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

by Donald McCaig

  “Oh, I got everything I’m needin’. It’s astonishin’ how much I got.”

  In Samuel Gatewood’s parlor, Uther Botkin sat with his hat in his lap. “I have brought a fair price for Jesse,” he repeated.

  A wan Samuel Gatewood sat in the window seat, the thick drapes drawn. “After the triumph of our arms at Manassas, I expected Mr. Lincoln to abandon his invasion. Surely he knows he cannot force a sovereign people to submit.”

  “Have you received news from . . .”

  “My son-in-law writes frequently. Catesby’s has not been a bloody war, thank God. My daughter, Leona, could wish no better news. Leona is with child, and as you know, she has always been delicate. I pray she receives no shock before her delivery. I will not sell Jesse.”

  “Samuel, why torment yourself? Jesse will never be happy here.”

  “Mr. Botkin, we are not put on earth for happiness but to fulfill our Christian duty. Jesse is my chattel. If I fail in my resolve, what will my other servants think? One man’s rebellion may well become general.”

  “But Samuel, surely Jesse’s circumstances are . . . unique.”

  “It is, alas, not uncommon for servant families to be separated. Who will do our work? Orphans? Bachelors? Those with no family connections at all? Now, Mr. Botkin, if you will excuse me.”

  Uther stood, gripping his hat in his hands. “Is there no end to this suffering? My Sallie . . .”

  “As you know, I did everything in my power for your daughter and can do no more. I am grateful for your neighborly concern, sir, but this affair is between Jesse and me, and until he accepts his lot, it will go hard with him.”

  Prior to November 26, 1861, the nearest free state was Ohio, two months’ hard walk over the mountains, and few runaways completed the journey. But western Virginia voted to secede from Virginia, and Federal troops were making its secession good. That Jordan River so many slaves yearned to cross had come nearer.

  Mrs. Dinwiddie took up a subscription to increase the slave patrollers, no easy task with so many men with the army. Some nights elderly planters made rounds, Samuel Gatewood among them, and hardly a week went by without their capturing some runaway. One young servant had walked all the way from Georgia.

  “Where’re you going, boy?” Gatewood inquired.

  “North,” the boy answered.

  And one morning when Rufus’s gang formed to go out in the woods, two men were missing. Gone.

  “How I’m gonna get tasks done without hands to do them?” Jack the Driver asked.

  Patrollers caught the runaways. When they were returned, all the servants were turned out and Jack did the whipping.

  “This is what happens to runaways,” Samuel announced. Then his face contorted, “What do you people want? Do you want my family to starve?”

  That night after dark, Rufus slipped up on Jesse’s cellar; he snuck down the stairs quiet as a cat and set his butt on the lowest step. “It’s me. Rufus. Cold out here, yes, sir.”

  Rufus heard a sound between a whisper and a sigh.

  “Stars bright on the colder night,” Jesse breathed.

  “Yeah. Goose bumps bigger too.”

  They sat for a time before Rufus ventured, “Jesse, when you run, why you run up the mountain instead of north? If you run north, maybe you be free by now.”

  “I knowed that mountain all my life. Never been to the North.”

  “Past Strait Creek, everything’s changed. Past Strait Creek it ain’t Confederate no more. Nigger get across Strait Creek and don’t get caught, he a free man.”

  “Look! One of them fallin’ stars. Wonder what makes them fall that way? You think they lonesome?”

  “Jesse, how long I been knowin’ you?

  “Long time. Been a long time.”

  Rufus drew his jacket up around his shoulders. “You gone mad, Jesse? I got to know if you took leave of your senses.”

  Another silence then, plenty of time for Rufus to roll his head around on his stiff neck.

  “Rufus, I don’t know whether I’m crazy or not. Most of what used to fret me don’t fret me no more. I wonder why there’s so many stars.”

  “Before I come to Stratford, I belong to that Dr. Willoughby, down by Staunton. You know where the American Hotel sets? We was in a big house next door. Dr. Willoughby promise he gonna set me free, just like old Uther promise you.”

  “Master Uther he tried to buy me back. Aunt Opal told me.”

