Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All

by Allan Gurganus

  Yeah, now all I got to do is sit here like a queen, watch young fellows dance, make statements to the Press or history majors, and eat what I didn’t cook. Oh, I’ll tell you straight, sugar, I’m getting used to it.

  But, the story? It ain’t just one. It’s more to it than you think. Well, maybe a taste. Say once, as it so happens, Captain Marsden went to war with his best chum, say neither of them had even shaved yet, both so scared they walked hand in hand clear to Virginia, then Maryland. I probably told you before. They hiked into the valley of the shadow of death. Say all that, since all of it is so. Popular boys, not equally pretty nor equally rich (my homely little Marsden stood to inherit a passel of slaves and acreage, though you wouldn’t of known it to look at him). Those boys were hair-triggered as five-dollar pistols. Tots, really.

  In his younger life (till age forty-five, in there) my man stayed mighty tight-lipped about his war doings. Older, he’d speak of hardly nothing else. For breakfast toast, Willie wanted his bread burned jet-dark so he could call it “hardtack.” Words like “forest” or “hood” stopped meaning anything but our Southern generals named that. By the, end, my husband had gone back to battle, child. Lived there. He finally repeated his war tales so often, seemed like they happened to me (and to our nine civilian children), only neatened up considerable.

  Just months from home kitchens, my boy was already a sharpshooter and Ned, the company mascot. These youngsters were well liked owing to nightly skits they did for others. Now, Ned had a way with a tune. Fellow soldiers loved him for being so liberal with the gift. His picture got lost when my old man’s did. Odd what you lose. Ned was ringlets from the ears up, gold, and with this grin that was going to win him friends fast, girls specially. In the picture, he kept one hand on his hip, bugle propped there, head tipped kind of cocky, like in love with the photographer. Ned daily bugled the division awake. Then he upped and put men back to sleep again, some baby Gabriel. He had clear eyes as I remember and, you got to admit it, don’t you, Mrs. Lucy Marsden’s memory ain’t half bad for somebody with ninety-odd years’ mileage on it.—Yeah, every war has got them faces. Grins lit up from inside. Some eyes are so blue they don’t even register on that poor-grade early film. Such stares show up nearbout clear and look slam through you. Faces oval as angels’. Too perfect to be local!

  And every time you see a face like that? one that sets itself aside as overly excellent? one so full of rare high spirits? why—that’s a face that ain’t going to last. War looks over all the soldiers’ pictures in advance. It takes the very best. Oh, quite a eye for beauty it’s got. Picky picky picky.

  Listen, it let my old man live, didn’t it?

  3

  OKAY, look under my bed here. Get off that chair. I guess you’re spryer than me by a century or so. Go on, door’s closed, just us chickens. Yeah, now that there’s his scabbard—the thing Cap kept his sword in till we hocked the sword part back in 19 and 31, had to. Starving.

  Ain’t fair that a person should live through the Civil War of one hunk of years and the Great Depression of the next batch, but Cap did. Had to. “The Great Depression.” I’d like to know what was so great about it.

  We ate dandelion greens for six years. He lost his livestock yard, sold his momma’s last farm. Still I made the Captain, for that’s what I had to call him (in bed and out), made him save back this here scabbard part for later, don’t you know. He’s long planted but now you turn up, “Later” come to chat.

  Time was, I owned a tintype showed him wearing this, him hooked on to it, buck-toothed, grinning like a hero in advance of ever stepping off his folks’ two thousand acres. Voice hadn’t even changed yet. Imagine, still a soprano and already a soldier. Now you know that ain’t right. Sword came clear up to his shoulder. Looked raw but mighty sweet, the cowlicks up and out like the crown on the Statue of Liberty later. What’s happened to cowlicks? You don’t see those anymore. Yes, blow-dryers, I guess. Now they’ll blow-dry any baby’s cowlicks to death. Never stand a chance. Three things missing off of children now: cowlicks, freckles, and stuttering. Used to every third child couldn’t talk straight and was speckled as—well, as my old hand here. Now, not. Things change, weather’s not what it was. Woman down the hall blames the astronauts going to-and-from through it. Did you see that rocket blow up with the people in it? Won’t that sad? Their families were right there.

  But wait, I’m wandering, the war, his war.

