Annie, Between the States

by L. M. Elliott

  “Runaway,” explained Mrs. Jackson. “The U.S. government doesn’t know what to do with the female ones, so they house some of them here and put them to work cleaning the prison.”

  Annie frowned. That certainly didn’t sound like the freedom that this girl obviously had hoped for. Good thing Lenah had come to Hickory Heights, thought Annie. She asked, “Will they let her go on her own way soon?”

  “Goodness, you are an innocent, Miss Sinclair. You’re not a closet abolitionist, are you?” Mrs. Jackson asked, only so jokingly. “Some Yankees may want to free the slaves, but even fewer wish them assimilated into our society afterward. Most don’t want to have anything to do with them. There is a movement to send all the darkies off to Liberia once the war is settled. I remember hearing President Lincoln speak of the African recolonization plan himself when he was to dinner at my home. He seemed for it at the time.”

  She smiled at Annie and changed the subject. “Those visits by the Lincolns were extremely useful, you know. His wife would dither on about all his plans quite openly—silly, extravagant woman. They say she’s purchased four hundred pairs of gloves while the United States taxes its citizens to pay for the invasion of the South. Drink your tea now.”

  Annie took a sip and went wide-eyed. “It’s real!”

  “Yes, honey, it is. I still have a few influential friends.”

  Mrs. Jackson did not ask about Annie’s plight or background, and over the hour, Annie began to relax. She remained bewildered, however, about her sudden change in circumstances.

  “I believe you have some powerful friends yourself,” said Mrs. Jackson. “Or at least persistent ones. Don’t you know the romance about you?”

  Shocked, Annie shook her head.

  “Oh, it’s all over the prison that the Yankee who arrested you is completely besotted with you. He’s evidently been here several times.”

  Annie looked blankly at her in disbelief.

  “Oh, my,” said Mrs. Jackson. “I can see you didn’t know.” She walked to the door and called, “Bettie?”

  In a few minutes the servant girl was back. “Yes’m?”

  “Bettie knows everything,” Mrs. Jackson told Annie. “Didn’t you tell me that there was a Union officer fussing about Miss Sinclair’s housing?”

  “Yes’m. Was yesterday. I was cleaning out the cinders and cigar butts from the fireplace when he come in. I seen him before, talking with the superintendent. He make a fuss that the lady should be out of confinement. Then he hand over a letter. He asked she gets it.”

  “Have you received any letters?” Mrs. Jackson asked.

  “No, not any.”

  “A pity. Honestly, the transgressions these jailers get away with. I hear there is a closet downstairs crammed full with cakes turning green with age that they’ve refused to deliver to the prisoners. Thank you, Bettie.” Mrs. Jackson dismissed the girl. “Perhaps we can dislodge those letters for you. Things will get better, now that you’re upstairs with us. You’ll see.”

  Annie didn’t know what to say. It had been so long since anyone had been the least bit kind to her, save Cousin Eleanor, and her visit had been a month ago. Her eyes filled with grateful tears.

  Mrs. Jackson patted her hand. “Drink your tea, honey.”

  Things did get better. That afternoon Bettie brought up a large pitcher of warm water and soap. Annie closed her door and, finding no peephole in it, thoroughly washed herself for the first time in weeks. It was heaven. Later, her dinner gruel arrived and there was actually a bit of meat in it. When her door was closed and locked, Annie blew out her candle and fell asleep. For once, the picket stayed away from her dreams.

  But there was a reason behind the changes, reasons beyond Thomas’ appeals. The next day Annie was taken to court, to a military commission of six U.S. army officers. Her cousin Francis was there, waiting for her. She had not seen him for years, but she instantly recognized the wizened, bespectacled, balding man.

  He pulled her away from her guards and spoke hurriedly. “I am not sure why you are here, Annie, whether to serve as a witness or to be tried yourself. Listen to me carefully, for although they allow me to serve as your attorney, I am not sure that they will permit me to speak during the proceedings.”