  “Oh, them white folks they hate ownin’ niggers. It be wrong and not Christian charity, and besides, we be too much damn trouble. But as many as I heard talkin’ about settin’ this one free or that one free, I never heard of nobody to do it. Dr. Willoughby took the smallpox and died and wasn’t in his grave three days before I belongs to his nephew, and I wasn’t with him no longer’n it took to sell me off to Stratford. I was just a young’un then.”

  “Rufus, why you tellin’ me all this? Why you sneak ’round in the night pester a man can’t keep you from pesterin’ him?”

  “Jack whipped Jim and Yellow Billy for runnin’. Laid that bullwhip on their flesh! Patrollers caught them down by Millboro. They two got turned ’round someways and went south instead of north and they was fixin’ to slip aboard a train goin’ direct to Richmond, thinkin’ it was goin’ to Philadelphia.” Rufus spat.

  “I went to Staunton once,” Jesse said dreamily. “I was bringin’ Miss Sallie in to the Female Seminary. Oh, she was so excited and pleased. First girl from this part of the country to go so far with education. She had a scholarship! I had me a load of maple sugar from Master Botkin to sell and at McGrory’s Mercantile they wouldn’t give me but five cents a pound. Staunton a mighty big place. No end of people in Staunton.”

  Rufus rubbed his head. “Look, Jesse, I got to ask. Is you the man you was?”

  The root cellar was illuminated by the slot through which Jesse searched the night sky. Had he changed so much? Maybe so. His family was up in the stars. “Depends,” he said thoughtfully.

  “Jesse, I been thinkin’ to be free. Ain’t a bad life here with Master Gatewood, but I’m thinkin’ I want to be free. I been studyin’ horseshoein’ so I can live on my own.”

  “Why you askin’ me? I run three times, never got nowhere. I can tell you where the springs is on Snowy Mountain, where you can lie out of the weather, but Master Gatewood he follow you with dogs. Master not allowin’ runaways these days.”

  “I been studyin’ the forge too. I shape a horseshoe good and I fit it on the hoof. You reckon there be any need for a man can do horseshoein’ up north?”

  “They don’t like colored any better’n they do here.”

  “But Father Abraham he king and tell ’em what to do.”

  “Rufus, we’re born black and I reckon it’s the same wherever we go. Preacher says we ought to put our faith in the life to come.”

  “I’m thinkin’ to put my faith in horseshoein’. Can’t be too many who’ll shoe cheap as me.”

  “Go at night, soon as the Quarters asleep, and you’ll be a night’s run ahead when they start lookin’.”

  “I been thinkin’ you might be showin’ me the way.”

  Silence locked their conversation for a time, and when Jesse spoke his voice was kindly. “Rufus, nobody ever laid a bullwhip across your back. That bullwhip, it’s not what you think. It’ll change your mind. I swear it’ll change your way of thinkin’.”

  LETTER FROM SERGEANT CATESBY

  BYRD TO HIS WIFE, LEONA

  CRABBOTTOM, VIRGINIA

  JANUARY 1, 1862

  DEAREST HEART,

  How I dream of home, how I yearn to see you and our dear children again. Crabbottom is a wretched place, unimproved by days of freezing weather. Our Tidewater boys are unaccustomed to this harsh climate and suffer dreadfully. Colonel Scott has taken advantage of a flattering newspaper account of his military accomplishments and has returned to Richmond to sit in the legislature. Many of us pray he does well there and does not return. In the army
our regiment is known as the Retreating 44th, having attended several battles but fought none. Having escaped our desolation, our Colonel Scott has determined no other soldier should follow his example and ruled there are to be no more furloughs, none until spring; so here we sit in our miserable huts, watching the snow blow in through the cracks in the door.

  Our eccentric General “Allegheny” Johnson’s winter quarters are east of us on the turnpike. The Federals are holed up to the west along that turnpike in the newly seceded West Virginia. When the Federals resume their drive in the spring, we will be first to face them.

  Though you and I are not a day’s ride apart I cannot travel, and, in your delicate condition, you must not. Samuel and Abigail do not visit because they are unreconciled with their son. Perhaps Jack the Driver can be prevailed upon to call upon me!

