The Lincoln Penny

by Barbara Best

  “They said, make yourself ready, ma’am.”

  Ready! What in the hell does that mean? Make yourself ready? “Ready for what?” Now Jane knows exactly how a deer feels when caught in the beam of oncoming headlights. She’s frozen to the spot not knowing which way to turn.

  Keep it simple, Jane. You knew this was coming. So, put your hoop and under-sleeves on and straighten your dress and collar. Jane goes through the motions of washing her face and smoothing her hair as best she can. She uses the shiny back of the tin plate to help her see what she’s doing. She runs her finger over her teeth a few times and swishes her mouth out with some of the salt water left over. She’s hungry this morning, but that will have to wait. Whatever it is, she’ll have to face it. She has no choice.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  A Union soldier makes his presence known and tips his hat politely. The blue uniform is familiar and so much like the reenactors’ clothing down to the smallest detail. It makes Jane think of her group of newfound friends so far away and how hard they worked to create an impression like this. The blue should be comforting, but it’s not.

  “Yes?” Jane stands composed, trying to keep her voice steady. She needs to face this head on. Thank goodness for the bulky clothing she wears that cover her knees that are literally knocking.

  “Good morning, Miss.”

  He sounds nice enough.

  “Brigadier General Gillmore has asked to see you directly. You are to come with me.” He glances over at Jimmy and orders more abruptly, “You too, private.”

  A general now! This is getting more incredible by the minute. Jane squares her shoulders, looks around the Colonel’s Quarters one last time and up into the soldier’s brown eyes, brown like Bryce’s. Well, she might as well get on with it. At least now she can finally see what’s on the other side of these four walls.

  Brown Eyes makes an open hand gesture, “Miss . . .?”

  “Peterson,” Jane finishes.

  “Right this way, Miss Peterson.”

  Jane lifts her cotton skirt badly in need of a good washing. The soldier takes her right elbow ever so lightly to guide her properly out of the room and into the first bit of daylight. The beginning of a mild April day in 1862.

  As Jane moves through the doorway onto the veranda, she is confused by what she sees. It’s not even close to what she remembers. Why was it in her head that she would see a resemblance to the well-maintained parade ground? This is like stepping onto another planet, like landing on the moon. There are large mounds and deep craters of sand, mud and stacked timber. The beautiful brick walls of the fort are down in so many places with fallen debris everywhere, defenses that didn’t hold. Soldiers, men white and black, are unified and strain together in an organized effort to right the destruction and create some sense of order. A trace of sulphur from gunpowder and the raw sour smell of sweat and urine hang in the air. A thin gray haze of lingering dust, smoke from scattered campfires, and early morning dew hug the pitted ground. Depressing and horrible.

  “Unbelievable!” Jane is struck by the magnitude of it all. Oh, she’s seen images or caught glimpses of scenes like this in movies, documentaries and photographs, but standing in the middle of it now is another story entirely. A shock of goose bumps run up her forearms at the thought of how dangerous and bad this really is. Really bad! She feels a slight pressure on her arm again.

  “Are you all right, Miss?”

  “Oh.” Jane hadn’t realized she is standing motionless, stopped dead in her tracks. “Yes, I guess.”

  Just a few more steps and Jane’s escort directs her past two armed men into a room that is much like the one she had spent the past couple of days. She had explored some of the fort when she first arrived with Sophie and Ben, but hadn’t had a chance to see it all. The men in her group had their barracks around this area and she had seen a bronze plaque on the wall farther down. The plaque identified the location of the fort’s north powder magazine, its vulnerability at the heart of their downfall.

  Jane is happy and relieved to see grave Colonel Olmstead seated at the right of a large square table in the center of the room with a blue guard against the wall, directly behind him. Regretful for adding to his already heavy burden, she has a fleeting thought. This is not where the surrender took place. From what she remembers, the surrender was executed in headquarters, the Colonel’s Quarters. The place where she has been confined these many hours. She has changed history, and everyone is totally oblivious to it. Even stranger, it appears they are handling her abrupt existence, this crack in time, surprisingly well. Sure, there are questions and suspicions, yet all within the scope of logic, the present and the now. They are totally ignorant of the fact she is an ill-fitted piece, a square peg for a round hole. An outsider. An alien from another planet.

