She had heard tales of some people treating a few of the more pitched battles like entertainment. They packed picnic lunches and watched from the sidelines as men in blue and gray uniforms attacked each other with bullets, cannonballs, and bayonets. She had urged Abram and Percy to run the other way if they heard gunfire, but she doubted they would be able to resist the spectacle. She couldn’t blame them for being curious—the War Between the States was the most exciting thing that had happened around these parts in years—but she wanted them to be safe. That meant keeping them out of the line of fire, not sprawled on their bellies watching men try to kill each other.
She tossed table scraps in the feed trough in the hog pen and prayed that the gunshots she heard in the distance came from Abram’s rifle instead of a Yankee soldier’s.
After the hogs were fed, the rooster began to crow. Clara tossed handfuls of crushed corn on the ground and called, “Here, chick, chickie,” to coax the rest of the birds from the coop.
The chickens crowded around her feet and began to peck at the food she had scattered for them. While they ate, she gathered the eggs the hens had laid and secured them in the pockets of her dress. She looked down when she felt the barn cat who kept the rats from making a home in the hayloft rubbing against her legs.
Abram had named the now six-year-old cat Jack, short for jack-o’-lantern, because his coarse fur was as orange as a pumpkin. Mama had taken issue with his reasoning. In Ireland, where Halloween was invented, rutabagas and turnips were used to carve jack-o’-lanterns, she said, not pumpkins. But Abram hadn’t been able to come up with any good names out of those choices so Jack had stuck.
“Morning, Jack.”
Jack purred in response and trotted toward the barn as if showing Clara the way. Gertie, one of the family’s dairy cows, lowed when she saw them approach.
“I’m coming, girl.”
Clara could tell by looking that Gertie’s sizeable udder was full. She sat on a stool and began to ease the painful pressure. Fresh milk—enough to make at least two pounds of butter—streamed into the bucket at her feet. When Gertie lowed again, it sounded more like a sigh of relief.
Clara was taking the milk and eggs to the house when she heard the clip-clop of an approaching horse’s hooves. She didn’t need to turn around to know who her visitor was.
Most of the poor men in Shiloh and the neighboring counties had gone off to war, but the rich ones had stayed behind. Jedediah Ogletree included. He had become a member of the local defense troop to save face, but his primary duty appeared to be showering Clara with unwanted attention rather than patrolling the area to prevent a Yankee invasion. He showed up at the same time each morning, whether Clara wanted him to or not.
“Good morning, Clara,” he said, tipping his hat.
“Good morning, Jedediah,” she said without breaking stride.
“Whoa, now.” Jedediah jumped down off his chestnut stallion and circled in front of her. He used the reins to trap her on one side and placed his hand on his horse’s sizable haunches to trap her on the other. “Where are you off to in such a hurry?”
“Do you see anyone else around here who’s going to churn the butter, clean the house, cook the meals, or tend the fields? The men are gone.”
“I’m still here. If you need me to show you how much of a man I am, I will gladly oblige.” He reached to caress her cheek. She tried to pull away but couldn’t go far with his horse pressed against her back. “Still acting bashful, I see. Your apparent reluctance only heightens my anticipation for your eventual capitulation.”
Even though she didn’t know all the fancy words Jedediah had used, Clara understood enough of them to gather his meaning.
“I don’t love you, Jed. How many times do I have to say it before it sinks into that thick head of yours?”
She tried to push him away, but her efforts didn’t budge him in the slightest.
“I’m not asking you to love me. I’m asking for your hand in marriage. I can have one without the other. You do realize that, don’t you?”
“Why would I want to marry someone I don’t love?”
“Don’t be childish, Clara. You don’t need love in order to survive, but you do need a man at your side. I’m offering to stand beside yours. Use your head. There aren’t very many prospects around here and you’re looking at the best of the lot. No one else in Hardin County can give you what I can, and you know it. Stop pretending you don’t want what I can give you and say yes.”
