Jacob's Ladder: A Story of Virginia During the War

by Donald McCaig

  Sallie Kirkpatrick had loved her husband for one year and six months. From that day she first heard him speak so brilliantly about the Roman poets until the day after she lost their baby.

  As was her custom in those winter days, Sallie had been taking a thoughtful walk beside the Jackson River puzzling about Alexander. That he was intelligent she didn’t doubt, but if he was learned, he kept his learning hidden. Ardent in their first weeks together, Alexander was ardent no more. Sometimes Sally fancied he’d simply forgotten marital pleasures were possible.

  When the great pain hit her belly, Sallie dropped to her knees, and when bloody fluid started running out of her, she was terrified. She stumbled home quick as she could, trying to hold the wetness inside of her.

  The first day Alexander kept her in bed, brought her broth and wash water, helped her to the chamber pot. That night he sat up, staring into the fire. The morning of the second day, Sallie was overwhelmed by a wash of grief so strong it almost choked her. It was her fault: she had failed to eat properly, should have shunned exercise. She said, “Alexander, I should never have walked so much. I should have known better.”

  He had looked up from his book with an odd smile. “What would we have done with a baby?” He never mentioned the baby again; and from that moment, Sallie’s husband was a stranger to her.

  The James was blue-green before it tumbled white through its rapids, and in the soft light of a spring rain the prisoners’ carriage rolled across Mayo Bridge into Richmond. When the warder’s wife reached to tug down the blind, Sallie gripped her wrist with such ferocity that the woman gasped and rubbed her wrist. Sallie ignored her glare. That river, the rain falling on the canal barges, it was so beautiful Sallie thought her heart might burst. On Cary Street they fell in behind a procession of conveyances: goods wagons loaded with young men, some uniformed, some not, many armed, some not. The young men viewed each other expectantly, and spontaneously one or another wagonload would raise a hurrah. The boardwalks near Capitol Square were jammed with men indifferent to the light rain, curious about each other and every passerby. Although Richmond’s homes were shuttered tight, their balconies were filled with gawkers, and the veranda of the Spottswood Hotel couldn’t have held one more soul.

  “Hurray for Jeff Davis! Hurrah!”

  “The Constitution, hurrah!”

  Cries rose here and there like the first tremors of a volcano, venting steam, toss-potting rock: anticipating the greater crisis to come. At each hurrah’s conclusion, those who’d cheered would shake hands all around as if congratulating themselves upon their invention.

  Bold youths dashed into the street to peer through the carriage windows. Surely such a stately conveyance must bear persons of importance, another brave general coming to fight for the Commonwealth, a senator perhaps, resigned in Washington to take up his post with the brave new government. Though the Confederacy’s official capital was still in Montgomery, soldiers and office-seekers made their way to Richmond, knowing already what was bound to be.

  The rain washed the new green of the leaves and the brownstone housefronts and made the cobblestones glisten. When Sallie shut her eyes her captor’s hand flashed to the shade and drew the coach into dimness.

  Smoke from Tredegar’s ironworks lay low in the gutters and was stirred into full pungency as the carriage trundled toward the stone-and-red-brick prison on its solitary eminence above the James. The blind face of the prison fronted the river. The driver answered a challenge and his horses clopped through the sally port into the courtyard like a birth reversed—out of the daylight and air into the darkness of dependency, unknowing, and fear.

  The door jerked open, and Alexander and the warder stepped down. The warder’s wife parted the canvas curtain, and the women faced the empty bench where their husbands had sat. Like their own bench, it was slightly softened with thin black cushions.

  They have me now, Sallie thought. I am theirs.

  “REMARKS BY A MOUNTAIN

  AGRICULTURALIST (SAMUEL GATEWOOD)”

  as printed in the Southern Planter, April 19, 1856

  IN MANAGING HIS fellow negroes, the first aim of the driver should be to obey the master’s orders, the second to satisfy his fellows that he is doing so. Naturally jealous of his superiors, as men of a lower rank whether white or black always will be, the common negro cannot be expected to yield that willing obedience which is necessary to his own happiness and the driver’s comfort unless he is certain that he is not oppressed or imposed upon. It is evident to all that know negro character that the slave when satisfied as his master proscribes, is in better temper and more submissive. Let him go freely to the master if he has a complaint. If the master is fit to own slaves, as some “good masters” are not, and the driver be a man of good character, no harm can come of it.

