by Diaz, Debra
“Are you coming back?” she asked.
He answered, after a moment’s hesitation, “There’s something coming up, Catherine, something big. I may be gone for a long time. But yes, my darling, I’m staying here tonight.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The next day, Sunday, Clayton accompanied his wife to church. Though the Hendersons normally attended another church, they went with the Pierces, as did a very subdued Miranda Kelly.
With quiet respectfulness, Clayton asked the minister if he might speak after the service. Catherine waited, her stomach taut with nervousness. She didn’t know what he was going to say.
A little stir went across the congregation as he rose. His hands resting quietly on each side of the pulpit, he gazed earnestly at those who sat before him. He told them of his spy mission and the reasons for it. He explained carefully that Catherine had not known his true identity for some time, and soon after she discovered it, they were secretly married.
He said only that Bart had been suspected of illegal activities; he did not mention Sallie’s involvement. Andrew Kelly, he said, had been dead since last year; he did not explain the details. Andrew’s brother, John, who had never quite succeeded in making Catherine believe he was Andrew, had been a conspirator in a plot against the Confederacy and the life of General Lee, and was in prison awaiting trial.
He spoke with such sobriety and humility, laced with just the right touch of humor, that the congregation could not help but believe every word he said. His voice broke when he spoke of Mrs. Shirley. When he finished, all the women and several men had tears in their eyes. Everyone sat for a moment without moving, then all at once he was surrounded by people wanting to shake his hand. The women hugged Catherine, and she knew that her reputation had survived yet another potential disgrace.
Mrs. Shirley’s funeral was held later that afternoon. The president’s wife, Varina Davis, attended, with a handful of other people Catherine had never seen before. As with Bart, but for different reasons, she felt sorry she had not been kinder to Mrs. Shirley.
Clayton had to leave immediately afterward. She would see him only two more times before the end came.
***
The battle of Chancellorsville was big—some called it Lee’s greatest victory. With less than half the number of troops, the Confederates immobilized the Federals and sent them fleeing once more across the Rappahannock River. On the first day of that battle, the alarm bell in Capitol Square rang frantically, for in the absence of Lee’s army Yankee troops had pressed within three miles of Richmond. Militia, government workers and citizens were mustered in to defend the city, and drove the enemy back.
On May twelfth, Catherine and Clayton were reunited briefly for the sad occasion of Stonewall Jackson’s funeral. The entire city went into mourning for the great general; schools and businesses closed, church bells tolled, flags flew at half-mast. His death was considered throughout the South to be a calamity of immeasurable proportions. Clayton told Catherine that Jackson, Lee’s right-hand man, had been struck in the dark of night by wild fire among his own men. The wound necessitated amputation of his left arm, after which he seemed to be recovering, but then pneumonia set in and he died a few days later.
Catherine had news for him, too. John Kelly had somehow managed to escape from Castle Thunder prison and had disappeared into parts unknown. But neither was worried, for they did not expect to ever see him again. There were too many other things to worry about.
The disastrous battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and the surrender of Vicksburg in Mississippi stunned the South, though Lee fought grimly on, in spite of a greatly reduced army and a devastating lack of food and supplies as the naval blockade grew impenetrable. The early part of 1864 saw General Grant promoted to commander of the Union armies. In his usual tenacious manner, he launched an attempt to take Richmond from the south, resulting in a siege at Petersburg that would last for ten months.
In May of that year, the beloved and heroic Jeb Stuart was killed while defending Richmond from a federal cavalry raid, sending yet another cloud of gloom and grief over the entire region. Catherine attended the funeral and hoped she would see Clayton there, but he must not have been able to get away. In Georgia, Union General Sherman commenced a ferocious campaign to capture Atlanta.
Catherine read the newspapers with growing alarm. Gossip spread from house to house and neighborhood to neighborhood—the armies were being mismanaged; President Davis was either dead or had lost his mind; Lee should replace him, even if it meant a dictatorship. The South was at last waking from a dream world to face a reality once too horrible to contemplate: defeat.
General Grant continued to sway backward and forward in his attempts to take Richmond, ever frustrated by the equally determined Lee. In June, a terrible battle was fought at Cold Harbor in which so many Federals were killed that the northern press condemned their own general as a butcher for instigating it. Though it was a clear victory for Lee, the fighting took its toll on his army.
September saw the fall of Atlanta to General Sherman, who marched victoriously to the coast and then, taking his time, swept upward through South Carolina, leaving in his wake burned and pillaged cities and fields, homeless women and children, crops set afire or churned into the ground by wagon wheels.
