nb
sp; She went down the steps and surveyed the pony cart waiting in the drive. A slave held the mare as Mary inspected the eight large baskets in the cart. Filled with sweet cherries, they glowed a glorious crimson in the glaring sun. For a moment Mary considered parking the cart under a nearby oak tree so she could paint it: cart, horse, slave, cherries, and all. They made a wonderful picture, and one of Mary’s loves was painting. She was a gifted artist.

  Finally aloud she said, “No, I suppose the hands will enjoy the cherries much more than I would enjoy painting them.” She came around to pet the mare’s nose and asked, “Did you get the things I wanted for Bitty, Colley?”

  The slave, a small somber man, nodded. “Yes, Miss Mary. I put the mugs and the pitcher and the ice block under the seat, all packed nice in sawdust. But don’t you want me to go fetch one of the boys to drive this around?”

  “No, I’m taking it,” Mary said firmly. “But I don’t want to bounce around in the cart. I’m just going to walk.” She pulled the mare’s reins down and wrapped them once around her hand.

  “But Miss Mary, it’s hot, and it’s probably a two-mile walk all around the quarters,” Colley said helplessly as Mary started walking down the drive.

  “I’ll be fine, Colley. Stop fussing. You’re as bad as Bathsheba,” she said over her shoulder.

  Colley returned to the house, muttering, “That Miss Mary’s got a stubborn streak wide as that river! Ain’t no telling her nothing!”

  Mary heard his muttering, and a fleeting smile crossed her lips. She had heard such dire imprecations all her life—from the helpless entreaties of her mother and father to mutterings and grumblings from house servants like Colley, who were prone to taking more liberties than the farmhands.

  Only twenty-two years of age, she was already finding that she understood some of their care for her, particularly her parents’ concern. Mary Lee Fitzhugh Custis and George Washington Parke Custis had had four children, and Mary Anna was the only one to survive infancy.

  She was tiny, her frame as small and delicate as a bird’s, and she was fragile. She had dark brown hair, thick and curly, and her rich brown eyes were probably her best feature, wide and fringed with thick dark lashes below the smooth oval of her forehead. She was not pretty, she knew: her chin was too pointed, her nose too long, her mouth not full and pouty as was the fashion. But she was attractive, particularly to men, as they found her interesting, amusing, and vivacious. Though she was small, she had a fire within her, and it showed in her alert, quick expression and her sparkling eyes.

  Walking down the path to the south slave quarters, she savored each moment. The grounds surrounding the house were a clean, solemn forest, cool even in the hottest of summers. It was quiet and peaceful. Accompanying the creaks of the cart and the mare’s plodding steps were the cheerful calls of birds. Everywhere Mary looked was a shade of green, mottled only by the lichen-gray stands of boulders that were allowed to stay in the much-manicured woods.

  When she reached the first cabin, she saw with dismay that the elderly slave Bitty wasn’t sitting out on her porch, as she always did in fine weather. Tying the mare’s reins to a porch post, she knocked on the door and called softly, “Bitty? It’s me, Miss Mary. May I come in?”

  “Yes, ma’am, miss.” She heard faintly.

  She went inside and saw the woman on her small bed, struggling to get up. Quickly she went to her side and laid her hands on the woman’s shoulders. “No, no, Bitty, don’t get up. I heard you weren’t feeling well, so I came to see about you.” She propped up a pillow so Bitty could sit up. “I brought you some things. I’ll just be a minute.”

  From the wagon Mary got a tin pitcher and two covered mugs and then went back to get the ice block. It was sitting in a small crate filled with sawdust and covered with a linen cloth. When she had all the items on the kitchen table, she pulled a chair up to Bitty’s bedside and asked, “How are you feeling, Bitty? What’s wrong?”

  “Touch of catarrh is all, I guess,” she said tiredly. “Dunno how I got it in middling of summer, but here it is. Sneezing and coughing and sniffling like it’s dead winter. Cold one minute and hot the next.”

  Mary nodded. “That’s the fever. I brought just the thing for you, some wine whey, and it’s still warm. It’ll break that fever, and then maybe you’ll feel like having some fresh cherry cordial. I even brought you some ice so you can have it nice and cold.” Mary brought her one of the covered mugs and a spoon. “Here, this will make you feel so much better, Bitty.”

  “I’m just not very hungry, Miss Mary,” she said wanly. She was normally a hearty woman, thickly built and sturdy, but now Mary could see that she had lost some weight and looked drawn.

  “None of that,” Mary argued. “Either you eat it, or I’m spoon-feeding you.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Bitty said resignedly.

