Tennessee Rose

by Jane Kendall

  Why yes indeed, I know her, said a chestnut Thoroughbred from Natchez. She came to live on my master’s plantation, oh, must be about three or four years back.

  Is she well? I asked eagerly.

  Not only well, but flourishing, he answered. Are you kin to her?

  Yes, sir, she’s my mother.

  I thought I detected a resemblance.

  When you get home (I couldn’t bring myself to say if) will you tell her that Tennessee Rose sends her love? That I have never forgotten her?

  I certainly will, madam, he replied. It would be my distinct privilege. Horses from Mississippi were so well-mannered.

  It was all very agreeable, but I couldn’t help wondering how long we would be in camp. Again, we waited. Soldiering, I was to learn, was mostly about waiting. You longed for something to happen and when it did, you were sorry it had. You spent months behind the lines, only breaking camp and moving up when some general ordered you to.

  Soldiers gossip and so do horses. That camp was as full of rumors as a hound with fleas. The Union forces were under the command of General Irvin McDowell, and we heard he didn’t even own maps of Virginia! The Confederates were under the command of General Joseph Johnston. General P. G. T. Beauregard, who had ordered the destruction of Fort Sumter, held the railroad junction at Manassas with 22,000 men.

  On the sixteenth of July, the Union Army began to march south from Alexandria, heading for Richmond. But they were delayed for two days at Centreville, and General Johnston decided to move 10,000 Confederates up by train. Everything was in place by the twentieth of July, and we heard the battle would commence in the morning. The time had come!

  That night was different. The cooking fires were lit for the evening meals, but all was eerily silent. No one talked. There was no singing, no fiddle playing. You could hear cicadas shrilling in the trees and birdsong, and once a hoot owl deep in the woods. Levi stayed close to me, not saying much, but every so often he would stroke me or fondle my ears.

  Everyone was up at dawn, saddling the horses and getting ready to march up the road to Manassas. Levi’s hands were shaking as he fastened my bridle. “I wish I could go with you, Rosie,” he said, his voice breaking. “I wish I could be with you. Just make sure you come back to me.”

  The Fourth Alabama was not in the first wave of troops to be called, and we were at the back of the camp for most of the morning. But gradually we began to inch forward as messengers came racing back with orders, their horses lathered and drooping.

  What’s happening? I asked one of the horses, whose rider was leading him past me to a nearby water trough.

  Union troops charged the creek first thing, he said shortly. Looked like a wall of blue. We’re tryin’ to push ’em back.

  “Are we winning?” Levi asked the rider.

  “Don’t look like it,” he panted. “Heard ’em yelling about hanging Jeff Davis from a sour apple tree, but Jackson’s holding the line to the south.”

  At a little past two in the afternoon our turn came, and we marched out of the encampment and onto the road to Manassas. I couldn’t help being excited! I could tell the captain was, too, as I kept getting little bursts of tension through the reins. We were at the back of the troop, as Charger had said we would be, and I could see over the men to the dusty road before us. It was a fine sunny day, with a faint breeze.

  Beside us were our drummer and fife player, two slender boys who looked no older than Levi had when I first knew him. The drummer kept up a constant tattoo, and the men marched in rhythm, their booted feet raising clouds of dust and shaking the ground. Then the fife player began to play “Dixie,” the jaunty tune that is the best to march to and tingles in your blood and makes you want to dance. The men began to sing, and as we tramped along the mood became festive, almost lighthearted.

  Oh, I wish I was in the land of cotton,

  Old times there are not forgotten,

  Look away, look away, look away, Dixie Land.

  The captain leaned over and patted my neck. “This is the life, eh, Rosie?” he said brightly.

  On we went, the men singing lustily now, fairly shouting out the words:

  I wish I was in Dixie, hooray! Hooray!

  In Dixie Land I’ll take my stand

  To live and die in Dixie.

  Away, away, away down south in Dixie.

  Away, away, away down south in Dixie.