  He went on to explain that the Lincoln administration was trying to find a way to convict Mosby rangers quickly and easily. “It all hinges on the interpretation of the military nature of Mosby’s command. The secretary of war and the judge advocate general say Mosby’s men are not commissioned soldiers, that they are instead felons, not entitled to the rights accorded prisoners of war. That means burning bridges, stealing horses, destroying Federal property, attacking pickets,” he drew out the last pointedly since it applied to Annie, “those kinds of activities are not viewed as military maneuvers. They are seen as civilian crimes punishable by hanging or firing squad.” He paused a moment to make sure Annie understood. She didn’t quite.

  He tried again: “They have a witness, a deserter who’s going to say that Mosby is not a member of the Confederate army, that he leads a gang of robbers who come together only for the purpose of plunder. If the commission believes his testimony, it will bring a death sentence to every Mosby rider they prosecute.”

  Annie understood now. Her throat had gone completely dry. “Do you know the name of the deserter?”

  Cousin Francis checked his notes. “Charles Murdock.”

  Annie first went cold and faint, then hot and furious. Why did people like Murdock exist?

  At that moment, the defendant, a baby-faced, twenty-two-year-old private named Philip Trammell, was marched past them and into the courtroom.

  Annie was ushered in as well, but she was told to sit in the back. A few minutes later, Murdock entered. Oh, how Annie wanted to kick the man.

  The charges were read. Trammell was accused of robbing and being in “violation of the laws of war in carrying on guerilla warfare.” The prosecutor then read General Order No. 100, which said that men not enrolled in the army, or who took off their uniforms and returned to their homes between raids, “shall be treated summarily as highway robbers or pirates.”

  Then Murdock had his say. He testified that during his time with Mosby he had not formally enrolled in the Confederate army, that he drew no pay, only part of the spoils gathered from the raids. He explained that when the raids were over, Mosby dispersed the men. The accused, Philip Trammell, said Murdock, always went home to his father’s house in Loudoun County. None of the riders were required to answer Mosby’s call for a raid.

  Annie seethed. She knew Mosby’s men were indeed officially enlisted in the Confederate army as the 43rd Battalion of Virginia Cavalry. Jamie had showed her a card that said so. They were eligible for the same salary as regular Confederate cavalry—when the government had the money. And if they did not report regularly for raids, Mosby sent them off to serve in the Confederate infantry, something Jamie and his cohorts recognized as a near death sentence after the slaughter of Gettysburg.

  She’d heard repeatedly from Mosby and Jamie that their purposes were to rattle and disrupt the Union troops, to scout out their movements for Stuart and Lee, and to take their supplies to slow them down. Why didn’t someone try the Yankees for taking all her livestock and feed corn? She didn’t see any specific military tactics in that either—just harassment.

  She was twitching in her seat to talk. Cousin Francis laid a firm hand on hers to quiet her. He leaned over and hissed, “Do you want to be next?”

  Annie quieted as Trammell rose to defend himself. To her dismay, the young man did not cross-examine Murdock, nor reply to his charges. He merely quarreled with the court’s definition of armed robbery.

  The prosecutor rose to give his final statement. “It is clear,” he boomed, “that Trammel rode with Mosby, and that the band is not a regularly organized military group. It forms purely to steal, rob, and maraud through the country.”

  The six-man tribunal was unanimous in its decision: Trammel w
as guilty and sentenced to be shot to death.

  “Get me out of here.” Annie caught hold of Cousin Francis’ arm. “I’m going to be sick.”

  “Guard.” Francis snapped his fingers. “Help me get the lady some fresh air.”

  They half dragged Annie down the hall to a long bench, where she desperately fanned herself.

  “Dear, oh dear,” tut-tutted Cousin Francis, “this is not good at all.”

  Annie’s nightmares that long black night were endless. The picket lurched and bled; the prison clerk wrote in an enormous book, pointed at her, and laughed; she felt rope around her throat. At daybreak, she stoically rose and dressed herself, brushed her hair, washed her face, and sat in the corner, waiting. Waiting for the soldiers to come and escort her to court and to her doom.

  They didn’t come. They didn’t come the next day either, or the following weeks.

  Winter turned to a cold, wet spring. Still Annie waited to know her fate.

