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

by Donald McCaig

  “Those who burned alive in the Wilderness—they had plans for after the war. They had mothers and wives they cried to as the fire transformed them. Some carried keepsakes with locks of their children’s hair. . . .” Duncan touched his bandages wonderingly.

  Samuel Gatewood closed the basket. “Yes, it is true that men have died horribly,” he said. “In every generation some men die horribly, and we must trust that God has his purposes.” He buckled the basket’s strap. “Did I say that I came down the canal in the same boat that had previously transported General Jackson’s mortal remains to Lexington for burial? The craft was still draped with black crepe, which the crewmen did not remove until we had passed through the lock at Big Island. General Jackson died, I am told, grateful he would go to his Maker on Sunday, for such had always been his desire. Were the men who died in the Wilderness any different from the general who commanded them? If these tragedies are not part of God’s great design, reason falters.”

  Duncan turned his face away. “Father, I fear I have given way to melancholy. Can you forgive me?”

  “I can and do, most heartily. I have brought a second basket to Catesby. Does he seem well to you?”

  “He has been assigned to attend the brigade’s wounded officers, and visits every second day. He’s also been entrusted with the regiment’s clothing monies but hasn’t located what he was asked to buy.”

  “Catesby did not quite seem himself.”

  “He takes whiskey. Often when he sits where you are sitting the smell of spirits is strong enough to make me ill. He gambles more than he did—oh, there’s a regular circle of cardplayers in the army, and they quickly make each other’s acquaintance. Catesby is gentler than you or me, and war is no place for a gentle fellow. He will do his duty. He accepts the most dangerous post, has commanded our pickets more than any other officer in the regiment.”

  Samuel Gatewood said, “Some men are blessed with a sanguine disposition. Others take a thing and worry it until there’s so little left it wouldn’t provide a barn rat with his dinner. I am of the former disposition. When I view Stratford’s depleted fields, I picture them after the war, replenished and green, workers sowing or reaping or shocking, in proper season. You will be the planter and Catesby’s son, Thomas, will act the fool—as all young men must. I picture Thomas courting and marrying. I . . .”

  “Father, my own son will never be welcome at Stratford.”

  Tears which he neither restrained nor acknowledged started from Samuel Gatewood’s eyes. They ran down the furrows beside his cheeks. “My poor boy, you have not forgiven me.”

  “Father, what else could you have done? It is myself I can’t forgive.”

  “We might . . . we should have spoken before.”

  The boy dismissed the thought. “How could we? How can we? This war has changed everything. Everything is topsy-turvy.”

  “We could not have acknowledged a negro grandson. How . . . ?”

  “What a pity. What a pity. What have we done to ourselves? Sometimes I think that damned Lincoln is right.”

  “Should we surrender?”

  Duncan winced. “No. Hell no! But Father, after all our suffering, what will we become?” His eyes were fluttering wearily. “I am so tired. Will you come again tomorrow?”

  Catesby was on the step outside. “Samuel, another beautiful spring day. If the roads stay good our army will march again. General Lee intends to march into the North. All the men think so.”

  “And you?”

  “I’ll go with the regiment. Attending to fallen officers’ needs and purchasing woolen underclothes are not duties that excuse a man from marching. General Lee thinks we can win.”

  “And you, Catesby?”

  Catesby shrugged. “I am not a military man. Our generals have been correct in their judgments before, though I do not believe they have properly reckoned the cost. Three more great victories like Chancellorsville and we will all be dead men.”

  “You are in a black humor. If our western armies continue to resist Grant at Vicksburg and General Lee strikes a hard blow in the North, England may yet recognize our young nation.”

  Catesby’s grin flashed. “I have always admired you, Samuel. Have I told you? If men like you were in charge of things, we’d never have reached this wretched impasse.” Catesby rose and brushed off his trousers. “Will you take dinner with me? After two weeks in the capital I have discovered a few establishments.”

  The two men rode along Main Street. Catesby seemed distracted and in no mood for conversation.

  How shabby it all is, Gatewood thought. Filth in the gutter, unwashed stoops, windows curtainless or shuttered. Few cabs or hackneys, not many riders and most of those in uniform.

