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

by Donald McCaig

  Since we are so near Richmond, President Davis sometimes pays us a call. Yesterday afternoon, he and his entourage arrived where General Lee was directing operations. Lee inquired, “Sir, who are this army of people?” Davis replied that he did not know.

  “Well, sir,” Lee stated, “they are not my army and I do not want them here.” And so our President was driven away by his own general.

  The Federals abandon prodigious stores, and we are eating like Turkish pashas: hams, salt beef, an immense herd of cattle captured on the hoof. And these are the mere residue of the tons of foodstuffs the Federals burned during their hasty retreat. The combined stink of unburied dead and scorched bully beef is unforgettable.

  Tuesday our line formed along the railroad, where it crossed the Chickahominy on a trestle. Because of the high banks we expected a peaceful bivouac and were resting, smoking, writing letters home, until the Federals, despairing of withdrawing an ammunition train, set it afire and throttled it toward our lines. The cars bulged and thrashed and streamed white smoke, and the entire train shook as if palsied as it hurtled toward us. The locomotive failed to negotiate the final curve before the trestle and dove like an iron arrow to the mud flats below, and the subsequent explosions made my ears ring. Duncan, what shall we do when this war is over? We shall never see these sights again in our lifetime. There is something truly glorious in this prodigal waste.

  General A. P. Hill has distinguished himself in battle, and though his kinsman Spaulding must have been at Hill’s side, I have no news of him.

  I am gladdened to learn that your wound is knitting. A modest limp conveys distinction upon a young man. When will you rejoin us? Although Lieutenant Bartles has your old company, I am sure the men will be happy to revert to your cooler leadership. Stonewall Jackson is so successful every junior officer is imitating his habits. Since Stonewall sucks on a lemon for refreshment during battle, so do they. Our quartermaster cannot keep a supply.

  Your Obedient Servant and loving brother-in-law,

  Catesby

  RESPECTABLE WORK

  RICHMOND, VIRGINIA

  JULY 4, 1862

  THE AMALGAM OF metals ideal for casting church bells is identical to the formula armorers prefer for cannons, and a good many of Richmond’s bells had been melted down for that purpose. After General Lee’s guns had done their duty, driven the invader from the city and ceased their thundering, the victory peals in Richmond were faint—victory was celebrated in the Confederate capital by a municipal buzzing like a hive of especially satisfied bees.

  Men who’d known Richmond in Patrick Henry’s time couldn’t recall a warmer June, and the air had been thick as a wet glove. Citizens had stayed up half the night to the flash and rumble of guns, and fell gratefully into bed at dawn. Cary Street and Broad Street were jammed boardwalk to boardwalk with carts of wounded, and beside the carts walked dirty, bloodstained men. Though men in the carts cried out, the walking men were uniformly silent.

  It was a foggy morning, cooler, the sun a pale coin in the east. Dew glistened the grass as Cousin Molly’s barouche turned into the penitentiary’s sally port. A brief pause, a murmur, and the clop-clop-clop across the cobblestones until it drew up before the keeper’s house.

  The coloreds were lined up against the outer wall, chained to a chain that might have hauled an anchor. Some had erected scrap-canvas shelters, some had strung blankets on poles, most sat against the cold stone and wrapped their arms around themselves. While waiting return to their masters, they marched out to dig fortifications. Each morning, Keeper Tyree’s manservant made him one small pot of coffee and these men could smell it. Their nostrils twitched.

  The cellblocks were brick above stone. The yard cobblestones were perfectly regular. The roofs of workshops and warders’ quarters were cedar shakes, long faded to undifferentiated gray. The old cellblocks were capped with roofs of slate.

  Cousin Molly’s barouche was done up in the grand style, blue with gold trim for the footboard and door, and Cousin Molly’s driver’s faded uniform was of the same color scheme. He rapped the keeper’s door more sharply than any prisoner would have dared.

  Abruptly, the door swung open, and the driver recoiled slightly before proffering the message that had been entrusted to him. The door thudded shut.

  A streamer of thick fog drifted into the yard, clammy on the skin. A raven cawed somewhere. Cousin Molly’s driver returned to the barouche, ducked under its formal black canopy, and spoke. The keeper’s side door banged open, and Tyree’s servant hastened across the yard to the female cellblock, up the stairs to the second floor.

