Jacob's Ladder (39 page)

“Ain't me,” Opal said. “Franky made it.”

Preacher Todd rested his plate on the coffin lid. “Auntie Opal, you ordered this casket for Uther Botkin's mortal remains. . . .”

Opal blocked everybody's view while she unlocked the chifforobe. “I believe you said three dollars.”

Samuel Gatewood put out his hand for the purse. “That is Sallie's money now,” he said. “I shall keep it safe for her.”

“I been keeping it safe!” Opal blurted.

“Of course you have. You've done your duty for old Uther and now you must do your duty for his daughter.”

Opal's face slackened, but she didn't resist as Samuel took the purse. “Three dollars, sir?” Samuel said.

“Gold?” the preacher inquired.

“Oh dear, I'm sure not. Opal, what was your agreement?”

“Scrip,” the woman said sullenly.

The preacher satisfied himself with a second bowl of brown beans.

Samuel asked Pompey and Franky to dress Uther in his old frock coat and best mended shirt. He and Aunt Opal stepped outside.

“I'm gonna miss that old fool. I'm gonna miss him so.” Aunt Opal's eyes overflowed.

“I'm sure he is in a happier place.”

Opal wiped her eyes with a rag and blew her nose into it. “Ain't gonna be the same without him. That man knew some things. People listen to him and we wouldn't be in all this trouble.”

“Perhaps so. Auntie, after the burying, you'll come live at Stratford. You are getting on in years and will want someone to care for you.”

“I got some good years yet. Ain't no better stockman in the county!” Quickly she added, “I lived here twenty years. Wasn't Master Botkin takin' care of me—you know that—was me takin' care of him!”

“Once this war is over, Auntie, and Sallie returns to her home, I'm sure she'll want you. This past year Mr. Botkin was too ill to pay your rental, and I expect he failed to provide the agreed-upon shoes. Did he buy you shoes?”

“I don't need no shoes. I goes barefoot most of the time.”

“You shall have shoes. Uther was a fine man, but I believe he may have been even less worldly than our good Preacher Todd.”

The kitchen garden glistened in the sun, heat waves shimmered above the barn roof.

“What about this?” Auntie Opal cried. “Who's gonna milk the cow? You think somebody else gonna come in here and take care of things like I do?”

“We'll fallow the Botkin plantation. The Millboro telegraph reports a great battle is being fought outside the town of Gettysburg, in Pennsylvania. Early reports say General Lee is everywhere successful and has forty thousand Federal prisoners. If Lee destroys the Federal army, they must sue for peace. Auntie, perhaps your Sallie will come home soon—and Catesby and my poor dear Duncan. They might all be home for the harvest. . . .”

Opal shook her head slowly. She said, “Ain't ever gonna be the way it was.”

LETTER FROM LIEUTENANT CATESBY
BYRD TO HIS WIFE, LEONA,

I
N
C
AMP
NEAR
C
ULPEPPER
, V
IRGINIA
J
ULY
25, 1863

DEAREST LEONA,

I write you in great excitement with great news! I have renounced my previous sinful ways and publicly confessed my desire to be a Christian! I cannot tell you how happy I am! I have never been a man of sanguine temperament, have oft seen the worse rather than the better, but I can today rejoice honestly and openly in the love of Christ my Savior!

I have long been contemptuous of those plain souls who found solace in their Christian beliefs. Although I gave credit to Stonewall for his military abilities, I never honored the depth of his devotion to God. Now, too late, I would sit with Stonewall Jackson at one of his prayer meetings and take comfort from his stalwart faith! If only that Christian warrior were with us today!

The army thinks that Stonewall's absence cost us the victory at Gettysburg, and I am one who believes it true. Darling Wife, we did all mortal men can do. From Pickett's division after their charge only one field officer returned to our lines; Garnett's brigade of thirteen hundred lost nine hundred and fifty; a North Carolina company which began the fight with a hundred men now numbers eight. We have done what mortal men can! My own regiment expended itself on an assault on Culp's Hill with a loss of fifty-six brave men. Our Major Cobb was wounded, and my fellow cardplaying sinner Sergeant Fisher is missing.

