The Last, Long Night

by Ginny Dye

  Rose laughed happily, her own joy about Moses sweeping through her in a huge wave of thankfulness. She lifted up the hem of her dress and joined June in her wild dance. Then the two wives laughed even harder when both boys stood and started bouncing up and down.

  A voice broke into their celebration. “You and Miss June sure seem real happy, Miss Rose.”

  Rose looked down and saw Carla, her face a study of puzzled delight. She grabbed the little girl’s hands and pulled her into the dance. “That we are, Carla!”

  Within minutes, children appeared in mass under the tree, all of them dancing wildly without a thought of why. It was enough that there was happiness to celebrate. Finally, everyone collapsed on the ground laughing.

  Rose was the first to speak. “It is way too hot for this kind of craziness,” she gasped.

  “I reckon y’all gonna need some water after all that dancin’.” Diedre, Carla’s mother and the midwife who had delivered John, appeared with a bucket of cool water from the well and a tin dipper.

  “Thank you!” June gasped, still doubled over to catch her breath.

  The children all crowded forward, drank their fill, and then Rose and June satisfied their burning thirst.

  “You gonna tell me what this be all about?” Diedre asked.

  “Once you ask us correctly,” Rose replied. She was determined every person in the camp would be as well-equipped as possible for the new life that drew closer every day.

  “Don’t you ever get tired of teaching?” Diedre demanded. “I’m just a mid-wife. Wasn’t my bringing your baby boy into the world enough for you? Are you forever going to pester me about the way I talk?”

  Rose cocked her head and smiled at Diedre. “Want to know why we’re dancing?”

  Diedre scowled, but her dancing eyes gave her away. “Are you going to tell me what this is all about?” she said clearly.

  Rose grinned, patted the blanket next to her, and then told Diedre the story while the children drifted away into the shade on the far side of the tree to play.

  Diedre gave June a huge hug. “You must be happy enough to pop!”

  June nodded. “I’ll pop with relief when I have him in my arms again, but knowing he is alive and with Moses is enough joy to carry me for a long time.”

  Rose’s heart swelled with emotion. She couldn’t imagine going two years without hearing anything at all about Moses. Two years of no news… of fear… of single parenthood…. “You’re a strong woman, June,” she said suddenly. “Such a strong woman!”

  June shrugged and filled a plate with food. “We’re all strong women. It’s not like we have a lot of choice. Tough times bring it out in you.”

  “Sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn’t,” Diedre said quietly. “I see lots of women who just fold up and fade away in hard times. They quit believing in life, and it sucks all the color away. They just walk around in a gray fog, and their lives get swallowed up in bitterness.”

  All three women fell silent and stared off at the horizon.

  June was the first to speak. “It’s a miracle, you know.”

  Rose read her thoughts. “Us all being together?” she asked quietly. “I know. For all of us to have family in the midst of all this horror is indeed a miracle. I just have to keep believing miracles will happen.” Her gaze shifted toward Richmond.

  “Carrie,” June stated.

  “Yes, Carrie. I hold her in my thoughts every second. We’re so close in distance, but we might as well be a million miles away.” Rose couldn’t stop the tears that filled her eyes as she wondered whether Carrie experienced any joy at all in the besieged capital.

  Diedre reached for her hand. “It ain’t gonna last forever,” she assured Rose as she shifted her eyes toward Richmond. “I can just see the dark clouds that have settled down over that city, but they ain’t gonna be there forever.”

  Rose stared at her, knowing the look in Diedre’s eyes. The wise midwife could see more than most people could see; she was that close to God.

  “The end is coming, Rose. There be some more suffering, but the end is coming. You hold on to that.”

  “Is Carrie okay?” Rose whispered, not sure if she really wanted to know.

  Diedre nodded. “For today she’s doing just fine.” Then her eyes sharpened. “But you know that already. Your hearts are that twined together. You just look in your own heart. You’ll know how Carrie is doing.”