  I MENTIONED NED. His beauty was kind of honorary. Men liked having him in sight, seemed he was what they fought for. Men claimed to be doing battle for the sakes of mothers, daughters, wives. (A likely story and a old one.) Ned was the nearest pretty thing. They watched him. The child’d idle around picking wildflowers, finding baby rabbits in the weeds. Even with artillery thunder rolling, he’d traipse off gathering a hatful of farmer’s raspberries to give away later, mouth all red from sampling. Ned played the bugle perfect, his hair metal-yellow as the horn was. He did reveille not as punishment, more for the tune. Made a fellow’s wartime waking easier.

  Now, not six months into their enlistment, between rounds, boys found this swimming hole near a gristmill. Ned asked the commander for one morning off so everybody could horse around and bathe, horses included. Shock of shocks, the commander said Yes. Ned was one of the people people ofttimes say Yes to. (Myself, I’ve had a lifetime of “We’ll see.”) Ned got credit for the swim. Men all waded in, so glad after these many weeks of mud. This was up near Petersburg, Virginia, that they later called “Fort Hell” because it all got fought in holes and burrows underground. “Fort Hell” because it was one.

  Ned drove twenty horses in shank-deep. My husband never told me that the whole division went swimming naked but I bet they did. You think the Confederate Army issued regulation-gray bathing suits back then? No way.

  My man and this Ned were whooping, splashing, carrying on. If they’d been bosom friends when they left Falls, why they were beyond blood brothers now. Slept side by side, and when cannon fire got nearer and so loud, they’d scoot over and hold on to one another, all mashed cheek to jowl like puppies in a box—missing their old momma’s teat and can’t get close enough to suit them. My man claimed he’d start the sentence, Ned’d polish it off. Got to where their dreams rhymed. Was no surprise they dreamed of one hometown, of being safe in many different parts of it. They wore the selfsame boot size (4—I told you they were babies), and if their heels got blistered, they’d swap boots, giving one batch of calluses a rest, chafing up the other for a change.

  Ned owned the singing voice, my poor husband croaked with one note only. Had the bellows but no control of it. His high and low notes come out only as louds and softs, poor thing. Back home in Baptist Youth Choir, these child-soldiers had stood side by side in civilian robes patterned on what we think the angels wear. Are angels civilian or military? Well, in my heaven, the robe is civvies. That much I know.

  During his robe days, Ned had done most of the soprano solos. Girls grumbled but the choir leader mentioned how girls’d always be sopranos whereas Ned’s sweet upward tones just wouldn’t keep. “Gather your high notes whilst you may,” the director told Ned. This choir honcho was New York-trained, somewhat of a sissy but musical as possible. He made my husband be “a mouth singer.” Meaning my Willie could not get near a hymn. Will just had to stand there, cowlicks out, total quiet but with his lips moving. A lot.

  Well, encamped with the division, the Falls boys worked out a routine based on all their Youth Choir practice. My husband did the gestures. Ned sang the song while standing before a open tent flap. Will would hide inside out of sight. Ned clasped hands behind his back. Marsden, after rolling up gray sleeves, would slide his bare arms under his pal’s armpits. (You getting this?) From out front, you saw Ned’s face and front, saw Willie’s freckled arms. At the first perfect note, Marsden (glad to be hid, suddenly bold for one so bashful) made a first sweeping gesture. If, say, Ned’s song run, oh maybe (I’m just making this part up) “My Hea
rt Aches For You,” then the right hand might point to Ned’s left chest, flap there like a bird hurting, and then finally aim a “you” out at the tough-boy audience. Like that.

  During civilian concerts in them days, people expected to weep. And in a city of tents, by campfire glow, on the night before a battle, to hear a boy whose voice might never get to change—well, what you asked and expected of a song went double.

  DECADES later, survivors from my husband’s division remembered Captain, not Ned, to be the singer. Our children, having heard their poppa’s beagle baying in the bathtub, looked shocked. “Do one for us,” visiting vets would beg my old man. “Sweetest Irish tenor south of Dublin. Willie’s ‘Last Rose of Summer got us through many a rough night.” Memory seems to work like that—meaning: wrong, for some of the right reasons. Of course, Captain Marsden refused to sing—but just from seeming modesty. He never corrected pals about his not being able to carry a tune in a bucket. And me, I didn’t blame him.