  Men make drama of the material available to them: the acting keeper’s vanished servant, the barouche waiting quietly in the fog, Mr. Tyree’s window curtains suddenly swept apart and his sallow face pressed to the glass, the girl hurrying across the yard behind Tyree’s servant, wearing her prison shift belted with dark cloth.

  Even the colored prisoners knew about Cousin Molly. They knew that Convict Sallie Kirkpatrick shared Cousin Molly’s food parcels with other female prisoners. When Tyree intercepted Sallie and reproved her, and Sallie threw her head back, proud and defiant, the coloreds shook their heads: even with Mistress Semple on your side, it didn’t do to cross Mr. Tyree.

  Cousin Molly dismounted from the barouche: a round, respectable women dressed entirely in brown. Her smile was below freezing.

  “You’ll pardon me, madam,” Tyree met her, “if I cannot find these circumstances amusing.”

  Cousin Molly’s bright blue eyes narrowed down to slits, her lips tightened, and she grew several inches taller than her statutory five feet two.

  “Nor do I, Acting Keeper Tyree. Camp Winder’s beds are full, badly wounded men lie on the floor in rows, the surgeons operate until they drop in their tracks, I haven’t slept in seventy-two hours, and you delay me. You have seen Governor Letcher’s order. Must I interrupt the governor for another?”

  “But madam, nursing is not respectable work.”

  “Do you presume that I am not respectable, Acting Keeper Tyree? Who are your people?”

  “No, no, you misunderstand.” The keeper ran his hand over his hair. “Mrs. Kirkpatrick . . .”

  “Are you concerned for Mrs. Kirkpatrick’s respectability? In her circumstances? Acting Keeper Tyree, you are pleased to thwart me. I assure you such is not in your best interests.”

  A bitter smile fastened itself to Tyree’s mouth. “I am awfully pleased to know that you have my welfare in mind, ma’am. For my own trivial purposes, I shall require a receipt for Convict Kirkpatrick.”

  “Of course,” Cousin Molly said indifferently. The acting keeper retreated into the prisoners’ parlor, opened and slammed drawers.

  Ignoring his clatter, Cousin Molly turned to Sallie. “Our victories, child, use us up more than our defeats.” She unfolded a handkerchief and blew her nose. “I am not certain I do you a service employing you. Many who volunteer to assist at Camp Winder cannot stomach the work.”

  “I am of no use in this place,” Sallie said simply. “I cannot promise that I will be equal to the task, but I am willing to try.”

  When Tyree proffered his receipt, Cousin Molly signed it carelessly, without reading.

  “And Alexander . . . ?” Sallie looked at the older woman.

  “Alexander is thrown upon his own resources, my dear. I pray he will make the best of them. Child, time is of the essence. You will be outfitted from my wardrobe. Good day, Mr. Tyree.”

  Every eye in the prison yard yearned after them.

  As the barouche clattered out of the yard, Cousin Molly chattered breathlessly. “What a sullen fellow! Perhaps his post makes him so. Your new clothing, dear, will not gladden your girlish heart, for we Camp Winder matrons are garbed in dowdy, uncomfortable brown. Your garments will be warmer than you might like, and you must keep them buttoned up to the neck. You will be spared hoops. There are Confederate prigs—though not one is a Confederate surgeon—who would dispense with
our services.”

  Sallie’s head was whirling, and though she heard words embedded in Cousin Molly’s chatter—“brown,” “neck,” “surgeons”—their meanings were lost. She understood that her life had changed again and that she would be asked to do tasks other women found repellent. She’d grown accustomed to the prison’s smoky sour stench, and now when fresh air hit her lungs it was almost painful, like a draught of too chilly spring water.

  At Cousin Molly’s fine house on Broad Street, Sallie changed her garb under the watchful eyes of an elderly servant, who picked up her prison dress with reluctance.

  “Do be careful,” Sallie said cheerfully. “You’ll not find my lice agreeable companions.”

  Early in the war, wounded soldiers were segregated by state and rank—Tennessee officers to Chimborazo Hospital, Virginia privates to Camp Winder—but as the number of wounded swelled, many nice distinctions were discarded and families seeking their son or father or brother made a melancholy tour from one hospital to another.