In Richmond, food and clothing had become scarce. Rumors of speculators hiding away supplies until prices went sky-high flew around the city. By the first part of 1865 beef sold for fifteen dollars a pound, bacon and butter cost twenty dollars a pound and a quart of strawberries cost ten dollars. The price of wood for fuel had gone up to one hundred and fifty dollars a cord.
Martin managed to keep a little food on the table, when it could be found; Catherine and Sallie continued to mend their old dresses and to line worn-out shoes with pieces of carpet and newspapers. (Miranda had, by then, gone back to Alabama.) Catherine insisted on paying for her own share of the food and fuel, and most of her inheritance was gone.
***
On Saturday, the first night of April, a knock came on the front door. Before Ephraim could reach it, the door opened and Clayton strode swiftly inside.
Catherine paused on her way upstairs, saw him, and with a glad cry ran back down the steps and into his arms. But he was hurried and tense; lines of weariness creased his dark-stubbled face, and because he wore no hat, Catherine noticed for the first time threads of silver in his black hair. He wore dark trousers and worn-looking boots. His gray officer’s coat was ragged and torn. Dust from the roads covered him from head to toe.
Martin and Sallie rushed out from the parlor. Clayton spoke quickly.
“I’ve just ridden from Petersburg and I’ve got to get back to my men. We’re pulling out. Richmond will be evacuated.”
“Pulling out?” Martin repeated blankly. “Why?”
Clayton met his eyes. “There are four Union generals with at least two hundred thousand men heading for us. We have, with all our armies combined, less than half that many, and most of them are sick and exhausted. Our provisions and communications have been cut off. General Lee wants to try to join up with Johnston’s army, and the only way he can do that is to abandon Richmond.”
“No,” Catherine whispered, but only Clayton heard her, glancing at her swiftly.
“All the tobacco and cotton and whatever army supplies are in the city will be destroyed to keep the Yankees from getting it. They’ll try to move it to a central location to avoid setting the whole city on fire, but there’s no telling what will happen. You should all leave by tomorrow morning.”
Sallie gasped and clung to Martin, too stunned to faint. Martin looked old and feeble. “Where shall we go?” he asked.
“You and Mrs. Henderson should go to her relatives in Tennessee. Catherine—” He turned to her, speaking to her as though they were alone. “I’ve been able to find out that my house is still standing. My grandmother lost her own house and she’s living there now. She has a little business going with the Yankees, so you won’t s
tarve.” He pulled a scrap of paper out of his pocket. “I’ve written down the address.”
Clayton turned again and his piercing dark eyes met those of the butler. “Ephraim, will you get my wife safely to Atlanta?”
Ephraim nodded. “I’ll do that or die trying, Mr. Clayton.”
Clayton reached out and touched his shoulder. “You’ll have a home with us for the rest of your life,” he said gratefully.
“But, Martin…leave this house? Leave all my beautiful things? I won’t do it!” Sallie cried suddenly.
Clayton’s attention shifted to her. “This house may burn, Mrs. Henderson. And if it doesn’t, almost certainly some Yankee officer will be sent to live here while they take control of the city.”
Sallie went paler, but said firmly, “I’d rather stay. I don’t want to go on some ridiculous long journey to people I don’t even like very much. How would we get food?”
“It’s your decision, ma’am…and Martin’s. But I advise you to leave. If you don’t want to go to Tennessee, you’re welcome to stay at my house in Atlanta. Richmond will be in complete chaos by this time tomorrow night. Looters will be on every street corner, and who knows what attitude the Yankees will take. This city has been a thorn in their side for a long time. Come here, Catherine.”
He pulled her aside. “Is there food in the house?”
She nodded.
“Take as much as you can in your baggage. One bag apiece for you and Ephraim will have to do. Take the Danville train. I don’t know how far it will make it and you may have to travel some on foot. I was only able to get two tickets and passes for you and Ephraim. If Martin and Sallie go with you they’ll need to convince someone at the War Department to give them a pass, though by then it may not be necessary.
“Here, take these.” Along with the passports and tickets, he pressed several gold pieces into her hand. When she stared at them in awe he said, “I took them off a captured Yankee.”
Clayton took her face in his hands. “I pray God you’ll make it through safely, Catherine. The end is almost here, but until the general makes it official, I can’t leave my men.”
“I know,” she whispered. “Don’t worry. If anyone can get us through, Ephraim can.”
“I’m counting on it.”
Heedless of the three pairs of watching eyes, he kissed her long and hard and went out again into the darkness.
By the next morning Catherine had stuffed everything she could into a stout valise. She took only as much food as she and Ephraim could subsist on for several days and left some of the gold pieces in its place.