  Rose nodded. “I can feel her,” she said softly. “I figure that as long as I can feel her, as I can with Moses, that she’s okay.”

  Diedre nodded. “Yep. You hold on to that and live your best life right now.”

  “It’s been so long,” Rose whispered. “She won’t be the same.”

  Diedre snorted. “What about you? You ain’t the same either. You were just girls when you last saw each other. Now you’re women - women who have been forged by fire and hard times. But your hearts are the same. Don’t you worry about when you gonna see her again,” she scolded.

  Rose nodded, took a deep breath, and brought her thoughts back to the celebration under the oak tree. She smiled and handed a plate of blackberry pie to Diedre.

  The afternoon passed in a haze of laughter and talk as a breeze kicked up from the nearby ocean, bringing welcome coolness as the leaves fluttered over their heads.

  Louisa gripped the sides of the wagon and gritted her teeth against the jostling. She turned her head and gazed back at the city and the blackened Atlanta depot standing stark and black against the gray sky that threatened rain.

  “Do you think there is anyone left?” she asked Perry as she scanned all the wagons crowding the road.

  “I’m sure there are some that just can’t leave, but anyone who is capable has left, or is leaving. Sherman has made it clear that Atlanta is now only a place of occupation for his forces. It’s a military city now.”

  “Fine,” Louisa announced, tossing her blond hair to show her disdain of the Union forces. “Let them have it. They have to leave at some point. They can hardly stay there forever.”

  “That’s true,” Perry agreed.

  Caught by something in his voice, Louisa turned to stare at him. “What aren’t you telling me?” she demanded.

  Perry turned to gaze at the city and then pulled his attention back to the team pulling the wagon full of belongings they had brought when they fled their farm.

  “Perry!” Louisa grew more alarmed by the shadow in his eyes.

  “I don’t think much of Atlanta will be left when Sherman is done,” he said quietly. “There is a lot of talk. Sherman believes the best way to win this war is to break the South’s spirit by destroying as much as he can.”

  Louisa stared at her husband and then turned around to watch the city until it disappeared around a curve. “You think he’ll destroy Atlanta?”

  “I think he’ll do as much damage as he can,” Perry said heavily.

  Louisa pondered his words and then set her hopes forward. “There is nothing we can do,” she said finally. “We’re going home. We’re thirty miles east of the city. His troops will have to go back the way they came – west - or they won’t have any supplies.”

  “Our best chance is on our farm,” Perry agreed. “Not even Sherman is crazy enough to break loose of all his supply routes. How could he feed his men and animals?”

  The miles passed pleasantly, a soft breeze keeping the humidity at a minimum. It was too soon for the bite of fall, but the stranglehold of summer had loosened. Louisa sighed and leaned back against the seat, relieved when the wagon turned onto a lesser used road and the jolting evened out.

  Perry glanced down at her. “How are you and the baby?”

  “I think our child is much happier now that he or she isn’t bouncing around like a ball,” she retorted, suddenly flooded with happiness. “We’re going home, Perry. We’re going home.”

  “We’re going to miss your mama,” Perry said tenderly.

  Tears filled Louisa’s eyes. They h
ad laid her mama to rest the day before in a very simple ceremony. “It’s better,” she said softly. “Mama is with Daddy and Nathan again. That’s what she wanted. She was so tired, Perry. So very tired.”

  The happiness rolled through her again. “I will always miss her, but she’s in a better place.” The look Perry gave her said he understood. The burden of caring for her mama had become more than her heart could handle at times. No matter what Louisa did, or how much love she showed, her mama ignored everything and chose to live in her darkness.

  Louisa put her hand in Perry’s. “I don’t know what will happen with this war, but I believe we’ll be okay. We have each other, and we have a child coming soon. That’s a lot of happiness.”

  Perry grinned at her. “I wish there was a way to let Carrie know,” he said suddenly.

  “Oh, so do I… I was horrid to her for so long, and still she saved your life, made it possible for us to be together, and was my matron of honor.” Louisa stared down the road. “She was a true friend.”