  Chimborazo was the largest—some said it was the largest hospital in the world. Camp Winder, under Chief Surgeon Lane, was built to accept Chimborazo’s overflow, and when Winder could take no more, wounded men were placed in tobacco warehouses and private homes.

  “I do not know how many wounded soldiers are in Richmond,” Cousin Molly confessed tiredly. “When melancholy overcomes me, I fear we will fight until every young man in the South comes under the surgeon’s knife.”

  Camp Winder was a rectangle of rough pine buildings on Richmond’s north side. Water tanks towered above its whitewashed buildings. Within its perimeter fence, behind the wards, plump shorthorn cows grazed.

  “Our own bakery, gardens, dairy; we are a complete island. Chief Surgeon Lane is a most dedicated organizer.”

  Although Malvern Hill had been fought three days ago, wounded men were still coming into Richmond, many already stinking with infections that would kill them. A very young boy with a blood-soaked bandage around his forehead made a deep bow as the women passed through Winder’s gate, and Sallie drew breath.

  The ward had beds along both walls and at one end a small storeroom, which had been converted, at Cousin Molly’s instructions, for matrons’ use. It contained a camp bed, a chest (which doubled as a table), and one window (curtained).

  Three brown-clad matrons came to Cousin Molly’s elbow seeking instructions, passing on surgeon’s orders, asking advice. Cousin Molly dispatched the pair to assist surgeons and requested the third stay on the ward. “That Kentucky boy is dying,” she noted matter-of-factly. “See if he wishes a letter written home.”

  By now, the sun had got up in the sky. The ward stank of rot and the slightly sweeter smell of flesh trying to mend itself. The flies were everywhere, thickest on the bloody rags and lint bandages heaped beside the door. “Remove those,” Cousin Molly told Sallie. “Throw them into the ravine.”

  The flies were angry at being disturbed and buzzed Sallie’s face. The rags reeked of old blood and pus and feces and corruption. Sallie made a sack of a torn blanket and slung it over her back like a peddler.

  The ravine was a deep ditch from the hospital grounds to the James which the water towers flushed every other day. The ditch was full of objects Sallie’s eyes didn’t care to identify. Some of the objects shimmered with maggots.

  Men sat or lay on stretchers until convalescents carried them in to the surgeons.

  “Must I lose my leg, sir?”

  “It is your leg or your life.”

  The matron presses the chloroform-soaked rag over the man’s nose and mouth until his eyes roll back, the surgeon wipes his bloody saw on his apron front, and the saw bites and the hot stink of cutting bone, rick, rick, rick, and the fine-toothed saw jerks through, and the surgeon’s swift knife finishes the job. The flap is sutured over the stump, the limb tossed into the tub of unnecessary human accouterments. Some limbs are small, some long, some short, some plump, several have been so shattered it is impossible to guess at their original shape or whether they were once arms or legs. The surgeon wipes his forehead with the back of his forearm. “How many more?” he asks.

  When he is told there are another fifty waiting outside he closes his eyes for a moment and sways.

  Cousin Molly touches Sallie’s arm. “Child, you said you wished to be useful.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Sallie says. “It is not what I expected, that’s all.”

  “It will soon seem like all the world.”

  THE HIGH LIFE

  MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE JULY 10, 1862

  IT HAD BEEN Captain Sutterfield’s mansion, the ornament of the S&S Riverboat Line until the Federals cut the Mississippi at Corinth and stopped its mouth at New Orleans and Memphis’s riverboats rotted at the Memphis docks and Captain Sutterfield was killed when the Confederate rams were defeated by Federal gunboats. Mrs. Sutterfield, who had watched her husband’s fatal action from the bluffs above the river, still lived in the back of the captain’s house in what had been the nursery and Captain Sutterfield’s library, but the doorway between front and back was bricked up and only Mrs. Sutterfield’s oldest friends came to call, from the rear, through the garden.

  The Federals who occupied Memphis wanted cotton, the Confederates in the hinterlands wanted medicines and other supplies, so an uncomfortable, thriving trade commenced. Some men grew rich.