  The manners of a driver to other negroes should be kind. Kindness, and even gentleness, is not inconsistent with firmness and inexorable discipline. If they require a reprimand, give it privately and in a low tone of voice. Whether it be “mesmeric” I cannot say, but I have noticed that a loud and angry tone, whether addressed to man or beast, excites corresponding emotions, or scares away the wits. The best ox-driver I ever saw only said, “Come boys, go it.” The best wagoner never scolds his team. The best rider never frets at his horse. Our best driver has never lost his temper. A mild expostulation is better than a fierce rebuke, a deliberate warning more effective than a hasty threat.

  Nor should a driver ever fret at other negroes. It injures their capacity for work. If they are working wrong, show them how to work right. Have patience and they will soon learn, or if they are too stupid, put them at something else. We have seen negroes injured in value by being fretted at and terrified when young.

  The habit of swearing either at or before negroes a driver should never indulge in. If the negro is not allowed to swear because it is disrespectful to the driver, the latter should not swear because it is disrespectful to his Maker. Besides, it shocks some pious negroes, and sets a bad example to all, and is provocative of the very habit of anger and petulance we have been arguing against.

  The driver should also aid in promoting cleanliness in the negro cabins, and he should see that their clothes are washed and patched, and their shoes kept in good order. On Sundays he should see that they come out cleanly clad, and if they dress themselves in the ridiculous finery which they sometimes display, and which will often provoke a smile, it should never be made a subject of derision or scornful remark. Rather encourage than repress their taste in dress. It aids very materially in giving them self-respect.

  Nothing more reconciles the negro to his work than the driver sharing it with him. If they shuck corn late into the night, let him be present until the last moment; if the sun shines hot, let him stand it as much as they do; if it rains, let them stake his share of it; if it is cold, let him not go to the fire oftener than they do.

  We have known drivers to declare that a fellow negro should not complain of them to the master, and they would whip him in spite of the master if he did. This is simply brutal and no man of spirit will permit it. When the servant comes within the general rule which prescribes his punishment, let him be punished, and appeal to the master afterward, if he chooses.

  If a negro requires whipping, whip him and be done with it.

  The third time Jesse Burns ran away and was retaken, Samuel Gatewood asked what he could amend to guarantee his servant’s better conduct.

  “Bring Maggie and Jacob home,” Jesse said.

  “I cannot. Her presence tears my family apart. I must have your word you’ll not run away again.”

  “It’s a big mountain up there,” Jesse said.

  When Gatewood ordered Jack the Driver to punish Jesse, Jack refused, so Samuel Gatewood ordered Rufus, who also refused, which put Samuel Gatewood out of temper, and he whipped Jesse until the man swooned and even for a time afterward.

  LETTER FROM CORPORAL CATESBY

  BYRD TO HIS WIFE, LEONA


  CAMP BARTOW, VIRGINIA

  SEPTEMBER 16, 1861

  DEAREST HEART,

  Though we have been damp and moldering these last weeks, I am dry at last, feet before a fire. While Duncan and other officers of the gallant 44th are quartered with families in the village, Corporal Fisher and I have a nearly weathertight shed to ourselves and the amiable Private Ryals totes our water and hews our wood. The steaming socks dangling before our fire are a perfect reminder of the tired feet that have inhabited them during painful marches through these weary western mountains.