  We eat, we sleep, we play cards. When the weather permits we drill. Details forage for firewood. Men line up before the surgeon’s hut to complain of their ills. Our officers hatch plans to escape this place, and more than a few have succeeded, some by transfer, some by feigned illness, one or two by desertion.

  Like me, Duncan has the soldier’s disease, but not severely. He is in better spirits than I.

  I pray this confinement is easier than your last. I especially pray that you are less bothered by stomach complaints. Daily, I think of you and the little being we are bringing into the world. How I wish it were a better world!

  I cannot but compare this dismal holiday with those we enjoyed at Stratford in years past. This year I will be thirty-six years old. Will we ever see happiness again?

  I hope you were able to find oranges for the children. The blockade has made such treats rare and expensive. Our provisions have been adequate, but only because the poor citizens of these parts are much pressed by us. We are an army of patriotic locusts.

  You write that our son, Thomas, is rebellious. Ill manners, sloth, and rebellion are common faults of boys his age, and there is only one cure: discipline properly applied. If you do not feel able to apply this necessary discipline, ask Samuel to intervene. Your father is head of his family, and any misbehavior reflects upon him.

  I am pleased to learn our Pauline is making herself useful to Abigail.

  I prefer that all my family keep a distance from Grandmother Gatewood. She is a strong woman but not a charitable one, and her overt and constant supplication to the Deity is offensive to me. Since, presumably, an omniscient God can identify our needs, why pester Him with endless tiresome entreaties?

  If you can find and send me a warm wool overcoat, please do so. You must pay for it out of your money, as we patriots have seen no pay since August.

  Kiss the children for me and tell Thomas that I expect better reports of his behavior.

  Your Loving Husband,

  Catesby

  INAUGURATION DAY

  RICHMOND, VIRGINIA

  FEBRUARY 22, 1862

  Hath not the morning dawned with added light?

  And shall not evening call another star

  Out of the infinite regions of the night,

  To mark this day in heaven? At last we are

  A nation among nations; and the world

  Shall soon behold in many a distant port

  Another flag unfurled!

  —Henry Timrod

  ALEXANDER KIRKPATRICK SAT on a hard-backed chair in the prisoners’ parlor of the keeper’s house. As instructed, he sat still. The prison’s rule of silence so hated by other prisoners was a positive pleasure to Alexander, and though he’d been waiting in this cold room for more than two hours, he was not distressed. In Alexander’s daydream he swam with mermaids in the sunny green sea. On shore, his friends the poets Catullus and Lucretius were preparing a feast, but the water was so warm, the shimmer of the mermaids so uncannily beautiful . . .

  Mr. Tyree entered the parlor like the breath of the storm, and when he hung his oilskin on its hook, a puddle formed beneath. His trouser cuffs were dark with moisture and his felt hat was shapeless as a feed sack. He reformed the hat and laid it on the windowsill, all the while staring at Alexander, whose own eyes were fixed on the wall opposite.

  “Mr. Davis would hold his inaugural out of doors.” Tyree’s voice was soft but exacting. “Bareheaded, too. What should we do if the President were to fall ill? You may speak, Convict Kirkpatrick.”

  “Sir?”

  “If President Jefferson Davis were to become enfeebled, which statesman would guide our new nation?”

  “Sir? I don’t know, sir.”

  Mr. Tyree removed his damp jacket, tapped a bell, and passed the garment to his servant. Within a minute, the man returned with a fresh jacket, identical to the first.

  Mr. Tyree shot his cuffs, plucked at his trouser knees, and sat on his tall oaken stool. “Do you think General Beauregard might be persuaded to accept the post of commander in chief? Perhaps Mr. Benjamin. He is a Jew. In perilous times we might look to the Jew.”

  “I wouldn’t know, sir.” Calm was receding from Alexander’s’s mind and too familiar panic tightened his throat.

  “But you are an educated man? It is written, in the book.” Tyree tapped his ledger.

  “Only in inconsequential matters.” Alexander made himself speak. “Ancient Rome is more familiar to me than our modern world.”

  The pupils of Mr. Tyree’s eyes were hard as dried beans. He drummed his fingers. “Education is the most valuable of possessions,” he pronounced.

  Alexander opened his mouth slightly to take a breath.

  “Your wife has made a poorer adjustment to her imprisonment than yourself. How do you explain that?”

