In time he reached the point where he realized that thinking was useless, and took a vow to quit thinking. Then he seriously considered shooting himself, but realized that in order to do that he would have to think about it, and if he had taken a vow to quit thinking he couldn’t do it. So he didn’t. For the rest of his furlough he did not think a single thought, and thus when his furlough was over he did not know it. Major Melton had to come and get him. Major Melton was impressed that his speech on the superiority of patriotism over brotherhood had had such a dramatic effect in Jacob’s case, and he had reported favorably to his own brother, General Melton, at Headquarters, who had sent an order restoring Jacob to major and transferring him and his cavalry regiments to the command of General Frederick Steele, who was in eastern Arkansas preparing to march upon Little Rock. Jacob still wasn’t thinking, but one of his aides helped him put on his boots and saddle his horse and mount it, then the aide pointed the horse eastward and said “Giddyup” to it and kicked it, then summoned the rest of Jacob’s cavalry to follow, and they began their long ride to Helena on the Mississippi River, where they were welcomed by the Federal garrison there.
General Steele himself welcomed Jacob, and was especially delighted to have in his command the person who was reputed to be not only the lone Arkansas delegate opposing secession at the state convention but also the lone soldier who had killed his own brother. All the newspapers were in the habit of referring to the War as a great clash of “brother against brother” but so far General Steele had never heard of any man who had actually killed his brother, so he was ineffably glad to meet Jacob and have him and his cavalry join the assault on Little Rock, and on the spot he promoted Jacob to colonel. Jacob thought nothing of it, because he still wasn’t thinking. But soon, when he had shot and killed his first Rebel in eastern Arkansas, he was forced to think: he thought that this man he had killed was a southern slaveowner of the type who had fomented the rebellion and deserved to die. Thinking, Jacob realized that there was nothing wrong in killing this type of person. In fact, this type of person was indirectly responsible for starting a war which had resulted in the death of his brother Noah. It would be revenge to kill them, and Jacob took his revenge, killing them wherever he found them.
By the time General Steele’s army reached Little Rock, Jacob’s marksmanship and anger had become a legend among the troops of both sides, and it is said that the real reason the Confederates gave up the city without any resistance was their fear of being mowed down like dogs by Jacob Ingledew. In any case, General Steele occupied the capital without the loss of a single man, and breveted Jacob brigadier general, and sent him out to harass the retreating Rebels south and west of the city. Those he did not annihilate were driven so far away they never came back. Jacob returned to Little Rock and went to the house of the lady whom we have seen before, the lady who must remain nameless because her family name is a revered one in Little Rock society today. He took off his boots and hung his trousers on the bedpost, and afterwards he and lady lay together talking for a long time, about war, and death, and duty, and, yes, love or whatever it might be called.
That was in September. The following January, delegates from twenty-three loyalist counties converged on Little Rock and voted to choose General Jacob Ingledew as provisional governor. The following March, the people of the state elected him governor, and he was inaugurated in April. Arkansas was the first of the seceded states to secede from the Secession.
Chapter seven
No, our illustration this time around is not the governor’s mansion in Little Rock. That city, after all, is not in the Ozarks, missing by at least eight miles, so the dwelling that Jacob occupied there does not rightfully belong in a study of Ozark architecture. Our illustration is of the house that Jacob built in Stay More after he returned from his four-year term as governor; thus we will have to wait until the end of this chapter to learn why it is trigeminal rather than bigeminal, in fact one of the few trigeminal structures in the Ozarks, as well as the single most impressive building in Stay More. This was the third and last house that Jacob Ingledew built in Stay More, although being third is not the reason why it was trigeminal. We may guess or anticipate the real reason, but we would do better to wait until the end of the chapter.
Although this house was (and still is) the most impressive dwelling of Stay More, it is relatively modest by comparison with the house Jacob occupied in Little Rock, which we cannot illustrate here. Confederate Governor Flanagin abandoned it quickly in the face of the advance of General Steele’s army, taking only a few personal possessions and mementos and some of his wife’s best silver. So it was fully and rather opulently furnished when Jacob moved into it. As long as he was only provisional governor, he did not send for his wife Sarah and his children. He thought of writing them and telling them that he had been chosen provisional governor, but, remembering that no one in Stay More could read, he dispatched instead a messenger to carry the news orally. Not far outside of Little Rock this messenger was ambushed by bushwhackers and killed. The people of Stay More would have to wait for some time to learn of the high position attained by one of their own. Meanwhile the Little Rock lady (whom we cannot name) came clandestinely each night to the governor’s mansion to keep Jacob’s company in bed, and to share his burden as helmsman for the ship of state.