Clara stood her ground. “I don’t want you, your money, or your land.”
“Then what do you want? Tell me. I’m listening.”
She leaped at the rare opportunity to speak her mind, though she suspected he was only humoring her rather than truly listening to what she had to say.
“I want someone who loves me with his whole heart and soul, not someone who simply wants a companion so he doesn’t have to go through life alone. I want someone who wants me for me, not for what he can get from marrying me. I want someone who treats me like an equal, not someone who acts like I’m less than he is. I want someone who wants me to be a helpmate, not a—”
He didn’t see her point or give her a chance to finish making it.
“If you need my help around here, Clara, all you have to do is ask.”
Clara could use the help—Abram and Percy should be going to school instead of foraging for food or trying to keep the farm going—but she would rather watch the crops rot on their vines than be beholden to Jedediah Ogletree for anything. He wasn’t the kind of man who did someone a favor without expecting something in return. And she wasn’t willing to sacrifice her dignity or her honor in order to pay him for services rendered.
“Work, work, work. It’s all you do.” Jedediah tightened the reins in his fist so she couldn’t pry them from his fingers and make her escape. “If you were my wife, you would never have to work another day in your life. You would have servants to tend to your every need, and your dresses would be made of the finest silk.”
She shrank under his gaze as he eyed the patches on her cotton frock. Shame, thick and hot, welled inside her. Though she and her family had never had much, they had never wanted for anything. She hated Jedediah’s suggestion that her life was somehow inadequate because she couldn’t afford to buy some fancy dress she had no use for.
“I don’t need servants,” she said defensively. “I can look after myself.”
“A pretty little thing like you shouldn’t have to work so hard. You should be sipping tea on the veranda while someone caters to your every whim.”
A life of leisure might appeal to some women. To Clara, it sounded like a fate worse than death. Tending to the crops and looking after the animals was hard work, but she felt a tremendous sense of satisfaction come harvest time when her family was able to reap what she had helped to sow.
“Are you sure you don’t want to reconsider my proposal?” Jedediah asked. “I could have any woman in the county. Maybe even the whole state. Yet I chose you.”
Jedediah drew himself up tall, obviously thinking his popularity with women was due to his good looks rather than his financial and social standing. Clara was willing to admit he was good-looking. He had thick, wavy brown hair, a well-groomed mustache, and a handsome face, but she wasn’t attracted to him. His words were warm, but something in his eyes left her cold. When he smiled at her, she didn’t feel on fire inside like her mother said she would when she met the man she was supposed to marry. That meant only one thing: Jedediah wasn’t the man for her, no matter how hard he tried to convince her otherwise.
“Why do you want me?” she asked. “Because I’m the prettiest girl you’ve ever seen in your whole life and you just can’t live without me, or because my family’s property stands between your daddy’s farm and the river? If you had direct access to it, you’d have plenty of fresh water to dampen your fields without having to worry about sitting around praying for rain during an especially long dry spell.”
Jedediah’s gaze drifted toward the Tennessee River and surrounding land. They were the true objects of his affection, not her.
“I want you because I don’t like to take no for an answer. And I’m willing to wait as long as I have to until I hear you say yes.”
His answer made her sound like a prize to be won rather than a woman to be won over. Clara looked him in the eye so he wouldn’t miss her meaning.
“In that case, you’re going to be waiting a long time.” She ducked under his arm before he could try to take what wasn’t his. “If you’ll excuse me, I don’t have time for idle chatter. I have work to do. Good day.”
“Don’t work too hard.” As he tipped his hat to her, the smile on his face bordered on cruel. “I’ll be seeing you.”
Jedediah’s words sounded more like a threat than a promise. Clara picked up her pace, hoping she wouldn’t end up becoming a casualty in a war she hadn’t signed up to fight.
Chapter Three
Wilhelmina felt tears roll down her cheeks as Rose Collins, the chambermaid who had become more of a trusted friend over the past few years than an employee, cut her hair with a pair of shears.