She said good-bye to her uncle and Sallie, who had decided to take their chances with the Yankee army. They stood in the doorway and watched as she and Ephraim began their walk to the depot. (The army had confiscated Martin’s carriage and horses over a year before…and not long afterward Tad and Joseph had run away.) Jessie and Hester, who had chosen to stay with the Hendersons, waved tearfully from behind them.
People strolled to the churches as though they had no inkling of impending disaster. A soft haze hung over the city beneath the early glare of the sun; it was so still they could hear the gentle murmur of the river. Smoke billowed up from the front of some of the government offices.
“Probably burning official papers so the Yankees won’t get them,” Ephraim said.
“Shouldn’t we tell people?” Catherine asked. She would have wept had she not shed every tear her body would produce the night before.
“They wouldn’t believe us, Miss Catherine. The army will let them know when the time is right. Folks should be able to figure it out by now…if they had good sense. Looks like General Grant can hold out forever, and General Lee can’t. Not many men left, and even less food. Looks like this is the only thing General Lee can do.”
“Why don’t we just go ahead and surrender? We fought a good fight, but they beat us.”
“Well, I reckon that’s a hard thing to do, Miss Catherine. Thousands and thousands of men have died for the southern cause.”
“And more will die…and all for nothing.”
“No, ma’am,” Ephraim said thoughtfully. “They died for something they believed in. I’m not saying it’s slavery, but their land, or what they thought of as independence. Whether it was right or wrong I don’t pretend to know, but it takes courage to lay down your life for a cause. And they were good and smart fighters. You can be proud, Miss Catherine, of the army of the South.”
“Oh, Ephraim, why did God let this happen? Why did he let it go on so long if he meant the North to win?”
Ephraim sighed and looked up at the cloudless sky. “It’s been a hard lesson to learn, sure enough. I reckon God don’t like slavery, Miss Catherine. And the North has got their faults, too. There was good men on both sides, and both sides had right and wrong reasons for fighting. Somehow or other, it’s all going to fit in with a plan. God’s plan. But I think it was such a terrible war so folks would never forget it.”
They boarded the only train not reserved for government officials and with an ear-splitting whistle crossed the bridge over the James River. Ominous groans and a constant rattling sound signified mechanical problems, unnerving the passengers and leading to long delays—stop and start, refuel, discharge passengers, take on new ones,
many of them refugees from the Petersburg area.
That’s what I am, Catherine thought, a refugee, fleeing the enemy.
Finally they entered north Georgia. The grueling journey had taken more than twice as long as it should have. Catherine looked out the window at the total devastation—the fields and roads rutted and strewn with debris, houses burned with only the chimneys left standing. Sherman’s Sentinels, they were called. Torn-up railroads had only recently been repaired; the iron ties could still be seen wound around telegraph poles. The Yankees had heated and wrapped them in such a way that they could never be used again.
It would be easy to hate them, she thought bitterly.
The train finally chugged into the Atlanta depot, such as it was, for the station house had been destroyed. As she and Ephraim walked into the street, Catherine caught her breath at the sight of all the blue-coated figures. She had never seen Yankee soldiers before, except as prisoners of war.
She suppressed another gasp when she saw the ruined city. Everywhere she looked, buildings had been burned or half demolished by shells. Even the trees stood blackened and dead. People, as many women as men, scurried around with wheelbarrows, picking up bricks and wood and any useful object.
For all she knew, Richmond now looked as desolate.
Ephraim obtained directions to the address Clayton had given them from one of the Yankee soldiers, and they set out wearily. Catherine had a hole in her shoe but refrained from saying so. Ephraim’s shoes were probably full of holes. She set her teeth and resigned herself to the last leg of the journey—a journey that had really begun four years ago.
At last, footsore, dirty and exhausted, they reached the street on which Clayton lived. A shallow but wide creek had stopped the flames that had destroyed much of Atlanta, and the stone bridge over it was still standing. The road wound in graduating degrees up a steep hill. The fine houses, all similar in appearance, sat back a short distance from the street. Elms and poplars interspersed the green lawns.
“There it is,” Ephraim said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Catherine lifted her head to look. The house stood three stories high, painted ivory with dark green trim. A small barn painted to match the house stood to the side and slightly behind. Both were in need of repair, though nothing could diminish the elegant, tasteful lines of the house.
A short flight of steps led to the front porch, on which an elderly woman sat in a rocking chair. Her attention remained on something she held in her hands, possibly sewing or crocheting.
“Oh, my,” Catherine said, stopping abruptly. “Oh, Ephraim, I can’t meet her looking like this! Clayton’s grandmother! What will she think of me?�
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