  Though Bitty had been a farmhand, Mary Anna, along with all the slaves, was aware of her strong will. After Bitty took a few cautious spoonfuls, Mary could see from the slave’s reaction she liked wine whey, which was basically milk boiled with white wine.

  Mary continued to watch her, hawklike, until Bitty finished.

  Taking the mug and spoon, Mary efficiently washed them up and laid them by the sink to dry. “Father bought forty bushels of sweet cherries,” she told Bitty as she chipped ice to make her a small cordial. “I’m taking a bushel to everyone. Would you like me to leave yours, Bitty, or would you rather that I take them back and have the kitchen put them up for you?”

  “No’m, I love cherries. I’d like to have them,” Bitty said, her eyes brightening. “And please tell Mr. Custis my thank-yous. And to you, too, Miss Mary.”

  After making sure Bitty’s cabin was in order, Mary went back out to the wagon and continued her long circular walk around the Arlington property, stopping at each cabin to give the families the cherries, greeting all the children by name and asking all the women—the men were working—little details about their families and their work at Arlington. Finally her cart was empty, and it was almost a half-mile walk back up to the house. Though it irritated her, Mary admitted to herself that she was tiring, so she drove the cart back home.

  As she pulled up to the gracious portico, her maidservant Bathsheba came hurrying out of the house, scolding with every breath. “There you are, all hot and wearied. Your hair all down, and your dress smudged all ’round at the hem! Ain’t a bit of sense in you going wandering all over this place like a peddler, but can a body tell you that? No, ma’am!”

  “No, ma’am,” Mary smartly repeated as she climbed down from the cart. “I wasn’t wandering, Bathsheba. I was going around to the quarters, taking everyone some cherries. It was a very pleasant walk.”

  As Mary went into the house, Bathsheba followed her, making shooing motions. Bathsheba had actually been Mary’s nursemaid and was now a woman of forty, round and plump, with a jolly disposition, although she was often as severe with Mary as she had been when she was a willful child. As she followed Mary up the stairs, she said, “Now you knew you was having a caller this evening, Miss Mary, and what did you do? Go traipsing off and get hot and get your dress as dirty as an urchin, and what happened to those nice curls I did this morning?”

  “They melted,” Mary answered shortly. “I got hot. I want a sponge bath, Bathsheba, and then I’ll change clothes. I still have plenty of time.”

  “No, you ain’t,” Bathsheba argued. “How is it you’re such a smart girl, and you can’t tell time for nothing? You know Mr. Robert is always right on spanking time to the minute, and you always keep him shuffling his feet and fidgeting, talking to your mama and daddy.”

  As they went into her bedroom, Mary turned and smiled mischievously at her maid. “Oh, Mr. Robert will wait,” she said. “He always waits.”

  Robert E. Lee passed the apple orchard, the overseer’s house, Arlington Spring, and the dance pavilion and turned up the wide drive to Arlington Mansion. He felt like the object of a master’s painting of a soldier
riding at ease. He hoped he also looked the part.

  Perfectly erect in the saddle, he sat the horse so easily it was as if they were one. He wore the dress uniform of a lieutenant in the United States Army, Engineer Corps. His gauntlets were of the softest yellow kid. A simple dark blue frock coat with a single row of brass buttons, the somber grandeur of a military uniform was evoked by the high collar with a wreath encircling the single star of a lieutenant embroidered in gold thread and heavy gold epaulettes. His trousers were plain blue, and he wore spotlessly shined boots. His spurs were gold. The US Army regulation hat for officers was a low-crowned, wide-brimmed blue with gold braid trim. It was called a “slouch hat,” but there was nothing at all about Robert E. Lee that might be called slouchy.

  At twenty-two years of age, Lee had reached full maturity. According to many young ladies he had become an exceedingly handsome man, but he was not so sure himself. His wide brow lay beneath black hair so thick and glossy and wavy that many women desperately envied it. His eyes were well set, of a brown so dark that sometimes they looked black. He had a straight patrician nose and a wide mouth, slightly upturned at the corners, which gave him a habitual expression of goodwill, though his jaw and chin were very firm.

  Passing through the farm fields, he came to the grounds of the estate, which had been left so heavily wooded that it was called “The Park” rather than the grounds. Ahead he relished the first glimpse of Arlington House, as he had each of the many times he had visited this home. Set up on a gentle hill above the river, the wide veranda with eight great Doric columns made the house look more like a Greek temple than a private dwelling. It invoked a feeling of serenity and peace.