“It isn’t too late to change your mind, lass,” Rose said in her distinctive Scottish burr. She loosened her grip on what remained of Wilhelmina’s hair, but Wilhelmina felt a slight tug as Rose leaned back to get a better look at her. “I haven’t cut too much off yet. You could wear your hair pinned under until it grows back. It might take a few months, but no one would ever be the wiser.”
“No, I beseech you to keep going.” Wilhelmina dried her tears and turned in her chair so she could look Rose in the eye. “I assure you I’m not crying because I’m heartsick over my decision. I’m crying because I have never felt such peace.”
Rose put her lye-reddened hands on her ample hips and shook her head in amazement as she regarded the growing pile of hair on the floor. She had already shorn a good three inches and had at least six more to go before Wilhelmina’s appearance would sufficiently change to allow her to pass for a man.
“You’ve always been a strange one, you have,” Rose said, giving Wilhelmina’s chin a gentle tug. “No wonder ye and I get along so well.”
Wilhelmina smiled at the atypical show of affection. Rose didn’t normally resort to sentimentality. Her occasionally brusque manner had struck fear in the hearts of the rest of the maids and butlers when she joined the staff ten years ago. Her thick brogue could be impenetrable at times, especially when she was in a lather over a real or perceived slight, but she and Wilhelmina had always been fast friends. Wilhelmina felt an affinity for her she had never experienced with anyone else. Partly because she sensed in Rose a kindred spirit.
Rose had never come right out and said the words, obviously, but Wilhelmina suspected they had more in common than their shared love of a good game of chess. Once, when she had come home unexpectedly early from a party that had bored her to tears, she had discovered Rose crying in her room while holding the picture of a beautiful brunette she kept on the nightstand next to her bed. When asked, Rose had said the woman was a dear friend she had left behind when she sailed from Aberdeen to Philadelphia, but the wistful tone in her voice had hinted that the full story was being left unsaid.
“Where is she now?” Wilhelmina had asked.
Rose had blown her nose with a resounding honk that had sounded like a hoarse goose attempting to clear its throat. “Back in Aberdeen married to a whiskey-loving Highlander with three bairns tugging at the hem of her dress.”
Wilhelmina had thought of her unsettled feelings regarding Libby’s courtship with Stephen Andrews as she took Rose into her arms to try to offer a modicum of comfort. “I understand.”
“Yes, child,” Rose had said with a sad but knowing smile, “I think you do.”
Until she asked Libby to kiss her, that night with Rose was the closest Wilhelmina had ever come to revealing her secret. Knowing someone else shared her desires made her feel a little less alone. Now she was about to leave Rose behind. Would Rose understand her decision to join the Union Army as well as she understood what it was like to fall in love with another woman? Probably not, but she had pledged her support, and Wilhelmina needed as many people on her side as she could get.
“There now,” Rose said after she finished trimming Wilhelmina’s hair. She looked at Wilhelmina long and hard. “You make a right handsome fella if I say so myself.”
“You think so?” Wilhelmina regarded her visage in the mirror, surprised by the powerful resemblance she now bore to her brother. If she had the wispy moustache Marty had been trying to grow since he was sixteen, they could have passed for twins.
Rose brushed stray hairs off Wilhelmina’s shoulders. “I think you could give young Martin a run for his money if you set your mind to it,” she said with a hint of pride. “But perhaps you’re too pretty for your own good. You don’t want people to take one look at you and think you’re too weak to stand up for yourself. If you like, I could give you a scar to roughen up your looks a bit so the men you come across will think twice about trying to lure you into a fight. Right along here, say?” She ran the handle of the brush in her hand along Wilhelmina’s cheek. “One flick with a sharp knife and it will be over before you know it.”
Wilhelmina shook her head, not wanting to imagine the pain or the vast amounts of blood such a wound would leave behind. “A scar might make me too memorable. It is my aim to go unnoticed, not to be remembered.”