  Alexander snatched at a theory. “Her people are mountain people. Such people are independent, sir.”

  “The coloreds as well?”

  “Sir, I have no means of comparison. I am originally from the North, where there are few of your race.”

  “My race?” Mr. Tyree leaned forward.

  “Am I mistaken, sir? I took your complexion for . . . an Indian’s, perhaps?”

  “I am an octoroon,” Mr. Tyree said. “Tainted in my ancestry to one-eighth degree. Should I marry a woman with no deeper taint, my own children will appear white. Such a woman is rare, sir, and greatly in demand.”

  Alexander’s mind fluttered. “You could marry a white woman, sir.”

  “The white woman who would take a colored man is no better than a . . . trollop!” Mr. Tyree’s fingers flipped furiously through his ledger. “Who owns the largest cartage in Richmond?”

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  “Tredegar’s superintendent on the night shifts—what is the color of his skin?”

  “Sir?”

  “When was the first negro Baptist church built in Richmond?”

  “I did not, I do not . . .”

  “How come you by your education, Convict Kirkpatrick?”

  “My uncle was a Congregationalist minister. He was chaplain at . . . at Yale College, which I subsequently attended. I . . .”

  “School came naturally to you? You took to it as a duck takes to water?”

  He had, he had. Even as a child, the rigors of study were nothing to the hazards of the schoolyard: all that shouting, his schoolmates demanding he play some game he neither understood nor cared for. For Alexander Kirkpatrick, learning was a variant of his daydream.

  “You are defiant, Convict? You do not elect to answer?”

  Alexander came within an ace of blurting out the truth, telling this keeper of his confusion, his estrangement from the world of men.

  “You will know of Mr. Darwin’s work, Kirkpatrick?”

  “Sir, I am not acquainted . . .”

  When Mr. Tyree set his hands flat, his fingers seemed uncommonly long. “You were convicted for abetting the escape of a servant from his lawful master, is that correct?”

  “Yes, sir.” Alexander licked his lips. He thought he saw an escape. “One of your fellows had been badly mistreated by . . .”

>   “My fellows, Kirkpatrick? Am I a servant then?”

  “Why no, sir . . .”

  “I am the acting keeper of the Commonwealth’s penitentiary, the duties of which I perform with due diligence. Like Mr. Robert T. Cahill, who owns the cartage service, and Mr. James Washington, Tredegar’s furnace foreman, I was born free but impoverished, and owe everything I am to my own efforts. My uncle, Convict Kirkpatrick, was not the chaplain of Yale College. If Mr. Darwin is correct, people who prevail against great odds are more likely to pass on desirable characteristics to their offspring.”

  “But where to find a wife?” Alexander mused.

  Mr. Tyree’s lips pressed together and the veins stood out on his forehead, and Alexander’s fumbled apology—“I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t mean . . .”—did not improve matters.

  “All that you have has come easily to you,” Mr. Tyree said in a choked voice.

  Alexander wanted to say it was not true—wanted to say that after his elderly uncle died, he’d had nothing except a failed career at Yale College, his silver watch, and an introduction to Buell & Peters, New York, New York. When he arrived in New York, Barnum’s museum had been closed, and for all Alexander knew it might have been another daydream—there was no way to tell! No way to tell!

  Mr. Tyree enumerated Alexander’s advantages, educational and racial, which Alexander, in the name of mistaken philanthropy, had discarded. “Do you think that your colored runaway was helped by a white man’s compassion? Would it not have been better for him to fail or succeed on his own? Why would you enfeeble my race?”

  Last winter, when he found Jesse on the doorstep, Alexander had thought he was dying. He had wanted to return Gatewood’s slave to Gatewood, but, wordlessly, Sallie ignored him. Sallie laid Jesse before the fire, wrapped him in their warmest quilt, and fed him cooked pap, a spoonful at a time.

  Now, Alexander wanted to cry that it hadn’t been his idea, that his wife had insisted, that he’d been as willing as Tyree to let Jesse succeed or fail on his own, but Mr. Tyree had moved on another matter. “You know that our young nation is gravely threatened, that our recent defeat at Roanoke Island has alarmed the capital.”