  Mrs. Davis (no relation to the President) let the front of the mansion. Respectable citizens crossed to the other side of River Street when they passed, their servants likewise. An unusual number of carriages at night for such a respectable neighborhood, a ship’s lantern in a front window, its bull’s-eye painted red: these were the only signs.

  Small boys were amazed at how late the house arose. They were surprised at how many wine bottles found their way into the household trash, how many torn ribbons and solitary silk shoes.

  At noon, the colored man with the scarred face opened the front door and toured the property. He carried two buckets, an empty one for the bottles he’d find tucked under the bushes and flowerbeds, and a bucket with sand to cover the vomit and, twice, blood.

  Inconsequential visitors dropped by during the long afternoon, and sometimes a piano could be heard playing Chopin half badly. In the evening the carriages came, parking along the street once the drive was filled.

  Fashionable Memphis ate late in those days, and only after the Gayaso Hotel dining room closed, near midnight, did the tip-top clientele arrive at the Captain’s House, as it had come to be called. “Let’s go up to the Captain’s House,” some wag would cry, pulling the cord of an imaginary steamboat’s whistle. “Choo, choo.”

  A particularly fine carriage paused long enough for its two occupants to descend, before proceeding down the street, where the flare of sulfur matches and glowing cigars marked other coachmen.

  As was her policy, Mrs. Davis met the two at the door. “Why, Mr. Turnbull, do come in. And Mr. Omohundru, we’ve not had the pleasure lately. . . .” Mrs. Davis was unknown in Memphis before the war.

  Wordlessly, the scarfaced negro took their wraps. Off the hallway, the piano tinkled “Camptown Races.” Turnbull—who owned the Gayaso and never tired of company—started toward the parlor, but Omohundru hesitated. “It has been a demanding day, Mrs. Davis. Perhaps you could bring me a brandy—in the private room?” Ahead laughter burst, intertwined with a girl’s shriek of amusement. To Turnbull: “There will be Federals in there. I began my day dealing with Federaldom, and I’ll be damned if I’ll end it in the same manner. I am to have a new pass, you know. Apparently the old pass no longer serves. I report to their provost marshal tomorrow at eleven. Damn them. God damn them.”

  “Those Federals are paying a dollar a pound for cotton. In gold, Silas.”

  “They will extract their pound of flesh, rest assured. My new pass, I am given to understand, will cost fifty dollars. And the provost accepts only gold. What sort of sovereign power, John, does not accept its own currency?”

&nb
sp; Turnbull winked. “I am told Mrs. Davis has offered a place to a Cajun girl, young, accomplished in the French arts. I hope to impose my sovereign power upon her.”

  Returning with Omohundru’s brandy, Mrs. Davis caught the last of this. “You speak of Minette. What a spirited creature! When the Yankees occupied New Orleans, she fled north—for all the good it did her. Yankees here, Yankees there—all the same after they have their trousers off.”

  It was one ribaldry too many, and with a vague smile, Omohundru retired to the private room, where a wall sconce gleamed dimly. “Let me turn up the gas,” Mrs. Davis offered.

  “No,” Omohundru said. “This well suits me. My eyes . . .” He rubbed his forehead, and closed the door—himself in and Mrs. Davis out. Omohundru set his brandy on the table, sprawled upon a settee, and closed his eyes. The room was damp, its drapes pulled shut, and cool. The furniture was dark mahogany. In the hall outside, footsteps passed and wisps of conversations.

  “George McClellan retreated down that peninsula a damn sight faster than he went up it. . . .” (Federal officer, likely.)

  “If we don’t sell our cotton to them, we cannot buy the provisions our beleaguered armies require.” (Confederate.)

  “Grant ain’t nothin’ but a damn drunk.” (Hard to know which party.)

  Silas shouldn’t have come out tonight, he should have gone directly to his hotel room. He’d not slept in two days. But Turnbull was so useful; without Turnbull, Silas couldn’t get his goods onto the Memphis & Jackson, the only railroad in the South which passed goods through the lines. When Silas became aware of breathing he sat bolt upright.

  “No need to turn up the light,” a soft voice said. “I intend no harm.”

  “What the hell!” A jab shot through his forehead.