Rose began to pack a haversack with supplies: three pairs of socks, two pairs of underwear, a razor, and a bottle of cologne appropriated from Marty’s possessions, along with a pencil, several sheets of writing paper, and a small Bible. Wilhelmina had never been especially religious, but she suspected what little faith she had would be sorely tested over the coming months.
“I’m sure you’ll be wanting this, too.” Rose held up a sepia-colored tintype of Libby that Wilhelmina normally kept secured between the pages of her favorite book. Wilhelmina blushed as Rose slipped the tintype into the inside pocket of her suit jacket. “Keep it close to your heart so you’ll keep her safe.”
Wilhelmina tried to reply, but her throat was too constricted from emotion to allow her to speak.
Rose brushed her hands over the lapels of Marty’s suit, which she had taken the time to alter so that it better fit Wilhelmina’s slightly narrower shoulders and waist. “You keep yourself safe, too, you hear? If anything ever happened to you, I’d—” She turned away as tears filled her eyes.
“I’ll be fine,” Wilhelmina choked out as she held Rose’s quaking shoulders in her hands. “Thank you for all you’ve done for me.” She turned Rose around, forcing her to face her. “I have one more favor to ask of you.”
Rose blew her nose and put on a brave face. “What do you need me to do for ye?”
Wilhelmina pressed a letter into Rose’s hands. “Leave this for my father to find, but make sure he doesn’t discover it until long after I am gone. I need several hours’ lead in case he sends someone after me.”
Rose nodded solemnly. “I will.” She blew her nose again as she secured the letter in the pocket of her dress. Then she reached for a broom and began sweeping up the hair that had fallen on the floor. “Go while my back is turned,” she said. “I can’t bear to watch you leave.”
“Thank you, Rose. For everything.”
Wilhelmina kissed her on the cheek, then slipped out of the room, down the stairs, and out the front door. She took a carriage to the train station and used some of the money she had “borrowed” from her brother’s wallet to buy a ticket to Pittsburgh. She used even more of her meager savings to rent a room for the night. She counted what remained of her money after she locked the door behind her. She didn’t have enough to purchase a train ticket home. What would she do if the men at the enlistment office saw through her disguise?
“This ruse has to be successful,” she said, starting to question her decision. “I’ve gone too far to turn ba
ck now.”
She put the money back in its hiding place in her haversack and undressed for bed. Unable to sleep, she stared at the ceiling as the sounds of a lady of the evening enthusiastically entertaining a client leeched through the thin walls.
Not for the first time, Wilhelmina wondered what it was like to feel a woman’s touch on her bare skin. To hear a woman whisper her name as she neared the precipice and Wilhelmina took the journey with her. A lump formed in her throat as she realized she might never be able to experience all the things most people took for granted. The one thing she wanted to experience most: a woman’s love.
After her neighbors’ sounds of pleasure finally reached a crescendo, she closed her eyes and fell into a fitful sleep. She rose early the next day, bathed, dressed, and followed the signs plastered to walls and lampposts directing able-bodied men to places where they could enlist. After she reached her destination, she blew on her hands to warm them as she stood in line with the fifty-odd men waiting for a chance to shore up the ranks of the 77th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. Winters in the North were nearly unbearable. She hoped the temperatures down South would prove more palatable since she and the other members of her regiment would be living outside for the foreseeable future with nothing but canvas tents for shelter and the heat from small campfires, thin blankets, and their thick wool uniforms for warmth.
The 77th was organized the preceding October for a three-year enlistment. The men under Colonel Frederick Stumbaugh’s command left Pennsylvania for Louisville, Kentucky, on October 18, 1861, and were currently camped out in Munfordville, Kentucky, where the new recruits would join them after they filled out their enlistment papers and completed two weeks of training.
Wilhelmina heard the snickers as she drew closer to the table manned by two soldiers in charge of reviewing and stamping the men’s enlistment paperwork.
Divided Nation, United Hearts Page 3