  After about twenty minutes or so, I began to hear noise over the music. Low, booming sounds like summer thunder and sharp, crackling bursts, and yelling and shouting and screaming. I could hear horses screaming, too, and suddenly I was terrified.

  We came to the place of battle. I can remember it still, every detail, the way it looked and sounded and the smells of gunpowder and smoke and sweat. It was a wide valley of two sloping hills divided by a winding stream, beautiful farming country like most of what I’d seen of the Shenandoah. But now the banks of the creek were littered with fallen and wounded men, and the water was stained red. The farmhouse atop one of the hills was pockmarked with shellfire, and all the windows were broken.

  The captain called a halt as an officer on horseback came riding up, threading his way through the men.

  “You the reinforcements?” he called out.

  “Yes, sir, Fourth Alabama.”

  “The Virginians need you, over there,” the officer yelled, and wheeled his horse back toward the fighting.

  We went where he had pointed and found ourselves along the top of the hill to our right, which was being held by General Thomas Jackson. When others had wavered he remained firm. “Look, there is Jackson with his Virginians, standing like a stone wall!” called out a general from South Carolina, who was killed minutes later. The name stuck, and forever after he was known as Stonewall Jackson.

  Around four o’clock, Jackson ordered a massive counterattack. “Yell like Furies!” he commanded, and we swept down the hillside like a raging tide. I could see men in front of me firing their rifles and, when they couldn’t reload, stabbing the enemy with their bayonets, which were like little swords on the end of their guns. It was horrible, young boys clutching their wounds and falling, to be trampled by the onrushing troops. I won’t tell you about the horses, for it tears at me to think of them. It was on that day that I realized an awful truth: Men choose to go to war. Horses have no choice. We go where we are ridden, and I was being ridden into a nightmare.

  But it was the turning point. We reached the bottom of the hill and turned along the banks of the creek. The Yankees fell back, trying to get away from us, splashing and floundering through the water.

  “This is it, men!” the captain cried, and urged me forward. I wasn’t so afraid now that the Yankees were on the run, and I was glad for the captain and all the boys from the county.

  It was hard to see through the great clouds of cannon and rifle smoke that darkened the sky and stung my eyes. The noise was overwhelming. After we made it across the creek, the captain found good footing and spurred me into the field at the base of the opposite hill. He was doing the Rebel Yell, that bloodcurdling cry that still raised my hackles whenever I heard it. It came from all over the valley, ringing above the rifle shots and the thudding torrent of Minié balls from the Union artillery. They were behind a small stand of trees, above us on the ridge to our left.

  A flash of fire came from the trees, as white-hot as the July sun.

  The captain’s hands jerked once, hard, on my reins and went slack. I felt him sag in the saddle and slump to one side. I knew something was wrong and I wanted to get him to safety, and so I wheeled around and cantered back through the onrush of men to the end of the field. My sides were heaving, my breath ragged through my nostrils.

  With what I could tell was a terrible effort, Jefferson Randall jerked his boots out of the stirrups and slid awkwardly to the ground. The front of the Confederate gray tailor-made tunic, of which he had been so proud, was wet with blood. He lay there, looking up at me. A vague smile twitched the cor
ner of his mouth. “Martha?” he murmured.

  Then the light went out of his pale eyes, like water trickling from a cracked cup, and I knew he was dead.

  And so I did the only thing I could, the only thing that made sense. I left him lying in the torn-up earth of a Virginia pasture and went to find Levi.

  Into the Night

  When I finally got back to the camp, I found madness and chaos. The Confederates were trying to move up, following the retreating Union Army. It was as noisy as the battle had been: men yelling orders as they struck the tents and loaded the supply wagons and tried to tend the endless stream of wounded men. Some could walk with help, but most were loaded onto ambulances. The wagons were lined up in front of the operating tents with open flaps. I took one look and averted my eyes. The soldiers in the wagons and the tents were either silent and resigned, or crying like frightened children at what had to be done. But in a strange way I was glad for them. Even if they hobbled home on crutches, they would go back to their farms and their families. Their war was over.

  I kept to the edge of the field, near the woods. My reins were loose and if someone grabbed them I would be theirs, for whatever purpose.