  A basket from Cousin Eleanor arrived. In it was a book of poetry by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Tucked inside the book was a note from Thomas.

  The note was purposefully anonymous in its tone, perhaps to trick the guards into thinking it was from Cousin Eleanor. But the thought contained in it, the immense loyalty and concern it represented, the promise of a future, thrilled Annie. It read:

  I do not know if you have ever read this poet, as he is from New England and a former professor at Harvard. But he follows the tradition of British poets you do enjoy. He has a great love of nature, as you do, and his simple, melodious poems carry great solace. See “The Day Is Done.” Signed: T.W.

  Turning to the poem, Annie understood that Thomas was trying to remind her of the few times they had been able to share bits of poetry, free of the world around them; that things other than prison bars, fear, and self-recriminations did exist. She soon memorized stanzas to repeat to herself in the night:

  Come, read to me some poem,

  Some simple and heartfelt lay,

  That shall soothe this restless feeling,

  And banish the thoughts of day.

  .….….….….….…….

  Read from some humbler poet,

  Whose songs gushed from his heart,

  As showers from the clouds of summer,

  Or tears from the eyelids start;

  Who, through long days of labor,

  And nights devoid of ease,

  Still heard in his soul the music

  Of wonderful melodies.

  .….….….….….…….

  Then read from the treasured volume

  The poem of thy choice,

  And lend to the rhyme of the poet

  The beauty of thy voice.

  During the days, terrible news of the war filtered into Mrs. Jackson’s room with local newspapers. Union general William Tecumseh Sherman, a pitiless man, was burning every Georgia farm he saw as he marched swiftly toward Atlanta. Closer to home, Union soldiers, under General David Hunter, were laying waste to the Shenandoah Valley. Trying to defend the area, cadets as young as fifteen from the Virginia Military Institute were slaughtered just outside New Market in a muddy cornfield.

  But for Annie the most heartbreaking news came out of a small crossroads, just north of Richmond, called Yellow Tavern.

  Stuart was slain.

  Riding along the battlefield, alone, whistling, Stuart had joined a bedraggled line of sharpshooters—boys and old men—trying to hold off an attack by Federal cavalry. “Bully for Old K,” Stuart had called out to Company K, Marylanders from the Eastern Shore, riding for his 1st Virginia Cavalry. “Give it to ’em, boys!” He fired his own silver-chased pistol.

  Rallied by Stuart’s presence, the handful of gray gunners held their line. As the Federals retreated, and Stuart called, “Steady, men, steady,” a Union private trotting back to the Federal position passed just across the fence from Stuart. On the run, the Yankee took one last shot. His bullet ripped into Stuart’s side, under his ribs.

  Stuart suffered for a day. In between spasms of pain and bleeding, he thought to give his two remaining horses to his closest aides, carefully designating the larger horse to the heavier man. He asked that a little Confederate flag sent to him by a lady admirer from South Carolina, which he’d tucked in the sweatband of his plumed hat, be returned to her. He left his golden spurs to Lily Lee, the widow of a close friend. His sword was to go to his son.

  His friend Heros von Borcke, the big Prussian Annie had sheltered, managed to make it to his side in time to say good-bye. His wife, delayed by the battle raging in her way, arrived three hours too late. Stuart died May twelfth at the age of thirty-one.

  His funeral was a quiet, quick ceremony in Richmond’s Hollywood Cemetery. There was no music, no military escort, no parade of carriages. Richmond was under siege.

  Mrs. Jackson told all this to Annie. Dry-eyed, Annie excused herself and retired to her room to mourn. Annie felt cold and empty, cheated, as Stuart had been cheated of his final heroic moment. He hadn’t perished as he would have chosen, in one last glorious, legendary, tide-turning charge. He’d died as they all would die now, in a stubborn death grip, where the end would come not in brilliant stratagems or in inspiring, crusading acts of courage, but in blunt, brutal, even cowardly harshness, like the burning of homes, and the hanging of boys following orders their conquerors would rule as being nothing more than highway robbery.