  Silence fell on the wagon, leaving both of them with their thoughts. Louisa rested her head on Perry’s shoulder. When she woke, she was startled to see the sun had sunk below the horizon. “We must be almost home!” she exclaimed.

  “Just about,” Perry agreed, his smile making him even more handsome.

  “That’s the big maple on the edge of our property,” Louisa gasped. She suddenly tensed, wondering what they would discover when they rounded the last bend. “What if…?” She closed her eyes tightly and buried her face into Perry’s shoulder, not wanting to know whether the worst had happened.

  “We’re home!” Perry suddenly shouted. “And everything is just as we left it.”

  Louisa opened her eyes and allowed the tears of relief to roll down her face. Her eyes drank in the sight of their sweet little cabin tucked up against the woods, their fields spreading out on either side of their land. It was a far cry from the splendor of Blackwell Plantation, but she had never loved a place as much.

  “Home,” she whispered.

  It was past dark when Thomas arrived home. Carrie, knowing he would need to talk, had waited to have dinner with him. She understood the deep lines on his face when he walked in without saying a word and sat down at the table. Carrie settled down next to him and smiled when May placed plates of hot food in front of them.

  “Thank you,” she murmured.

  May cast a worried look at Master Cromwell and then hurried from the room.

  Carrie remained silent. A breeze ruffled the curtains and caused the chandelier to tinkle gently, the gas lamp flickering shadows through the room. Nothing ever silenced the incessant rumble of wagons nor the blast of the train whistle as trains rolled in and out of the station. But the rest of the city was gripped by uncommon quiet as news rolled in from the South.

  “I was so sure Sherman couldn’t take Atlanta,” Thomas finally stated. “The newspapers were so sure…”

  “It’s true, then?”

  Thomas nodded. “Sherman’s troops have moved into Atlanta.”

  “Hood’s army?”

  “They evacuated.” Thomas shook his head heavily. “His troops fought three major battles for Atlanta. There were heavy losses each time. Our forces were simply too weak to stop Sherman. Hood evacuated, but not before he blew up the train depots and over eighty train cars full of munitions.”

  Carrie tensed as all the blood flowed from her face. “Atlanta? Is it still standing?”

  “For now. The citizens still there knew what would happen and were able to put the fires out. The mayor went out the next day, surrendered the city, and asked for protection for the people still in the city.” Thomas clinched his fists and scowled. “Sherman refused. He demanded every person leave the city.”

  Carrie held back her groan, her thoughts with Louisa and Perry. Getting no news from them was the hardest. Left to her own imagination, she could easily dream up horrible scenarios. “I see,” she said quietly.

  “The worst part,” he said angrily, “is not what Sherman did, but what Hood said about his troops. After all the effort his troops gave, he dared to say his troops had been so long confined to trenches and had been taught to believe that entrenchments cannot be taken that they attacked without spirit and retired without proper effort.” Thomas scowled darkly. “Those were his exact words.”

  Carrie gasped. “I saw the casualty number from those battles,” she protested. “How could he blame them and say they weren’t willing to fight?” she asked incredulously.

  “Seems that losing twenty thousand men wasn’t enough to make him think his men had fought with spirit and effort,” Thomas said sarcastically. “And yet he is still in charge of that army,” he said with disbelief.

  “What will he do now?’

  Thomas shook his head. “I don’t know that it matters,” he finally muttered, staring into the flames of the gas lamp.

  “You think there is no chance of victory?”

  “Lincoln’s losing the re-election was our only real hope. I’ve known for a long time that we simply don’t have the power to defeat the North. Our only hope was that the North would grow so sick of the war they would finally just let us go.”

  “And now?”

  “The North is ecstatic about Sherman’s taking Atlanta. It has become the symbol for Lincoln’s party. As long as Atlanta could hold out, the war was a failure. Now that Atlanta has fallen, the North has taken it as visible proof they will win.” Thomas sighed and ran a hand through his hair, his eyes shadowed with grief and worry.