  And then—oh, it was the most wonderful moment of my life!—I heard a familiar voice hiss, “Rosie.”

  There he was, behind a tree. I trotted over, and he wrapped his arms around my neck. “Oh, Rosie,” Levi sobbed into my mane. “I thought you were dead. I been waitin’ all day.”

  He saw the blood on my saddle. “The captain?” he whispered. “The captain’s dead?” He smiled, for just an instant, and said, “Then we can go. This is our chance.” He looked nervously to one side, then the other. “We’ve got to get to the Union lines.”

  He swung up onto me. Levi had never been on my back, but I knew he would be an able horseman, and he was. We threaded our way through the woods, back to the road to Manassas. It was littered with Union caissons and rifles and canteens and bloodied bandages, all the debris of a retreating army. Dead soldiers—in blue and in gray—lay where they had fallen, their lifeless eyes open to the setting sun.

  I saw a ruined landau with a wicker picnic basket spilling its contents into the dust. Society ladies and gentlemen from Washington had ridden out to watch the battle from a high hill, thinking it would be a grand entertainment. But the South had won the day, and they had fled in panic, their carriages smashed in the hasty retreat.

  We waited until the parade of wagons and weary men thinned to a trickle, and then sped across to the other side. When we were deep in the woods, Levi pulled into a small clearing and slid off me. He found a patch of scrubby grass and pulled a few handfuls and held them out. I chomped them down gratefully.

  “Rosie, I been thinking,” he said as he stroked my neck. “Me being an escaped slave and you being such a fine horse?” He sighed. “I’m sorry—you know I hate to do this—but there’s no other way.” He fished deep in his satchel and found the sharp curved knife he used to pick stones from my hooves … and he hacked off my gorgeous mane and tail until they were ragged!

  Then he took handfuls of dirt and rubbed them into my coat until it was dusty and rough and the shine was gone. He even smeared mud over my white rose. I hadn’t felt so grubby since the train. “Better,” he said. “Now I need you to act all tired and sad.” He sloped his shoulders and hung his head, then reached out and gently lowered my head. “Like this, see? Tired and sad.”

  After that day, tired was hardly the word. My mind was filled with images of all I had seen, and I kept thinking of the captain. Although in the end I didn’t respect him as I once had, we had spent many fine days together and he was a good master. There is no better training than to be ridden, year in and year out, by a human who knows horses well, and the captain was a superb horseman. It made me heartsick to think of sweet little Miss Martha-Anne, and I wished there was some way she could know that his last thoughts had been of her. I could barely listen to Levi, so consumed was I with a hopeless yearning for Belle Rivière, for Charger and my sisters, and the sweet ease of my old life.

  “And don’t walk so proud,” Levi was saying. He did a little shuffling dance, plopping his feet down clumsily. “You got to act like a dumb ol’ plow horse and not the smart gal you are.”

  After he danced around some more and I realized what he wanted, it came as a relief. All afternoon I had been holding my head high and my feet up. That is what we Walking Horses do, and I hadn’t wanted to disappoint Levi. It was no more than pride, and I was ready to let it go. And so off Levi and I went into that long night, stumbling along like the exhausted and confused creatures we were.

  He kept mumbling something about following the North Star, but the trees were so tall and dense you could only see bits of the sky. The moon had risen, but it was a frail fingernail and gave no light.

  After a while we came to a farmhouse, with dim lantern light streaming from the windows. It was a poor-looking spread, a tin-roofed cabin with one small barn, but as clean as a picked bone. The garden patch was free of weeds, and petunias grew in a row of tin cans along the front of the porch.

  We waited and we watched from the safety of the woods.

  A farmer drove his cow into the barn, then sat on the front steps and lit a corncob pipe. He gazed contentedly over his yard.

  “Might as well,” Levi said, and clucked me forward. “Please, sir. Can I trouble you for some water for my horse?”

  The farmer, who had deep-set eyes and a grizzled beard flowing over his overalls, stood. “And a fine-lookin’ horse she is,” he said. “Come set a bit.”