Our army started home through rain and clinging mud and a civilian populace which found courage to fall upon our weakened wounded stragglers. When we reached the Potomac, the river was in full flood, the only bridge destroyed, and every small boat for miles was busy ferrying our wounded. The army itself had no means to cross back into Virginia. While we awaited the arrival of the Federal host, black despair was my bosom companion.

But thanks to God, the enemy did not come! Day after day the river dropped, our engineers cobbled together a rude bridge, and while Longstreet's men crossed that, our division attempted the ford. We taller men stood chest-deep in the deepest stretch of that swirling muddy river passing our comrades from hand to hand.

When the sun came out to illuminate the far shore, our blessed garden of Virginia, I saw the Israelites fleeing Pharaoh's hordes. A frightened soldier gripped my hands until I passed him on—to a stranger of unknown rank and unknown regiment who passed him to safety.

That, Dearest Wife, was the moment God called to me.

Even before our battle at Gettysburg, many from my company had been attending prayer meetings (held almost nightly) and the services which three mornings a week have replaced routine drill in this army.

At one of these meetings, Private Henry Perkins was touched by grace and came to witness his new faith to me, though at the time I was a skeptic still. Private Perkins confessed his newfound surety of Christian salvation. “Sir,” he said, “I cannot speak of the satisfaction this has given me and how my parents will delight that I have given up cards and strong drink.” The boy's face shone with fervor.

Not two weeks later, below Culp's Hill, a Federal cannon ball struck him, clean removing the top of his skull, and his brain flopped, two perfect lobes, into the dirt of the road. At the time, I was horrified, appalled at the harm hot steel wreaks on mortal flesh. But today, sharing the private's Christian certainty, I believe that shot freed Private Perkins from every grief and peril in this world, and that Henry Perkins departed for heaven straightaway. I tell you, Dearest, I have seen these things.

Preachers are everywhere among us. Our regimental chaplain, Captain Nelson, invites evangelists to speak at our meetings. Nightly we have fresh testimonies of one simple story: Christ, our Savior's love for us!

As I strive to become a Christian, I have renounced cards, and I cannot understand what I ever saw in them. How contemptible we sinners are!

Although we ate well on our march through Pennsylvania (the war has hardly touched that country), here in our old camps along the Rapidan, rations are hard biscuit, a bit of beef, and the sassafras roots we dig to avoid the scurvy. Forage is so lacking for the horses most have been removed to the Valley to graze. General Lee is issuing no furloughs, and we may soon be back in the thick of it.

I cannot tell you what joy it is to gather in the evening around the campfire with other professing Christians. Leathery veterans and downy-faced boys alike entreat their Savior on one another's behalf. We pray for our leaders, for those in the regiment who have not seen the light of Christ's truth, and for the safety of our new nation. Sometimes senior officers come, standing humbly on the outside of the circle, and twice General Lee himself attended. Quietly, a Christian among Christians, the general stood, head bowed and uncovered, listening to his men's souls.

Surely God will cherish and protect His people. Surely the many ardent prayers for our brave new nation will find His Favor.

I pray daily for you and our dear, dear children. I pray things at Stratford are not too difficult and entreat you, Dearest Wife, to redouble Thomas's Christian instruction. Temptations are strongest in young men. What if calamity should strike while a boy is strayed? I shudder to think what might have befallen me had I had been slain, still wallowing in sin, a frequenter of gambling hells and drinker of wines and hard liquor. Eternity in damnation in exchange for brief years of earthly mischief! Never in heaven to embrace my beloved parents, never to see our Baby Willie thriving in the Lord's care, never to greet you, Dearest, when you cross over the River Jordan into Paradise!

As Samuel must have told you, Duncan's health continues precarious. We must trust the Lord to watch over him.