  A cavalry squadron, President Davis’s honor guard, lounged in Capitol Square.

  The two men turned down 12th Street and dismounted before an unpretentious two-story clapboard building with a fresh painted green door. Both passed their reins to a colored boy, and Catesby gave him a dime.

  “Samuel,” Catesby swung the door wide, “this is Johnny Worsham’s gambling hell.” He raised a hand to quell Samuel’s protest. “Samuel, you needn’t gamble. Though no doubt there are those doing so. Come in, I’ll show you.”

  So early, only a few of the green baize tables were occupied. Upturned chairs rested upon the others, and the low murmur of the cardplayers seemed of a piece with the dust motes flickering in the sunlight.

  “Ah, Catesby. Come to take a hand?” The inquirer was handsome on that half of his face that hadn’t been scarred by a dreadful injury. His hair was black and oiled and perfumed.

  “Johnny. My esteemed father-in-law, Samuel Gatewood. Planter from the mountains. A man of considerable good sense.”

  “Sir, my pleasure. I believe the window table is playing bezique. Do you know the game?”

  “Not this morning, Johnny. We’ve come for some of your excellent hospitality.”

  The owner’s smile didn’t falter. “Of course. Of course. Will we be seeing you tonight, Catesby?”

  “Unless I’m dining with General Lee,” Catesby said and kept his solemn expression until he grinned a boy’s grin and slapped the proprietor on the back. “Johnny keeps a fine buffet. The best in the Confederacy.”

  “We’ve Monopole champagne in the house,” Johnny said. “The Banshee docked at Wilmington Thursday.”

  “Thanks, Johnny. Too early for me. Coffee, Samuel?”

  The coffee was hot and black and good. The buffet presented two turkeys and roasts of beef and ham, as well as bread, butter, and condiments. Catesby created a large sandwich and Samuel a more modest one.

  “Do take more,” Catesby said. “You’re accustomed to hearty fare.”

  “At home,” Samuel said. “Where I know its provenance.”

  “Only the finest blockade runners supply Johnny’s table. I think I will try a glass of champagne.”

  “You are a familiar here, I take it,” Samuel said.

  “It is the gayest spot in Richmond.”

  “I should think it one of the most dangerous,” Samuel said gently.

  “Lively gentlemen come to Johnny’s for an evening of pleasant conversation, wagers, and a better supper than they’d get elsewhere in Richmond. Judah Benjamin, President Davis’s confidant, is a regular.” He put his napkin to his mouth. “On a less contentious topic, I met Sallie Kirkpatrick at Camp Winder the other day.”

  The murmur of voices, the clink of money, the whisk of cards. Samuel chewed his sandwich more doggedly than it deserved. “I am not satisfied that we did our best for that child. I am sure I did not. Apparently she and her husband are . . . estranged.”

  Catesby described Alexander Kirkpatrick’s arrival at Fredericksburg and his subsequent disappearance. “He may have been killed, but he probably deserted. I do think he tried. When I spoke to Sallie the other day she said she would not have Kirkpatrick back under any circumstances. She presumes him dead.”

  Samuel shook his head.
“These times. What times!” He set his sandwich remains on his plate. “Look here, Catesby . . .”

  Catesby shook his head with a smile. “Esteemed father-in-law, I will not ‘look here.’ If I am willing to gamble everything in this war, I will take my relaxation as I choose.”

  “But you cannot afford to gamble. You are not wealthy.”

  Catesby’s smile grew more charming. “Like General Lee, sir, I can afford it until I lose.”

  FAMILY HAPPINESS

  NEAR MT. JACKSON, VIRGINIA

  MAY 23, 1863

  THE LAMB PRESSED its seeking head into the crevice of its mother’s leg and nibbled on a tuft of wool.

  “No, idiot.” Alexander Kirkpatrick pushed the lamb to better align it with the teat. The ewe stood quietly eating the hay Alexander had laid down, undisturbed by either the baby creature seeking her milk or the clumsy man kneeling at her side. Seth, the eldest Danzinger boy, stood outside the perimeter of the ewe’s concern, keeping an eye on things.