  Pecks of decades later, Captain was one of the last forty vets left alive. In homes across our land, others surrendered the battle of breathing. Before long, thanks to my good company, to time’s wear and tear, plus his own meat-and-potato stubbornness, the list’d whittled down to ten, then six, with him still hanging on. Every day Cap scanned the Obits. Even prior to checking the Funnies and his “Andy Gump.” And you know how he was about his “Andy Gump.” Well, he was. For him, Obits soon became the Funnies, long as he won’t listed. Whenever Cap found another Northerner had bit the dust, why he’d just chuckle. I’d hear him in there humming “The Old Reb” or “Who’s Sorry Now?” Made his day. He’d asked me for a widgeon of celebration whiskey. Could he play with his scabbard today, please, please? My man held the Falls Herald Traveler so close to his beard you heard beard crackling against newsprint. He would eyeball the poor dead Yankee’s photo. And my man’s dark and final voice would tell that picture, “Weakling.”

  First my husband was the only non-vegetable Confederate left, then he was the final one alive on either side in any condition. More and more guests stopped by with ready-made questions. Around here, on the subject of the Civil War, every filling-station man’s a expert.

  They quizzed Captain: could General Braxton Bragg be clumsy as history shows? was hardtack all that rough on the teeth? what year did your average Reb foot soldier know the gray’d done dropped the ball? But grill me? Me, they’d corner to find out how you get back to Durham on the Interstate. Where could they buy decent bar-b-que to go?

  Still, turns out I am something he never was. You know what? Well, see, there’s the war and it gets holt of him, it shakes him something awful, and then he gets to grab me by the scruff of my neck. (He didn’t get to, but I noticed he sure done it often enough anyway.) So, say, he’s the last vet of that war, but me? Why, honey, I’m a veteran of the veteran.

  I’m the last living veteran of the last living veteran of that war.

  Probably a cheap kind of famous but, look, it’s better than nothing.

  Now he’s gone. Around six o clock, at he-gets-home-for-supper time, I notice this the most. Even now, even after everything that had to happen, I halfway miss him. Don’t it make you sick? But William More Marsden could be the most charming man in the world and I don’t ever want to seem to talk just bad about him. That reflects terrible on the spouse, I think. I consider myself a loyal person. And there’s nothing Lucy here is loyaler to than the idea that she is … loyal. If you catch my drift.

  So, yeah, “charming.” The fellow was not overpolite or knee-jerk kind, like me back then. But when he did do something tender, you sure noticed. It could break you sideways. Last reporters to interview Marsden told me he was the most charming senile man they’d ever met. In 19 and 21, I saw him drive our Model T over a rabbit and then get out and cry like a baby at what he’d done. Our children never forgot it. They stood sobbing by the roadside. Him kneeling on hot tarmac, him wearing his best summer poplin suit, and trying to breathe air into the creature (a trick learned at cockfights). Captain whispered to the victim, “I honked our horn. What were these long ears for?” Cap’s beard was sticky and beautiful with rubies of rabbit blood.

  Plus, he acted so good to his momma after what Sherman went and did to her. Captain also knew his way around a story, could be one of the funniest men alive. With me, child, that’s a big part of “attractive.” Question number one: Can he make you laugh on a regular basis? In my book, money and looks come way down the list after a decent daily giggle to keep the doctor away.

  Sure, he did some things he regretted later. Haven’t I and haven’t you, child? True, murder might not top our particular list. But, taken all together, Marsden was a man. He had days and days like all of us.

  Then Cap went and died. And myself? Well, less. “Close” only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades—but at this branch of the State Home, half dead still means half a loaf. Maybe I do look like I’m wearing canning alum for face powder (I won’t have a mirror in this room). But Lucy here is still something that many folks from History would dearly love to be. I am alive, honey.

  And unlike many a younger person, Mrs. Lucy knows it. Oh, child, I could blow the whistle on the world if I ever took a mind to. Forgive my speaking so strutting and bold, but remember, talk’s about the single pleasure left me. My mouth is still a cakewalk, my mouth’s both a deep gutter and a full-out waltz. And see, I liked saying even that.