  “We’re going to lose everything, Carrie.”

  Carrie reached over and took both his hands. “Not the things that are most important, Father. You’ll never lose those.”

  Thomas stared into her eyes until the shadows began to fade. Finally he managed a small smile. “No, not the important things,” he agreed.

  Carrie drew a breath of relief. She never wanted to see her father consumed with bitterness and anger again. “Will the South surrender?”

  Thomas shook his head. “Davis will never consider it. He is convinced if we hang on, the North will eventually let us go peacefully. While I admire his tenacity and perseverance, I doubt his confidence.”

  “So what happens now?”

  Thomas stared at her for a long minute. “I guess only time will tell. Hood has sent word he’s going to try to force Sherman to leave Atlanta and come after him. General Early is still holding his own in the Shenandoah. And so far we are holding Grant back at Petersburg.”

  He reached down and took a long drink of the cool water May had just brought him. “There is still a lot of this summer left, and I have a feeling fall and winter will not bring relief. We can only wait to see what each day brings.”

  Carrie was startled by loud banging on the door. Miles hurried to the door and appeared moments later with Spencer by his side.

  “Pastor Anthony?” she asked, rising immediately from the table.

  Spencer nodded. “I’m afraid it’s real bad, Miss Carrie.”

  Thomas paled. “It can’t be safe to go down there so late at night.”

  Hobbs appeared at the door with his rifle. “She won’t go on her own, sir.”

  Carrie reached for the bag May held out to her and brought out her pistol. “I think we’ll be able to persuade anyone that tries to stop us.”

  “You’ll have even more assurance,” Thomas said grimly, reaching for his own rifle. “I’m going with you.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  The ride through the dark streets of Richmond showed just how disheartened the town had become from the news of Atlanta’s defeat, along with the constant noise of gunfire and shelling from Petersburg. The roads were almost completely deserted – porches had been abandoned. The whole city appeared to have drawn in on itself.

  No one said a word. Thomas and Hobbs held their rifles in a ready position as Carrie tried to prepare for what she would find.

  The last two times she had visite
d Pastor Anthony she could tell he was getting worse, but his spirits were still good. There was a steady stream of his parishioners flowing into his house; bringing food and all the love they could share with the good man who had done so much for him. Jeremy had taken a leave from work to help care for him.

  Carrie sprang from the carriage as soon as it reached his house. She nodded her greeting to the large mass of people who had defied the curfew and gathered outside their beloved pastor’s home. She ran up the walk, squeezed Jeremy’s hand, and headed for Pastor Anthony’s room.

  She could hear him even before she reached his room, his labored breathing causing her heart to break. “Hello,” she said gently, taking his hand.

  He gazed up at her, his eyes saying he knew there was nothing she could do. Then he looked at Jeremy who watched from the doorway. “Please give us some time alone,” he wheezed.

  “But…” Pastor Anthony’s eyes stopped Carrie from saying anything else.

  Jeremy nodded reluctantly, moved back, and closed the door.

  Pastor Anthony beckoned her to come closer. “You were right” he whispered, his voice broken by the wheezing.

  He held up his hand when Carrie started to say something. “Please…”

  Carrie nodded, suddenly understanding what this effort was costing him.

  “You haven’t told Jeremy.”

  Carrie shook her head, hope springing forth in her heart. “No.”

  Pastor Anthony’s face twisted with pain. “Thank you.” He fought to regain his breath and then said, “He deserves to know the truth.”

  Tears sprang to Carrie’s eyes as pain robbed him of his ability to speak again. “Pastor Anthony…”

  He shook his head weakly. “My dresser,” he gasped. “The top drawer… a letter… for Jeremy…” He fell back against the pillow, a blue tint beginning to form around his lips.

  Carrie placed a finger against his lips. “I will get it to him,” she promised. “My father and I will be there for him. I promise you he will not be alone.”

  Relief flared in Pastor Anthony’s eyes. For a moment his breathing grew easier. “You’re a good woman,” he whispered. “Thank you.”