by John Jakes
When Brett had said she wanted to help her, Virgilia’s first reaction had been suspicion, her second exhausted indifference. Now, before the mirror, something stirred in her. Not happiness; she was seldom capable of that, and not now especially. Call it interest. Curiosity. Whatever its name, it was a little bud of life that unexpectedly broke through hard ground.
She rose, unfastened the robe, and opened it to see herself.
Corseted, her breasts would become her. The near-starvation she had endured after selling the last of the stolen silver had slimmed her. Perhaps the agony of those weeks of hunger would have a positive side.
She let the robe fall. Suddenly overwhelmed, she took a small step forward. One hand, not steady, came up—reached out—touched the wondrous reflection. “Oh.” Her eyes filled with tears.
She found it hard to sleep that night. Around midnight she opened the curtains so the morning light would wake her. Wearing both the gown and the robe, she was seated in the dining room waiting when Brett appeared for breakfast.
32
GEORGE WOKE AT FIVE on Sunday morning. He slipped from bed—but not quietly. His activity soon roused Constance and the children. “You’re as excited as a boy,” she said, yawning as she struggled into her clothes.
“I want to see the battle. Half the town expects it to be the first and last of the war.”
“Do you, Pa?” his son asked, acting as cheerfully jittery as his parent.
“I wouldn’t venture a guess.” He wrapped the old army-issue gun belt around his waist and made sure the 1847-model Colt repeater rested securely in the holster. Constance took note of the preparation but limited her comment to a frown. George gestured.
“William, fetch my flask of whiskey and take care of it. Patricia, help your mother with the lunch hamper. I’ll get the carriage.”
Patricia made a face. “I’d rather stay and read and feed the cows on the mall.”
“Now, now,” Constance said as George left. “Your father made all the arrangements. We’re going.”
So was a large part of the population of Washington, it appeared. Even at this early hour, a line of riders and vehicles waited at the city end of Long Bridge while sentries checked passes. Among the sightseers there was a great deal of animated conversation, laughter, and the displaying of opera glasses and telescopes bought or borrowed for the occasion. It promised to be a warm, lovely day, the scents of summer earth and air mingling with the aromas of horse droppings and perfume.
Finally the Hazards reached the head of the line. George showed his War Department pass. “Plenty of traffic this morning.”
“Plenty more ahead of you, Captain. They’ve been passing for hours.” Saluting, the sentry signaled the barouche forward.
They crossed the river, George smartly handling the two plugs rented as part of the rig that had cost him an outrageous thirty dollars for the day. He had paid without protest and deemed himself lucky; among the phaetons, hacks, and gigs on the rutted road, he spied even more unusual conveyances, including a dairy wagon and another with the name of some city photographer blazoned on it.
The trip was not short; they had to travel roughly twenty-five miles southwest to find the armies. As two hours became three and the miles rolled on, they drove past cornfields, small farms, and ramshackle cabins. White and black people watched the cavalcade with equal astonishment.
McDowell’s advance had torn up the road. Constance and the children constantly swayed and bounced; Patricia loudly lamented the discomfort and the long distance.
A stop near a patch of woods was necessary for all of them. Constance and her daughter retired first, then George and William after they returned. George folded down the calash top so they could enjoy more of the scenery and sunshine. That mollified William a little, but Patricia continued to express boredom and annoyance. George spoke to her and put a stop to that.
A horseman sped around the left side of the barouche; George recognized a senator. He had already seen three well-known members of the House. They were still a couple of miles this side of Fairfax when William tugged George’s sleeve, excited. “Pa, listen!”