  The brave, eloquent, witty Stuart killed by a man running away from battle. The injustice of it. The sickening symbolism of it. The chivalry, the idealistic poetry, the infectious esprit that had started the war was being replaced by a simple, murderous blood thirst. Stuart’s death was a harbinger of all to come, Annie just knew it.

  And for what? What had it been for? Had their cause been a justifiable one? Could anything justify this much carnage?

  Lord, she’d give anything for it to be over.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  July 12, 1864

  Carrol Prison,

  Washington, D.C.

  “What’s all the excitement?” Annie stood looking out the window onto the Capitol grounds. A huge mass of bluecoat soldiers were rushing into ranks.

  “Well, my dear,” Mrs. Jackson said, drawing her near, “Old Jubilee has liberated parts of the Shenandoah Valley and moved into Maryland. He’s firing on Fort Stevens, just north of Washington. Rumor has it that Lincoln himself went out to watch and now is trapped there. The Feds are massing everyone they can to march out and resist.” Her eyes were shining. “We may have our long-awaited invasion of the capital yet. Wouldn’t it make our incarceration worth it, if we were here to watch the city of Washington and Lincoln fall?”

  Annie felt no thrill at all. She knew a little about General Jubal Early because Mosby had often spoken ill of him. Early was yet another West Pointer who disapproved of Mosby’s methods. Robert E. Lee had called him “my bad old man,” this cantankerous Virginia lawyer, who’d once battled Indians for the U.S. army. Annie sighed. He’d keep the fighting going until every single soul was dead.

  There was a knock on the door. Two guards stood there. Annie and Mrs. Jackson exchanged nervous glances, worrying they’d overhead Mrs. Jackson gloating.

  “Ann Sinclair?”

  Annie nodded.

  “You’re wanted downstairs.”

  Had her hearing finally come, then? “What for?” she asked.

  “Ain’t been told that. Please come with us, miss.”

  She was shown into an anteroom off the large receiving room. Waiting there were a judge from the Bureau of Military Affairs, the superintendent of the prison, the very detective who had delivered her to Carrol, the same odious clerk who’d recorded her conversations, Cousin Francis, and—Annie began to tremble—Thomas Walker.

  He seemed taller, thinner, and even graver than the last time she’d seen him. There was a new, nasty, red, barely healed scar running along the side of his handsome face and his neck, disappearing into his blue unifo
rm’s stiff collar. She looked to him to speak, but all he did was smile slightly. She couldn’t read his dark, intense eyes. “Stand tall,” they seemed to say, but that’s foolishness, she told herself. He’s probably been called in to give testimony against me.

  “I wish some information from you,” the superintendent said harshly.

  Annie clasped her hands together in front of her skirt, a stance she’d taken a thousand times as a dutiful schoolgirl. But what came out of her mouth was still saucy: “I will gladly give you information that I honestly know.”

  Cousin Francis rolled his eyes. “Be polite,” he mouthed at her.

  “There is fighting just outside the city. You probably are privy to that information?” the superintendent continued.

  Don’t answer that, Annie. You could compromise Mrs. Jackson. She waited.

  The flabby-faced superintendent eyed her. “Well, there is. Jubal Early has invaded Maryland and threatens the capital. Does that make you happy?”

  Again, Annie said nothing.

  Cousin Francis interrupted: “I believe this line of questioning is off the subject and badgering Miss Sinclair. If I hear that she has been questioned in this manner before, I will protest it as well as this.”

  Her interrogator scowled. He continued, “Mosby has ridden into Maryland, presumably to join forces. The Union commander of the defense of Washington wishes to know his number and who there among the citizens would help him.”

  Surprised, Annie answered truthfully, “I would not know, sir. I think that Major Walker and the Union cavalry could better answer that.”

  “Surely you would know who his informants are.”

  “No, sir, I would not.”

  “Perhaps, you simply don’t know those located in Maryland.”

  Yet another potential trap. “No, sir, I would not know any informants of his anywhere.”

  “But you know that informants exist then?” The bulbous superintendent sat up as if he had caught her in something.

  Was this to be another endless cat-and-mouse game of words? Annie felt a twinge of fury and said obstinately, “Only because you have told me so and I assume an officer of the United States government to be nothing other than honest and knowledgeable.”