This letter to you, my Darling, is the most joyous I have ever written. I am a new man and will strive with all my heart to be a Good Christian. I trust Providence for all my needs.

Your Loving Husband,

Catesby

LOVE IN THE REBEL CAPITAL

THE GIRL SAT
in the corner of Marguerite Omohundru's sunroom at farthest remove from her hostess. Her tea was untouched on the silver tray. She hadn't taken off her jacket.

Outdoors, red and golden leaves had been raked into hummocks; excepting the green-gray splash of rhododendron, the garden was bare. The sky had lifted—the way it always did in Richmond that time of year—and the air was so clear it snapped.

The old woman was wrapped in a fur robe, and her withered head poked out of the robe like an opossum pretending to be a bear.

The girl said, “I don't know why you tell me these things. They're not true. Everybody knows they aren't true. Daddy says if I want to know what it was like I should read Thomas Nelson Page. I should take his books out of the library.”

“I never met the gentleman.” The old woman brushed at a wisp of hair. “Was he in the army?”

“My supervisor says I have to get on with my work,” the girl said. “If it hadn't been for Uncle Harry, I'd have lost my job.”

“A summer job?”

“Well, that's how it started. Phil, he . . .”

“Started seeing someone else?”

“Some Culpepper girl he met at Monticello. Phil works for the foundation. He's a dollar-a-year man.”

The old woman smiled. “Your supervisor has instructed you to interview other former servants?”

“He says . . . Daddy says . . .”

The old woman picked the lemon from her teacup and sucked on it. “Did I ever tell you why General Jackson sucked on lemons? He thought it improved his vitality. Lemons didn't save his arm. It was North Carolina boys who shot him, you know.”

“. . . that you're no negro! They say you've been associating with negroes at your bank for so long you've come to think you're one yourself. They say Mr. Omohundru met you in Nassua, in the Bahamas, and married you. Everybody knows it.”

“Who else are you interviewing, child?”

“Nobody. I get so sick of hearing the same story over and over. If one more old fool tells me about Cox's snow, I swear I'm going to scream!”

“It happened, you know.”

“I know it happened. But why must I know about it?”

“What do you do when you're not working?”

“Sometimes I go to the matinee.”

“If you came here more often instead of wasting time at the movies you would be finished sooner.”

The girl lifted her teacup and sipped.

“Do you go out in society?”

The girl pulled a face. “Everybody thinks I have a ridiculous job! And when I talk about you nobody believes me!”

“After General Pickett made his fatal charge, gloom settled on Richmond, a gloom the ladies tacitly agreed to alleviate. Defying the continuous processions to Hollywood Cemetery and the mourning bands on so many sleeves, theatricals and charades and levees continued, and though there were times when some new-widowed belle broke into unconsolable sobs, Confederate officers toasted feminine charms as before the war, with all the gaiety they could muster.

“Society today is dominated by grandes dames. During the War, society was the creature of young unmarried girls. It was their parties everyone hoped to be invited to, their soirées that were attended by gallant Confederate officers.

“Richmond society had been a society of families where invitations were rarely needed because everybody knew who was welcome. But as Mattie Ould said, ‘War is a great rearranger of aristocracies,' and men tramped through Richmond's parlors who never would have been admitted before the war. There was the Prussian, Von Borke, with his dreadful neck wound. General Mahone—a tavernkeeper's son. Molly Semple—who had previously been regarded as wellborn but too free a spirit—Molly was inducted into the ‘Old Guard.'

“Molly Semple was likelier to attend a levee than Mrs. Kirkpatrick (her kin by marriage, Richmond believed), but when the flood of casualties dwindled, Sallie Kirkpatrick would accompany her kinswoman into society.

“Before the war, ladies prided themselves on their exquisite needlework and some notioned a lady's quality could be determined from her stitches, but fancy work had become unpatriotic. At society levees, ladies stripped lint from family underclothing for Confederate bandages. Instead of embroidery, ladies manufactured socks, woolen vests, and suspenders. Older ladies brought down spinning wheels from their attics, and as during our revolution against the English, the steady thump and whir of spinning wheels provided harmony to music produced by ensembles of house servants. Mrs. Ould's Henry was an excellent fiddler and in demand for his knowledge of French court tunes, although it was suspected that of the sheet music he so fussily arranged on his music stand Henry read not one note.