Amid all the cloppings and creaking, George had missed the faraway rumbling. “That’s artillery, all right.” Constance put her arm around Patricia. George’s spine prickled, and he remembered Mexico. Shells bursting. Men toppling. The raging screams of wounded; the lost cries of the dying. He remembered the shell that blew away the hut on the Churubusco road—and his friend Orry’s arm in the bargain. He shut his eyes to blot out the memories—
With a shiver, he straightened and concentrated on driving. The shelling beyond the horizon excited travelers all along the road. Horses were urged to greater speed. But some difficulty ahead slowed movement. Huge dust clouds billowed. “Good God, what’s this?” he said as Union troops, marching toward Washington, forced vehicles, including the barouche, over to the shoulder.
“Who are you?” George yelled at a corporal driving a high-piled baggage cart.
“Fourth Pennsylvania.”
“Is the battle over?”
“Don’t know, but we’re going home. Our enlistments ran out yesterday.”
The corporal drove on, followed by clots of ambling volunteers who laughed a lot and handled their shoulder weapons as if they were toys. Purple berry stains ringed the mouth of more than one young soldier. Wild flowers stuck from the muzzle of more than one musket. The Pennsylvanians straggled through the fields on either side of the road, picking flowers, pissing, doing whatever they pleased, while the guns grumbled in the south.
Past Fairfax, the Washington picnickers pressed on toward a thin blue haze drifting above ridge lines still miles distant. The boom of artillery grew louder. About noon, George began to hear the crackling of small arms, too.
The countryside here was rolling and wooded, though it had open stretches as well. They drove through Centreville and down the Warrenton Turnpike until they came upon great numbers of carriages and horses lined up on high ground on both sides of the road. An army courier galloping to the rear shouted that they had better go no farther.
“I can’t see anything, Pa,” William complained as George turned the horses left, behind the line of spectators with their picnic blankets and baskets spread among the trees. In front of them a hillside sloped to a creek called Cub Run, with smoke-muddied fields and woods beyond.
Hunting an open spot, George noticed enough foreign uniforms and heard enough different languages to furnish at least one diplomatic ball. He continued to see Washingtonians, too, including Senator Trumbull, of Illinois, present with a large party.
He winced when he came upon a familiar group. “Good morning, Stanley,” he called, driving on. He was thankful there was no room on either side of Stanley’s phaeton.
“Three hampers and a champagne bucket—what wretched excess,” Constance said as William directed his protest to her:
“I can’t see anything.”
“That may be, but we’re going no closer,” George said. “Here’s a place.” He pulled into vacant space at the end of the line of vehicles, tired and hot. His watch showed ten past one. Their view of the battle consisted of a panorama of distant clouds of thick smoke.
“They’re not firing.” Constance sounded relieved as she unfolded and spread their blanket. Could it be over already? George said he would try to get some information. He set off on foot toward the turnpike.
Courtesy forced him to stop a moment with his brother’s family. The twins were busy bashing each other behind a tree. Sweaty Stanley looked cross-eyed from champagne. Isabel declared that the artillery fire had been “fearsome” until a few minutes ago and that the rebs certainly must be on the run to Richmond. George touched his hat brim and left in search of more reliable sources.
He passed several loud groups and found himself irked by their jollity—maybe because he had a grasp of what was probably happening beneath and behind the smoke. He reached the turnpike and scanned it for anyo
ne who appeared trustworthy. In three or four minutes, a gig came rattling up the hill from the suspension bridge spanning Cub Run.
The gig pulled off the opposite side of the road. A portly civilian, well dressed, put on eyeglasses hanging from a chain. From under the seat he took a hard-backed writing pad and pencil. George crossed the road.
“Are you a reporter?”
“That’s correct, sir.” The proper British accent startled George. “Russell’s the name.” He awaited a reaction and was cooler when he had to add, “The Times of London.”
“Yes, of course—I’ve seen your dispatches. Have you been forward?”
“As far as prudence allows.”
“What’s the situation?”
“Impossible to be sure, but the Federals appear to be carrying the day. The troops on both sides are spirited. One Confederate general distinguished himself in a hot contest around a farmhouse close by the Sudley Road. A Union action vedette gave me particulars, and the chap’s name—” he leafed back two pages—“Jackson.”