  Early-morning light filtered through cracks between the barn boards. The door, left open when they’d led the ewe inside, was a rectangle of pale light, and along the south wall, windows opened to the new day. The dewy grass gave off a cold rich smell, the farmhouse puffed woodsmoke like a steamboat, and smoke tendrils drifted down to the barn. Alexander was very hungry. He thought he could smell bacon frying.

  The lamb connected with its mother’s teat.

  “Tickle its behind,” Seth advised. “Pretend you are a mother sheep.”

  When Alexander hesitated, Seth chided him, “You are too fastidious, Alex. You will never be a stockman if you are fastidious.”

  When Alexander tickled the top of the lamb’s tail, the tail vibrated furiously and the lamb grew so enthused it butted the udder and lost the teat and searched frantically until the tail started wagging again.

  “Good,” Seth said. “The lamb will live. Even old Delilah here has enough milk for one lamb.”

  Alexander brushed straw off his trousers. “Sheep are so stupid,” he said.

  “So? Yet a lamb who has never nursed before can find its way to its mother’s milk and eat and grow. It is a gift of God. Of course,” the boy added solemnly, “this morning, you have given God a hand.”

  Alexander didn’t say anything. The Danzingers talked all the time but never expected him to say anything. The old grandmother spoke only German and the family often spoke that language among themselves. At dinner table sometimes, conversation flowed around Alexander as if he were a bird in soft air.

  “I was joking,” Seth said. “I was pulling your leg.”

  Alexander and Seth wore the dark wool trousers and overshirt prescribed by the Brethren. Both wore stiff straw hats.

  At fourteen, Seth was the oldest male Danzinger, and sometimes—assuming his murdered father’s place—he seemed full-grown. But with Alexander he frequently acted younger, just a boy enjoying a fine May morning in one of God’s gardens: the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Now, with self-conscious importance, Seth consulted his father’s watch. “I have slopped the hogs and the girls have milked and Willem will have fed the horses and my stomach is growling. Come, my friend, can you smell bacon frying?”

  Alexander had arrived at this small farm three months ago, not so long after Henry Danzinger’s murder that the man’s place had been filled nor the injury healed.

  That night, Alexander had walked down the Valley Pike and slid into a haystack before dawn and was awakened after an hour’s slumber by pitchfork tines and the hungry moos of cattle waiting to be fed. He crawled out backward on hands and knees, hoping those tines wouldn’t poke him again, and found two puzzled boys who waited while he brushed himself.

  “Are you a soldier?” Willem Danzinger had asked.

  “No,” Alexander said. “I am a scholar of antiquities.”

  The boys inspected him for a long moment before Seth Danzinger said, “The cattle must be fed,” and forked a thatch of hay over the rail fence that kept the beasts from devouring this haystack at will.

  “We also do not fight,” Willem said with the complacent solemnity of the very young. “God forbids it. Are you hungry? Can you work?”

  So the boys brought him into the house and their mother, Gretchen, promptly filled a bowl of oatmeal and set molasses beside the pitcher of fresh cream and when he had emptied the bowl scooped him another. When Alexander was finished he thanked her and she said, “We all work for our food here. There is firewood to be split. For the oven. This size.” With hands apart she indicated the length, and Alexander went outside and split wood, splitting until nearly noon, reducing the mound by two-thirds, and when she came out she said, “That is good. Dinner is ready.”

  The wooden table had an empty seat at the head and the grandmother said grace in German, and that afternoon they set Alexander to loading the wagon with manure from the horse barn and forking it onto the wheat ground.

  That evening while he washed up at the pump, Seth came to fetch him. “Pretend you are useful,” he whispered. “Do not mention the antiquities.”

  The family was waiting in the kitchen. In her rocker nearest the fire the grandmother wasn’t missing a thing.

  Gretchen Danzinger coughed into her hand. She said, “We have discussed you. You have run from the army, yes?”

  “I never wanted to fight. . . .”

  “But you have run.”

  “Yes.”

  “We are in need of man’s hands here. We will feed you and you may wear Henry’s clothing. I am Henry’s wife on earth and in heaven, but we need a man on this farm.”