This burden, as long as he was only provisional governor, was not a heavy one. Most important matters, both military and civil, remained in the care of the military governor, General Steele, and Jacob did not seem to mind that all of the messages from President Lincoln during this period were addressed not to him but to Steele. The lady explained to Jacob what a “figurehead” is, as distinct from a “puppet,” which he was not. He took more interest in supervising the drafting of a new state constitution. He made few speeches, and these were carefully corrected and rehearsed in advance with the help of his ladyfriend. He avoided coarse language, especially in the presence of women. A reporter from the New York Tribune interviewed him at that time and wrote a long piece which was both condescending toward his back-country appearance and deportment and warmly approving of his platform, expressed, as he was quoted, “to git this here state back into the Union and keep’er thar till hell freezes over.”
For a long time, his ladyfriend made a timid, half-hearted attempt to refine his diction, and at least succeeded to the point where his speech no longer betrayed his true intelligence, but still there were many loyal Unionists in the state who were embarrassed by his image, and indeed, the reason that Jacob’s name appears so sporadically in histories of Arkansas is that historians are still somewhat discomfited, if not embarrassed, by his image. There was not, however, any man willing to run against him in the election. The election offered only a pair of alternatives: ratification of a new constitution, or not; and Jacob Ingledew for governor, or not. In the actual election, Jacob polled more votes than the constitution did, a circumstance that was not pleasing to President Lincoln, although Lincoln finally wrote directly to him to congratulate him, a brief letter that was always afterwards one of Jacob’s few prized possessions: “Governor Engledew: I am much gratified that you got out so large a vote, so nearly all the right way, at the late election; and not less so that your state government, including the legislature, is organized and in good working order. Whatever I can I will do to protect you; meanwhile you must do your utmost to protect yourselves. A. Lincoln.”
Lincoln’s cautionary conclusion was warranted; many parts of Arkansas, especially the southwest, were still under Confederate control, and bands of bushwhackers roamed the whole state, right up to the gates of Little Rock; no citizen or soldier of that city dared to go more than a mile outside of it without heavy protection. When he was elected, Jacob sent another messenger to Stay More to ask his family to come to Little Rock in time for the inauguration, but this messenger too was ambushed and killed by bushwhackers before reaching his destination. The nervousness that Jacob exhibited during his inaugural address
was not so much from speaking to a large crowd of people as from his anxiety about his family. Except for that nervousness, his address was forthright if not eloquent, solemn if not ponderous, and dignified if not majestic. The Arkansas Gazette commented: “For a man so little versed in the arts of the public forum, Gov. Ingledew acquitted himself handily. His personal views against the institution of slavery were made unassailable. He inspired confidence in a rich future for Arkansas.” Jacob’s ladyfriend, of course, had written the address, although the sentiments expressed in it were his own.
We may with good reason wonder: why, if Jacob achieved office by popular election, did nobody in Newton County know about it? Didn’t they have the election in Newton County? Probably not, because the departure of Jacob’s cavalry had brought Cecil’s Rebels out of hiding, and Newton County was temporarily under Confederate control at the time of the election. But surely, we might ask, didn’t a single one of Jacob’s cavalrymen get furloughed or discharged after Little Rock fell to them, and return home to Newton County to spread the news of Jacob’s success? Apparently not, for General Steele intended to keep as large a force as possible on duty in Little Rock. Still, we might reasonably argue, Newton County wasn’t so isolated that no news of Jacob’s governorship would somehow trickle into it. But obviously it must have been. Because it was nearly a month after Jacob’s inauguration before Eli Willard brought the news. He had read about it in a Connecticut newspaper. Now, selling a line of elixirs, balms and unguents, which few people had the money to pay for, he came again to Stay More and was somewhat surprised to find Sarah Ingledew and her younger children still living, or trying to, at the old dogtrot.
“My congratulations, madam,” he said to her. “Or should I offer my sympathies? Have you and your husband come to a parting of the ways?”
“Naw, he’s jist off some’ers a-fightin that infernal War,” she informed Eli Willard.
Eli Willard wondered if there might be some other Jacob Ingledew, but it was not a common name, and the newspaper item had clearly implied that the new governor was from an isolated settlement in the Ozarks.
“You aren’t divor—” he started to ask her, but changed this to: “You are still married?”
“Why, shore,” she replied.
Suddenly Eli Willard understood, and was moved. If Jacob Ingledew despite his humble origins had attained the governorship of the state, he would not want to display his ragtag family in the marble halls of the capitol, so he had deliberately refrained from sending for them.
“I feel for you,” Eli Willard said to Sarah.
She drew back. “You’d jist better not, Eli Willard.”
“I mean—” he said, “that I understand how you must feel, and I am touched.”
He sure was talking as if he was touched, Sarah decided. How must she feel? she wondered.
“But looking at the more positive side of it,” Eli Willard remarked, “I suppose it is more comfortable to abide in the tranquillity of these sylvan mountains than cope with the myriad concerns and distractions of the urban hurly-burly.”
Sarah decided that he must be building up some new sales pitch, and she said, “Whatever yo’re sellin this time, Mister Willard, I’m sorry to tell ye, but we’uns couldn’t find a red cent around this place if it was ransom fer our life.”
“You know your credit is always good with me,” he reminded her. “But doesn’t he even send you any of his salary?”
“Who?”