“Thomas Jackson? Is he a Virginian?”
“Can’t say, old fellow. Really—I must get on here. Both sides are resting and regrouping. There’ll be more soon, I don’t doubt.” He dismissed his questioner by bending over his pad to write.
George felt sure the hero of the farmhouse must be his old friend and West Point classmate; the strange, driven Virginian with whom he had shared study hours and hashes and conversation in sunny cantinas after Mexico City fell. Jackson had been teaching at some military school before the war, and it was logical that he would join up and stand out. Even back at the Academy, there had been two distinct opinions about Tom Jackson: he was brilliant, and he was crazy.
George tramped back to his family. Around two, while they ate, the lull ended. Ground-shaking cannonading began, exciting William and terrifying Patricia. Hundreds of spectators peered through spyglasses, but little could be seen except occasional fiery glares in the roiling blue clouds. An hour went by. Another. The rattle of small arms never stopped. Since the best soldier couldn’t fire a muzzleloader much faster than four times a minute, George knew that continuous fire meant great numbers of men were volleying.
Suddenly horses burst from the murk hanging over the turnpike. One wagon emerged, followed by two more. All sped toward the Cub Run bridge—too rapidly; the spectators heard unseen wounded screaming at every jolt.
Constance leaned near. “George, there’s something vile about all this. Must we stay?”
“Definitely not. We’ve seen enough.”
That was confirmed when a carriageload of officers with horse tails on their elaborate helmets pulled out of line, heading for the turnpike. One officer stood, swayed drunkenly, and fell out. The carriage stopped. As his comrades helped him back in, he vomited on them.
“Yes, definitely this isn’t—”
A commotion interrupted George. He turned and followed the pointing fingers of people nearby. A private in blue came running along the turnpike, heading for the bridge. Then another. Then more than a dozen. George heard the first man screaming unintelligibly. Those behind were throwing away kepis, haversacks—God almighty—even their muskets.
And then George understood the cry of the boy on the bridge.
“We’re whipped. We’re whipped.”
George’s stomach spasmed. “Constance, get in the carriage. Children, you too. Forget the food.” He slipped the nose bags off the horses; he had wanted to water them in the creek, but now there was no time. He smelled something vague and terrible in the powder-laden air. He shoved his son and daughter. “Hurry.”
His tone alarmed them. Down the line, two horsemen were mounting, but no one else acted concerned. George maneuvered the barouche into the open and started toward the road, aware of soldiers running up the hill while more poured from the smoky woods beyond Cub Run on a steadily widening front. One youngster in blue shrieked, “Black Horse Cavalry. Black Horse Cavalry right behind us!”
George had heard about that feared regiment from Fauquier County. He shook the reins to speed the stable plugs, passing Stanley and Isabel, who seemed puzzled by his haste. “I’d get going if you don’t want to be caught in—”
The whine of a shell muffled the rest of the warning. Craning, George watched another ambulance reach the suspension bridge just before the shell hit. The horses tore against leather, the wagon rolled over—the bridge was blocked.
More vehicles and men appeared on the Warrenton Turnpike and in the flanking woods. Geysers of smoke and dirt erupted as projectiles fired by distant artillery struck the slope and creek banks. The Union volunteers were fleeing; the bridge was impassable; ambulance and supply wagons piled up in the smoky vale behind; and quick as brush fire, the terror spread to the spectators.
A civilian leaped into the barouche and tried to grab the reins. His nails raked the back of George’s hand, drawing blood. George squirmed sideways and booted the man in the groin. He fell off.
“Black Horse, Black Horse!” the running soldiers screamed, the turnpike thick with them now; most were soaked from wading the creek to avoid the bridge. Constance cried out softly and hugged the children as a shell burst in the field to their right. Dirt came down all over them.