  Your brother, Duncan, is an indifferent correspondent but promises he wrote you while in the hospital in Staunton. The measles that afflicted him sickened a good many others, and cholera has plucked several boys from our ranks—boys latterly so hearty and patriotic. Few avoid “soldier’s disease”: the desperate quickstep to a necessary or the sinks we’ve dug. With sickness and desertion, our numbers are half those we mustered in the gay days in Richmond. How we paraded! What figures we cut! How jolly war seemed! The man who enrolled me in our country’s service, Duncan’s friend Spaulding, has departed for the army outside Washington. Though Spaulding’s kinsman Colonel A. P. Hill did not distinguish himself at the battle of Manassas, when Hill wrote of a vacancy on his staff, Spaulding abandoned the gloryless 44th with no visible regrets.

  Doubtless my ill humor will depart me after my socks dry and the sun plays once again upon the western mountains. When food was plentiful and meals regularly presented, I was an indifferent eater. Darling, I am cured! Hardtack soaked in coffee seems ambrosia to me now, and tonight when four of us devour a commandeered rooster, it will be a feast fit for a king.

  Though these mountains are the same range that buttresses Stratford Plantation, extreme western Virginia is unlike the soft valleys of home. Here, instead of broad, fertile river valleys are hard ridges which climb sharply from narrow brush-choked bottoms. Instead of fat cattle and thick-fleeced sheep, starved creatures. Instead of plenty, poverty. Here are no enthusiastic patriots but sharp-featured men who shoot at our columns from the safety of the woods and slatterns who do not answer when we ask directions. Some of our soldiers mutter that we should let the Federals occupy all this land—that our Confederacy can do quite well absent western Virginia’s wilderness.

  Despite the success of Confederate arms at Manassas (why didn’t Beauregard crown his victory by capturing the federal capital?), in these mountains we are everywhere routed. Our new commanding general, Robert Lee, designed a grand strategy which less failed than fizzled. Our regiment, I regret to say, got itself lost en route to the battle and was forced to hear the distant engagement from the wrong side of the mountain, our wagons, ambulances, and guns so deeply mired in the mud they skidded on their bottoms like children’s toboggans.

  That night, our morale already pretty well sunk, we bivouacked on a steep mountainside in the rain. About midnight a bear blundered into our encampment, smashing shelters and tents, entangling himself in tent ropes, and waking every sleeper with colossal roars. It was pitch-dark and pouring rain, and had the enemies of our new Confederacy been present to witness our brave boys rushing to and fro, lighting up the night with musket flashes, which proved more hazardous to ourselves than the bear (two men wounded—the bear escaped unhurt), I cannot doubt they should have taken great comfort from the sight.

  I was so happy to come home and be with you and our children. Last month’s idyll seems a lifetime ago. I trust that by now you know pretty well how things will be in nine months. Colonel Scott is reluctant to grant furloughs. The Tidewater boys hate all mountains, and after they go home to their loved ones, they find desertion more appealing than a return to this country of mildew and misery.

  I know how much you hated closing our own dear home and returning under your father’s roof at Stratford. I suppose it must seem as if you, our children’s mother, have become once again your father’s child. But I am not certain this war will end as swiftly as our patriots hope, and if it goes on longer the Federal blockade of our ports must start to bite, and you and the children will be better off where food is plentiful. Stratford has many hands to lighten your burden and look after you if you fall ill or must endure a difficult pregnancy.

  I pray you seize an opportunity to speak with your father on Duncan’s behalf. If Duncan sinned—and doubtless he did—his sin was no worse than the sins of countless other young boys faced with that temptation and no very strong proscription against it. Although I never took a servant wench, some of my young friends did, and I believe my chastity was less from better morals than lack of temptation—none of our house servants was as handsome as Duncan’s inamorata. Duncan is punished not for what he did but for the sin of owning up to it, which, if we were honest, we would admire rather than deplore. Your father’s actions caused Duncan great distress, though I cannot think what else Samuel might have done. Should he have let the two marry? I do not know if there is anywhere in either nation that would have accepted their union. And Maggie’s child (I do not call it Duncan’s child because it cannot ever be his child), what will become of him? Poor infant, so innocent of the world!

  Your father sometimes has a blinkered view of what is best for his family, but he loves us all. Should you persuade Samuel to write, I believe Duncan would be happy to resume more familiar relations. Perhaps Abigail can put in a word with Samuel.