“The governor.”
Sarah was convinced now that Eli Willard didn’t have all his buttons. Probably it was the result of being out in the hot broiling sun all day long. The poor feller was sunstruck. She invited him into the shade of the breezeway while she fetched him a dipper of cold water. If that didn’t help, she would have to make him a tea of jimsonweed leaves.
Eli Willard, while he drank the water, began to wonder if Jacob Ingledew had chosen not only to keep his family at home but also to withhold from them the news of his gubernatoriality. If that were true, then Jacob Ingledew was a heartless man, and Eli Willard had never thought of him as being heartless.
He asked her directly, “You don’t know where your husband is?”
“Last I heared tell,” she replied, “he was headin fer the Missippi River for to fight fer Gen’l Steele.”
“Ah hah,” Eli Willard was moved to murmur, marveling at the difficulty of communications in Arkansas. “Madam, I have the honor to be the first informant to report to you the wonderful news that your estimable husband has been elected to the governorship of the State of Arkansas.”
Sarah went into her kitchen and began decocting an infusion of jimsonweed leaves. If that didn’t help, she might have to try a purgative of slippery-elm bark.
The narcotic in jimsonweed is similar to that of belladonna, or deadly nightshade, but the dose in Eli Willard’s drink was only enough to make him slightly intoxicated. After selling Sarah a few of his balms and unguents on credit, and failing further in his attempts to convince her that her husband was governor, he went on his way, visiting the other dwellings of Stay More, each in its turn, and the news was widely norated around the village that Eli Willard, whom everyone had always assumed to be a teetotaler, had turned up drunk, and in his drunkenness was telling everybody that Jacob Ingledew was governor of Arkansas. Sarah was boiling her slippery-elm bark as fast as she could, but still it would take several hours before it would be ready to use, and by that time Eli Willard’s case of sunstroke might have reached final coma.
Captain Isaac Ingledew of the Federal Infantry, pausing in Stay More to rest from his constant pursuit of John Cecil, learned of Eli Willard’s latest visit. He was a great admirer of Eli Willard, having spent his “growing-up” years looking forward to each reappearance of the peddler, who had usually given him a piece of candy. He knew that Eli Willard never drank. Now he did not want to believe that a nice man like Eli Willard was drunk and saying crazy things about his father, so he sought out Eli Willard himself. Being, as we have observed, the most taciturn of all the Ingledews (whence came his nickname “Coon”) as well as the most profane, Isaac said to him simply, “Shit. Governor?”
“Yes indeed,” Eli Willard replied. “And congratulations to you too, for being captain. No doubt your father will promote you to major, or even colonel.”
“Where’d ye git that?” Isaac wanted to know.
“Which?”
“That Paw is governor.”
“I read it in a newspaper,” Eli Willard declared.
“Lak hell.”
“I did, believe me. I considered that it might have been a mistake, but how many men in small Ozark villages would be named Jacob Ingledew?”
“Nary a goddamn one.”
“Then your father is governor, no doubt about it, and again my congratulations to you. Now, may I interest you in this bottle of new, sure-fire, all-purpose…”
After much thought, Isaac decided that Eli Willard might conceivably be right, even if he were obviously drunk for the first time. Isaac wanted to believe him. Still, he did not protest when his mother and a group of Stay Morons grabbed Eli Willard and held him down and made him take a large dose of slippery-elm bark. This powerful purgative gave the poor peddler such a bad case of the canters (more severe than the trots but less severe than the gallops) that he was unable to leave Stay More for three days. Sarah gave him a bed, from which, however, he frequently had to canter. On the third day, after the canter had slowed to a trot, and the trot had slowed to a walk, Sarah said to him, “Now then, what did ye say the name of the governor is?”
“John Johnson,” Eli Willard replied, and Sarah let him go on his way.
Isaac Ingledew realized that the only way to find out if his father were actually governor would be to go and find his father and make him deny it or admit it. Isaac—or any man—should have been reluctant to go off alone through bushwhacker country, but he wasn’t afraid. He decided, however, to change from his uniform into civvies, and n
ot to carry a rifle but only a pistol concealed under his belt. This showed his wisdom, for during the two weeks that it took him to walk to Little Rock (all of the riding animals had been taken by Jacob’s cavalry), he was ambushed by bushwhackers on seventeen separate occasions.
Isaac, we may have noticed, was a big man, one might almost say a giant of a man, six feet seven inches in height, 230 pounds in weight, shoes size fourteen. Dressed as a farmer, he should have been able to talk his way out of several of the ambushes, but, being taciturn, he was unable to talk his way out of any of them. He fought his way bare-handed out of nine and was required to use his pistol in the remaining eight ambushes, in which he killed thirteen bushwhackers and wounded the same number. At the onset of each ambush, he uttered a single obscene expletive, employing a different one each time, making a total of seventeen distinct obscene expletives. He was somewhat fatigued by the time he reached Little Rock late one afternoon, but he began at once to search for the governor’s mansion.
The Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks Page 17