  So Alexander stayed. The work took enough attention so he didn’t get lost in his mind. Though all the Brethren community knew a deserter was living with the Danzinger family, no outsiders were told.

  It seemed to Alexander that he had been looking all his life to find a place like this. The only books in the house were religious meditations in German and the heavy German Bible on the parlor table. Alexander had nearly forgotten his brief service with the army, nearly forgotten the penitentiary. Since it hurt him to think about such things, why think about them?

  One day, shoveling corn into the hammermill, Alexander removed his shirt and young Willem saw his flogging scars and asked, “Were you a slave? I thought only the negroes were slaves.”

  Alexander reached behind but couldn’t quite touch his old injuries. “Perhaps I was,” he said.

  “We do not believe in slaves,” Willem said, sturdily.

  Early in the war, Confederate officialdom had been outraged by Brethren pacifism and had imprisoned some of their leaders at Libby Prison, but these good farmers were too important to the war effort to stand on principle. From rich Valley farms came the salt pork, beeves, and wheat that fed the army. When slaves started running away in large numbers, the Brethren, who did not hold with slavery and whose sons were laboring at home, were less affected than the “English” farmers, and Confederate quartermasters who came to Strasburg and Edinburg Mill and Harrisonburg never left empty-handed. Some of the Brethren refused the new currency and insisted on gold (even at a discount), but they sold everything they brought.

  Alas, the Shenandoah Valley was no longer the oasis of prosperous farms and tranquil prayer it had been before the war. Each of Stonewall’s brilliant victories shattered humble farmers. Bivouacking soldiers pulled down rail fences for their campfires, and no chicken was safe when foragers were in the neighborhood. Partisan rangers prowled the roads by night. Henry Danzinger had gone out to speak at a meeting and was found the next morning with his throat cut, horse and coin purse taken. His new nickel-plated watch lay beside his body. “To murder a man for his few possessions . . .” Henry’s widow would wonder and weep. “And to throw away his good watch as if it was nothing. . . .” Near Thornton Gap a farmhouse went up in smoke and in the ruins neighbors found the farmer, his wife, and their two daughters shot to death. Saturday evening, after he had closed his mill gate for the Sabbath, partisan rangers ro
bbed a mill owner near Luray of the week’s receipts.

  “It is a wicked time,” Gretchen Danzinger said. “We must pray that this scourge be lifted.”

  The Danzinger farm was seventy acres along the Shenandoah River, below the richer Burkeholders, above the shaley hardscrabble farms where the farmers were not Brethren.

  The Danzingers owned two brood sows (when he was required, they borrowed the Burkeholders’ boar), four milk cows (Gretchen Danzinger was a noted cheesemaker), twenty beehives, and a dozen ewes. They planted ten acres in wheat.

  Alexander Kirkpatrick was partial to garden work, hoeing between the emerging vegetables, and when they shelled the first peas he sat with the women extracting the tiny green morsels.

  Nine-year-old Lisle Danzinger was full of questions, so Alexander told her about ancient Rome, Romulus and Remus, Caesar and Scipio Africanus, while he popped new peas into a bowl. The other female Danzingers listened politely and when he paused resumed their conversation in German.

  “Is this true?” Lisle demanded. “Or is it only a story?”

  “I don’t really know,” Alexander said.

  The next morning, after chores, they inspected the ripening timothy. At Seth’s suggestion, Alexander knelt to inspect the tiny seed head slumbering in the boot at the base of the plant

  “When it comes out of the boot, it comes all at once,” Seth warned. “Then we will be glad for your help. The Burkeholders would help us, but they have their own hay to cut and Mama doesn’t wish to trouble them.”

  Alexander’s arms strengthened and his hands hardened, and in the morning the wet dew-soaked grass wet his trousers to the knee. Breakfast they ate just at daybreak, the noon meal was enormous, and there were always oatmeal or bachelor button cookies in the kitchen.

  Each Sunday, when the family dressed for church, Alexander readied the buggy, curried the black horse until it shone, and hitched it to the front gate. One day he might be invited to attend worship but not yet.