  —EVEN so, honey? don’t get your hopes up. Spare your batteries. You mustn’t mind my being way too frank—but you ain’t ready for this. I can nearbout look at you and tell. Open face, fresh skin, maybe the offspring of lawyers, even doctors. Such hopeful eyes—a tad tired but more hopeful for that. You think the world is a straight-A student. I see you’re eager to do stuff right and behave professional. You’re willing to sign a petition if you’re really mad about something. A person that notices, you’ve got a sweet tooth for local color. Chestnuts opened on a roasting fire, Jack Frost taking off your toes. (Nobody believes in the Future no more, so they come in here trying to beat the bushes for some hokum called The Past. Bunk. That ain’t a fair trade.)

  Folks expect me to act all cute and all. Makes me sick. You don’t see no African violets in my room, do you? Folks want I should tell them how to churn butter, what it was to weave cloth. How I saw some Indians onct. You think I’m going to play like that Miss Priss Betsy Ross? Momma always held her up as Miss Johnny-on-the-Spot, what women can do. Some glory. She just got to sew some more. They didn’t let her featherstitch her name in that Constitution’s lower left, I notice. She just made another quilt, warm stripes, a appliqué of stars, a quilt men chose to run up their erect old flagpole and fight for. One-track minds, men’s ups and downs.

  Honey, you don’t want the truth. You’re just hunting some sharp old gingham gal that’ll fit onto a Sunday Supplement Ladies’ Page. She’d tell you how to make gentle soap and slow candles. You think the past was just one long class in handicrafts? Oh, I’ve had others in here glad-handing me for household tips. Listen, as a child, I hated being near the candlemakers. Rendered fat stinks! Show me a butter churn or some margarine, I’ll grab that margarine stick any day of the week. You ain’t looking to hear my particular rough news. I ain’t a antique, was never such a fine lady. I don’t have no blue-book value whatever. All I am is stringy and cross—with a good memory for grudges. I’m no more than what you see: just old, old, old.

  So, child, get this gear packed up, cut off your machine, leave. And no hard feelings. It’s just—I’m too tired to lie, too vain to need to. Staying mad—that’s a lot of what’s kept me opening these eyes. See, I’m still waiting for a small last way of getting even.

  I got news, honey, the world is a C – student. Everybody but it deserves the A’s. So, get on out now. Bye.

  4

  NO? Oooo, I like seeing your jaw set. Good sign. Feeling underestimated? Welcome to the club—I am a charter member. Listen, the day I went ninety and somebody f
irst called me a nonagenarian? I thought it meant I’d run out of claiming numbers, thought I’d hit some non-age—off time’s mailing list. But you don’t plan to be sold short, do you? Well, good. So you hate being pushed around, even from a bed by some creaky leather hinge weighing under eighty-nine, hunh?

  Well, maybe we can work something out here. For today only, understand. My secretary tells me I ain’t exactly got no national news conference scheduled between now and lunch. Look at you. Think you got some stuffing, do you? We all need to stay a little mad. Helps you know you ain’t handpicked—just lucky.

  So, bracing for the whole truth and nothing but? Well, I didn’t mean to tick you off none. It’s just, you wouldn’t believe the folks rush in here with their questions answered before they even ask. I get to talking about my babies dying, they’ll shoo me over to household niceties.

  LISTEN. I been steadily waiting for a certain person to turn up, the one who’ll ask it right, who’ll just say maybe, “yes?”

  I can’t be sure. But if you plan to hear a few more salty facts, Big Eyes, you’d best pull up a little closer. I ain’t going to bite. Couldn’t even gum you hard enough to make a mark. Just had to do a little test. Only got so many retellings in me. Can’t be casting my old gems in just anybody’s trough. At ninety-nine, you got to hold something back. What? I’m that old, hunh? Imagine, me? Well, you’re the one with the facts and equipment. You have history on your side, all I got’s my life.

  Can you feature me this far up in years and still able to notice company? Machine’s listening, ain’t it? I can tell. Loose lips sink ships. Is this a Japanese one? I declare, nothing’s what it was.

  Come maybe two, three inches closer. Fine. No nearer, please. At my age, child, the suspense is everything.

  ON THAT particular day I started, soldiers kept swimming in their millpond. A stone wheel ground corn toward being daily Confederate johnnycakes. Men stayed sloshing around the way men will when they been busy being scared and then, of a sudden, get a good chance not to be. Fellows freed up, hollering, were ducking one another. Men!—one minute killing each other, next minute all innocence, how do you figure it?