  In front of Jane is an important man by his bearing alone. He is smartly dressed in a Union blue double-breasted frock coat with two rows of four highly polished buttons and a dark blue velvet collar and cuffs. A single gold star, the mark of a Brigadier General, rests on each shoulder strap of his imposing gold epaulettes. He is seated before numerous documents with pen in hand, looking all that, and then some. Probably writing terms of surrender or his report to Sherman the siege is a great success and Fort Pulaski is theirs. A couple more men in blue, dressed to the nines and Jane thinks officers too, are posed like museum manikins at the fireplace.

  The two gentlemen, who are seated, both rise immediately upon Jane’s arrival.

  Gillmore’s movements are quick and his eyes reveal a frosty intelligence. He is a good six feet tall. His brown bearded face is quite broad and his forehead large and high, which either signify a great mind or perhaps a thinning hairline much like the colonel’s. Jane deduces the latter. By his expression, he is certainly in exceptionally good spirits. The victor, having squelched any doubts Sherman might have had about the usefulness of his rifled guns. They had done much more than shake the walls.

  “Miss Peterson,” the General bows in place. “I am Brigadier General Quincy Gillmore. Won’t you please be seated?” Jane is offered a chair as the General returns to his behind the table and across from her.

  “Colonel Olmstead shared with me your great misfortune in visiting Fort Pulaski at a most inopportune time. He says you are the cousin of one of his men.” The General nods toward Colonel Olmstead to continue.

  Olmstead clears his throat and peers deep into Jane’s eyes, revealing the severity of their situation and willing her to be careful. He smiles pleasantly, taking his time and not releasing her from his penetrating stare, “Yes, of course, my adjutant. Miss Peterson is in the care of her Aunt Anna, Adjutant Hopkins’ mother, who resides in Savannah and is most assuredly desperate for news of her niece’s whereabouts.”

  General Gillmore rests his elbows on the table steepling his hands, palms in and fingers touching, in a gesture of confidence and self-assurance. “Part of our, uh . . . arrangement . . . is to see you home, my dear. We have prepared transportation for your safe passage to Savannah. Your young private here will travel with you.”

  One of the guards at the door nudges Jimmy, none too gently forward and Gillmore continues, “Private, you are free to go. I strongly recommend you get yourself to home. The Federal government is not of a mind to hold children as prisoners of war.” Gillmore pushes up from behind the table, “Sorry, son.”

  Jane detects a note of compassion in the general’s voice. He doesn’t seem like such a bad guy. Maybe those taken prisoner will be treated decently. Jane thinks of stories about Andersonville. The ghostly images of diseased and emaciated bodies suffering deplorable conditions that no human, or citizen of the United States, should ever suffer at the hands of his brothers. The mention of prisoners stirs a memory. Again, something from the video she’d watched. It said the federals did not keep their word. A promise from Gillmore to send the sick and wounded to Savannah isn’t kept.

  Disregarding her non-verbal warning to remain docile, she impuls
ively spills over, “What about the injured? How can you be so sure they won’t be left at Fort Pulaski to suffer? They need special care they can’t get here.” Before Jane finishes she already gets the subliminal message it’s not her place to say anything. She feels the colonel’s eyes boring into the side of her head and glances in his direction. He’s definitely not happy with her.

  Olmstead leans forward in his chair, “General, if you please sir. You must pardon Miss Peterson for her outburst. During the siege she tended two of my men, who sustained injuries. One of which is her cousin. You can understand her concern.”

  “I see,” Gillmore’s faint scowl brightens with understanding. “My dear, you mustn’t worry your pretty little head over such matters. Be assured appropriate provisions have been made for the wounded. And your cousin.” He smiles and turns away in a dismissive manner.