  Levi stared at him suspiciously and dismounted.

  “Son,” the farmer said gently, “we honor the Good Book in this house and we ask no questions. All I see are a horse that’s done in and a boy who looks mighty hungry. There’s hay for your friend and a stall in my barn, such as it is.” He smiled. “Ain’t nothing but corn bread and greens, but there’s always a seat at the table. Mary-Frances?” he called over his shoulder.

  A woman in a starched calico dress came to the door, a baby cradled on her hip. “What is it, Elisha?”

  “Can you stretch dinner for one more?”

  “I usually can,” she said. When she smiled you could tell that she had been lovely, before care and hard work left lines on her face.

  The farmer leaned forward. “Don’t worry,” he said in a low voice. “We’re on the Railroad.”

  Levi’s eyes widened.

  “Best spend the night in the root cellar,” he said. “I’ve heard rifle shots and cannon fire since mornin’, and these woods are full of stragglers.”

  “There was a great battle today,” Levi said, “at Manassas. The Union Army’s been pushed back.”

  “Sorry to hear that.” He sucked on his pipe. “Never did think one man should own another.”

  We stayed with that kind man for three days, until he thought it was safe to travel. “You’re bound to do this?” said Elisha. He sighed. “You’re more than welcome to stay.”

  “I’d like to,” Levi said simply. “It’s peaceful here and I know I could be of use. But I want to join the Union Army if they’ll have me. My people need to be free, and so do I.”

  We left the following morning, my belly full of Elisha’s hay and Levi’s satchel stuffed with all the corn pone Mary-Frances could spare. Elisha told us how to get to an old wagon track that led to the Potomac River. “I hear the army’s camped out there,” he told Levi.

  “God bless,” he called after us as we headed out. “I hope you find what you’re lookin’ for.”

  It was a gloomy day, and the trees dripped with a misty rain. After about six hours, we came to a small encampment on the south shore of the river. As we rode up, the men in blue eyed us curiously.

  “What do you want?” said one rough fellow.

  “I’ve come to join the army,” Levi said, his voice shaking a little.

  “Oh you have, have you? Where’d you steal that horse?”

 
; “I didn’t steal her,” Levi said hotly. “She’s mine.”

  “We’ll see about that,” the man said, and grabbed my bridle.

  “No!” Levi cried. “Get away, you—”

  “What is that ruckus?” said a crisp voice. A tall, dark-haired man in uniform emerged from a tent.

  Swiftly, the first man stepped back and saluted. “Sorry, Colonel,” he said. “Didn’t mean to disturb you.”

  “Well, you did,” he said, then looked at Levi. “What can I do for you?”

  “I’ve come to join the army,” Levi said again, this time firmly. “Me and Rosie.”

  “This, I assume, is Rosie.” He patted my neck. “I know a Walking Horse when I see one. Pretty lady.” Then he took a closer look and started to laugh. “Good heavens, man, what have you done to her?”

  “It took us a while to get here,” Levi said, “and we didn’t know who we’d run into so—”

  “So you disguised her! Smart fellow, I’d have done the same.” He looked up at Levi and narrowed his eyes. “Can you read and write?” he asked abruptly. “I could use a good assistant.”

  Quickly, Levi dismounted and reached into his satchel. He took the tattered book of essays that Jonathan Abbott, Lafayette’s tutor, had given him all those years ago, and wordlessly held it out.

  “Emerson?” the officer said delightedly. “A man after my own heart!” He held out his hand. “Colonel Mordecai Buxton. And you are?”

  I don’t think a white man had ever offered to shake Levi’s hand. “Levi,” he said hoarsely.

  “Levi what?”

  “Just Levi. I got another name but … it’s a slave name, sir, and I’d rather not use it.”

  “Hmm. We’ve got to put something down on the rolls,” said the colonel. “Tell you what, for now why don’t you use my name? Would you mind that?”

  “Oh no, sir,” Levi said fervently. “I’d be honored. Does this mean I’m in the army?”