  Though your brother lost flesh during his illness, he is improved and in good spirits. The most junior of the regiment’s second lieutenants, Duncan is popular with the men, and his previous military training is of advantage. All this drill, this military punctiliousness, allows men who know each other only slightly to perform complex maneuvers in the fierce confusions of battle. (Though I confess I don’t understand why we must as cheerfully obey a fool’s orders as those produced by a man of sense.)

  Duncan has just now come in, streaming wet, and is backed to our fire. He is damper than a raincloud come indoors! Duncan is eyeing our rooster with more avidity than seems proper.

  Your brother sends you his affection. Please remember me to our children, and your mother and father.

  I sign myself, your Devoted Husband,

  Catesby

  COUSIN MOLLY

  RICHMOND, VIRGINIA

  NOVEMBER 12, 1861

  SALLIE’S PENITENTIARY LIFE was fragments overheard, dreams of the past, and her fingertips, adjusting the warp of her strands of wool. Forty warps, then five wefts; forty and five, forty and five.

  Twelve hours at the loom, forty minutes for each meal, seated beside other silent women, the scrape of tin on tin, the relentless mastication of jaws; no more conversation than cows at a manger. Sallie sometimes thought to whisper to the wretch seated next to her—a pale-faced fat woman who mashed her food with blunt, toothless gums. Sallie might say, “Did you sleep well last night?” or “My home is in the mountains—where is your home?” But Sallie had learned a few things and would not give way to momentary satisfactions. If she broke her silence, warders would bear her from the room and take her to her the punishment cell, and there she would sit while eternity played itself out.

  The warders talked as freely around the convicts as if the convicts had lost hearing as well as the exercise of speech. According to the warders, the confederate victory at Balls Bluff was a salutary check on the Federals’ pride, but Sallie detected wishful thinking in their confidence.

  Sallie’s whitewashed cell was tall and airy, with a wooden hook to hang her dress. When the sun disappeared over the James, the barred window that was her sole source of light went to black. In the spring it would be warmer.

  She had done more harm than good; she had held her head too high.

  Thrice daily she saw Alexander when the women filed into the eating room the men were vacating. Alexander wore that look: that blank childlike expression—nothing could hurt him because nobody was at home. Wearing his slight smile, he marched mechanically, one hand upon the shoulder of the prison
er ahead. Alexander might march that way forever.

  “The Professor,” the warders called him.

  Most prisoners were mulattos or Irish from Richmond’s Shockoe Bottom, imprisoned for assault, highway robbery, burglary. The women prisoners were passers of counterfeit or confidence tricksters, or accomplices. There were two murderesses, a tall gray-skinned mulatto from Norfolk who’d stabbed her lover as he slept, and the toothless woman who ate beside Sallie every meal. Who she’d killed Sallie never did learn.

  The warders’ talk fell upon Sallie’s ears like the gossip of kings, each word cherished, to be examined in privacy afterward. The acting keeper, Mr. Tyree, was said to be a “hincty nigger,” which phrase she turned over in her mind for an evening. The prison was “lousy with Micks.” Jefferson Davis was “crazy as a bedbug.” (Once a month, she emptied her straw tick into the heap for burning, and she thought of Jefferson Davis while the bedbugs hopped and crackled in the flames.)

  One afternoon, at her loom (“forty and five”), the workshop warder touched Sallie’s shoulder and beckoned her to accompany him, which she did, made fearful by the novelty.

  The keeper’s house faced the sally port like a sentry’s challenge. New prisoners were delivered to its whitewashed prisoners’ parlor to become acquainted with the venerable traditions and mores of prison life. There a warder issued clothing with the alternating black and white stripes that had given the prisoners their nickname: Zebras. There were no female warders: a wizened black trusty found rags for their monthlies and attended to their complaints. The acting keeper, Mr. Tyree, was a free black who never made an appearance without his brushed homburg and ironed sleeve protectors. Mr. Tyree was invariably present when new prisoners were welcomed in that stony room, but he neither lifted a hand nor passed out clothing.