  He acts like he means well, but to Jane the tone of his voice sounds condescending as hell. She feels lame in making a point and deflated by the response she received. In her few minutes before General Gillmore, there is no further opportunity to broach the subject.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  A mule hitched to a small battered wagon that looks as if it could fall apart at any moment. You’ve got to be kidding! Jane is disappointed with their so-called arrangements for safe passage. She was thinking maybe a boat. A train would be nice. If they even have one that travels anywhere near this remote island.

  Strong arms help Jane into her seat on hard wooden slats. Not an easy feat in her outfit. The wagon unexpectedly jerks forward. Jane twists to keep her balance, which makes her hoop flip up, exposing her legs, petticoats and drawers to the curious onlookers. Most of the men rapidly avert their eyes in great discomfort.

  “That was graceful!” Jane annoyingly slaps her skirt down and finally gets situated. “What I wouldn’t give for a pair of jeans right now,” she grumbles under her breath.

  The wagon wobbles back and forth as Jimmy tightens up the reins. He is more than eager to be off and out of this dreadful place. Being sent home is the best thing that has happened to him in a good while. Since Georgia took up its fight against the north in ‘61 nothing has been the same. He misses his Ma something terrible and imagines she will be glad to see him.

  Jimmy and his older brother, Prescott, had enlisted against the wishes of their poor grief-stricken mother after the terrible news their Pa, who had joined up with the 1st Regiment Georgia Cavalry, was killed at Manassas in July 1861. Prescott enlisted with the 1st Georgia Regulars. Jimmy, after discovering the need to lie about his age, was able to wangle his way into the 1st Regiment of Georgia Volunteers. This regiment would serve at Fort Pulaski.

  One of the Union soldiers hands Jimmy an extra canteen and throws a small sack of something into the back of the wagon. A Union soldier on horseback is waiting nearby to make sure they get to their destination.

  Jane is troubled about leaving without a chance to say thank you. She had only managed to give the colonel a quick nod when she left the room where he and a brigadier general had set her course. She wanted to say something more, but the situation was strictly business, all part of an agreement, a deal between commanding officers.

  For the Confederate colonel, now a prisoner of war, it means a promise kept to guarantee her safety. For the Union general, it means a misplaced female and distraction to dispose of as expeditiously as possible. To Jane it means a blatant and inexcusable infringement of history. Surely there is a price to pay for altering the nature of things, for changing the fixed pages of time.

  She was marched down the veranda, through the arched tunnel-like passageway, under the portcullis and across the drawbridge over the moat. The same moat circling a fortification she told Sophie made her think of a medieval castle.

  The wrecked medieval castle and the Colonel’s Quarters with Jimmy are looking pretty good to Jane right now. As crazy as it might seem, it lends some sense of security because it’s all she’s known for the past few days of her new life here. Faced with the unknown, Jane’s heart races with intense anxiety.

  Jane’s mind rails, you have no business being here! No business being stuck in a world with old outdated points of view and old beliefs. What will her so-called “cousin’s” family think when a complete stranger shows up at their door? In Jane’s future world of suspicion and fear, most people wouldn’t even open their door to a stranger much less let them in. If the family doesn’t take her in, where will she go? How is she supposed to take care of herself? She has nothing! How in the world is she going to survive?

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  With an armed Federal soldier riding alongside, Jane and Jimmy are afraid to exchange words, even a glance. Their position is more precarious as they leave the confines of a controlled environment behind and head into the wild that presents a whole new set of dangers. If anything should happen, there are no witnesses, no one to hear their cries for help.

  The mule drawn wagon creeks and wobbles on an uneven trail barely etched in the landscape across Cockspur Island. Heavy brush scrapes against red painted wheels and the sides of one sorry excuse for a ride. Low hanging tree limbs slow their progress.

  “I’d watch those branches, Miss. You wouldn’t want a snake to drop in your lap,” the Yankee snickers, apparently enjoying the woman’s reaction to riding through a spider web. Its transparent sticky threads latching onto her face and hair.