George drew his Colt, transferred it to his left hand, and struggled to turn the nervous animals using only his right. Not easy, but he was determined to get his family to safety. He stayed off the turnpike; too many retreating men made it impossible to travel with any speed. Uniforms were mingled, regulation blue with gaudy Zouave outfits—the entire Union force must have collapsed into disorder.
“Hold on,” he yelled as he plunged the team through a stubble field south of the road, then swerved wildly to avoid a tuba thrown away by some musician. In a quarter of a mile, hundreds of men caught up with them and passed them. George was outraged by the rout, the fleeing soldiers, and the spectators. Beyond the turnpike, he saw three women thrown from their buggy by two men in civilian clothes. He raised his Colt to fire at them, then realized the futility of it and didn’t.
He began to ache from the rough transit of the fields. Smoke made his eyes smart; shells landed close behind them. Crossing another small stream, the barouche’s rear wheels sank into ooze on the bank. George ordered the family out and gestured William to the off rear wheel. Just then he saw Stanley’s rig race by, straight down the middle of the turnpike. Soldiers had to leap out of the way. Isabel spied the barouche, but her fear-stricken face suggested she didn’t recognize anyone.
A sergeant and two privates splashed toward the mired vehicle. George was wary of the sergeant’s glazed look. Standing in muddy water halfway up his thighs, George drew the Colt’s hammer back.
“Help us push it out or get the hell away.”
The sergeant called him a name and motioned his men on. Almost blinded by sweat, George put his shoulder against the wheel and told his son to do the same. “Push!”
They strained and heaved; Constance dragged at the headstall of the near horse. Finally the barouche sprang free of the mud. Dirty, angry, and fearful, George resumed the drive toward Washington, wondering if they would ever see it again.
Men and wagons, wagons and men. The summer light slanted lower, and the smoke hampered visibility. The smells grew intolerable: urine-stained wool, bleeding animals, the bowels of an open-mouthed dead youth in a ditch.
The woods ahead looked impassable; George put the barouche back on the road. He heard weeping. “The Black Horse Cavalry tore us to pieces!” Soldiers repeatedly tried to climb in the carriage. George handed the Colt to Constance and armed himself with the whip.
Under drooping trees, the stable nags were slowed to a walk, then stopped completely. A bleeding cavalry horse had fallen in the center of the road. It blocked the retreat of about a dozen men in stained Zouave uniforms. All but one double-timed around the dying animal; the last soldier, young and pudgy and displaying a deeply gashed cheek, halted and stared at the animal. Suddenly he
raised his muzzleloader and brought the butt down on the horse’s head.
Crying and cursing, he hit the horse again. Then twice more, with increasing ferocity. Ignoring his wife’s plea, George jumped from the barouche. The boy had already broken open the horse’s skull. While the animal thrashed and George’s outraged yell went unheeded, the soldier raised his musket for another blow. Tears washed down into his wound.
George shouted, “I am giving you a direct order to—”
The rest got lost in the boy’s sobbed obscenities and the scream of the horse taking the next blow. George ran around the animal, glimpsing its head by chance; the sight brought vomit to his throat. He tore the muzzleloader out of the hands of the demented youth and menaced him with it.
“Get out of here. Go on!”
Indifferent to the anger, the boy gave George a vacant look, then stumbled down the shoulder to the ditch and turned in the direction of Washington. He was still crying and muttering to himself. George quickly checked the musket, found it was loaded, and fired a shot to end the horse’s agony. He stopped three running men, and the four of them dragged the dead animal to the side of the turnpike.
Breathing hard and still tasting vomit, he searched for the barouche. He spied Constance standing in the road, an arm around each child and the Colt dangling in her right hand. George saw the barouche moving away toward Centreville, packed with men in blue. “They took it, George. I couldn’t shoot our own soldiers—”
“Of course not. It’s my fault for leaving you—Patricia, crying won’t help. We’ll get out of this. We’ll be all right. Give me the gun. Now let’s walk.”