  Jane gives the man the evil eye and, with restraint, holds her tongue. Any other time she would have laughed at her surprising display of karate moves and the next exclamation . . . SPIDER, is it on me? But nothing is the least bit funny about this situation. She holds still, erect and refocuses on what’s straight ahead.

  Not far into their journey the strong brackish smell of salt and sediment, slick with dead and decaying organisms from the marsh, permeates Jane’s senses. She can almost taste the dank smell on her tongue. Jane remembers how she had enjoyed the scenic drive on the raised highway last Friday with the sun low in a clear April sky and casting a golden light on the vast pristine wetlands. It was exciting and beautiful, like a picture right out of National Geographic. She had pulled off on the shoulder of the road to take a picture with her phone for her Facebook page.

  Planks of wood form a makeshift bridge that spans a creek. Was this the creek that she crossed at the entrance to Fort Pulaski State Park? In her time, there had been a guardhouse and bridge to cross. An employee of the park service had welcomed her and given her a brochure.

  Their escort slows his horse to a halt and says plainly, “You’re on your own from here. Lieutenant said to give you this here paper in case you run up on any of our boys out there.” He leans over toward Jimmy, crossing his arms over the pommel of his saddle, “I’d be careful son, they may shoot you on sight, seein’ that gray you’re wearing.”

  “Seriously? You are just going to leave us here!” Jane is outraged. She can’t decide what’s worse, riding with the enemy or being left alone in a snake and alligator infested swamp out in the middle of nowhere.

  “You heard right, Miss.” With a twisted smile and couple of clicks, he swings around, digs his heels and spurs his horse to a gallop away from the hapless Jane and Jimmy.

  “Great! Just great!” Jane watches in total disbelief as the man rides out of sight. “Now what do we do?”

  “Don’t fret, ma’am. I’ll do my best to get you home. I know most of the ways. We’ll be extra careful. Don’t you worry none,” Jimmy is a little curious himself why the Yank would leave them now. Something stinks about it, but who’s going to know out here. Actually, Jimmy is glad to be rid of the snake. Wouldn’t surprise him none if the ole rascal wasn’t headed for the nearest shade tree for a nice long nap before heading back.

  Jane has had about enough of this mess and crosses her arms to hold herself in check. “How old are you, Jimmy?” she tries more gently.

  “Fourteen, just turned, ma’am.” Jimmy says proudly.

  Just what she thoug
ht! Jane can only hope this man-child has more experience than the thirteen and fourteen year old kids she knows in her time. She’s tired, she’s dirty, she’s hungry and her temper has just about gotten the best of her. She wipes away two burning tears with the sleeve of her dress. A pinch, and then another pinch pulls her away from her fuming.

  “Ouch! What the . . .?” Mosquitoes? No. She swats at another attack on the side of her neck. Another on her back, it seems right through fabric. She finally is able to focus in on a tiny almost invisible insect. A kind of gnat that is delivering a painful bite.

  “No-see-ums. We best keep moving, ma’am.” Jimmy looks like he’s swatting at air with his cap. “I don’t know if this bridge here will hold us. We will need to walk over it. Let me help you down.”

  Jimmy helps Jane over the floating wooden bridge, supported by a line of small bobbing boats, and then, carefully walks the mule and wagon over.

  “How long is it to Savannah? Rephrase that. Can we even make it to Savannah this way.” Jane wonders if Jimmy really knows or is just putting on a brave front. She thought she had heard that the saltwater marsh is treacherous and impossible to cross. Worse still, is the tide that washes ocean currents to and fro. If the tide comes in while they are out there, they will surely drown.

  “Depends. We’ve had a mighty long dry spell and that hurricane we had back in ‘59 changed things back in here. It’s a heap better to go by boat, but if we stay to high ground and along the shore, reckon we’ll make it before sundown. That is if we don’t run into any Yanks.”

  Jane is thinking they are pretty much screwed, but there’s no sense trying to second-guess. Jane wants to ask Jimmy more questions, but she decides not to. She’s scared to even put it into words. What good would it do anyway? If she has to swim, she’ll just have to. If she has to face the enemy, well, she’ll do that too. And gators and snakes be-damned!