“At one time, Sallie Kirkpatrick's mouse-brown dress might have occasioned comment, but in a capital where many had sold spare clothing for food or converted the cloth into uniforms, her unvarying dress was unexceptionable. Family carriages had been requisitioned by the army, and many a dashing thoroughbred was pulling artillery limbers for General Lee.

“It was believed Sallie had come from a plantation beyond the Blue Ridge. It was known she had lost her husband at Fredericksburg, though nobody knew his regiment or rank. But many a proud scion of the Confederacy died an anonymous private, and if Mrs. Kirkpatrick preferred to keep her grief to herself so be it.

“At one gathering, several ladies inquired about the patients in Sallie's care. ‘They bear the most frightful injuries with courage,' Sallie said. ‘Even the youngest face death with resignation and calm.'

“ ‘My dear—are they in good spirits? Do they ever jest?'

“As her reply, Sallie described the young Baptist chaplain who preached to her ward one Sunday. ‘I do not believe he had been long with the army, and confronting so much pain discomfited him. When his invention flagged, he embarked on themes too familiar to my patients. He was dead set against drinking and cardplaying and awfully distressed by dancing. At this last, a Georgia corporal burst into laughter, and soon the entire ward was rocking with mirth.

“ ‘ “Sir,” the chaplain cried, “are you not tempted to sin?”

“ ‘ “No sir. I reckon I ain't,” the corporal said. He flipped aside his bedclothes to reveal that both legs had been removed at the knee. That is the sort of jest our boys enjoy.'

“At subsequent soirées, the ladies made grateful noises about Mrs. Kirkpatrick's dedication, but never again troubled her for specifics.”

R
ICHMOND
, V
IRGINIA
N
OVEMBER
15, 1863

Sallie Botkin carried a handful of wet bandages to the wringer and Molly turned the crank. Usually Camp Winder made do with lint wound dressings, but Chancellorsville had provided a wealth of Federal linen bandages.

Earlier that day, General Lee himself had called on Cousin Molly at her home. “We had such an agreeable chat,” Molly said as Sallie fed the wringer. “The general's a fifth cousin, connected through my mother's side. He was so grateful for the care we give his men. Robert Lee has the most delicate manners.”

Sallie wiped her forehead on her sleeve. “Had the general troubled to call on me, I should have told him that we would not need to care for his men if he cared for them better!”

“Then perhaps, child, it is well you and the general did not make one another's acquaintance.” Cousin Molly paused. “My dear, I wish you to look in on your childhood friend Duncan Gatewood.”

“I cannot imagine Captain Gatewood wishes to renew our acquaintance any more than I do.”

“He had recovered from his amputation and was anticipating a furlough home, but has contracted a fever, and Sallie, I fear for his life. Your familiar face would be a comfort.”

Sallie hesitated. “I have been a convict,” she said.

“Child,” Cousin Molly said, “Duncan is dear Abigail's son.”

Duncan's forehead and arms were splashed with furious red stripes, and when Sallie lifted his blanket, his chest was the palest blue-white she'd ever seen. The left side of his face, the stretched burn scar which connected jawbone to hairline, pulsed sullen red. He'd sweated through his blanket and the blanket laid under him. When he opened his eyes, they swam around the ward. “Sallie? Where are we, Sallie? Am I translated?”

Sallie touched his lips. She would not weep. She would not!

All those childhood days in Uther Botkin's sunny school: Leona, Duncan, Jesse . . . her father's intelligent, questioning voice . . . No! To recall these things would make her helpless, and Sallie would not be helpless.

In his fever, Duncan thrashed; he would not lie still. Fearing he might batter his stump or do some injury to himself, Sallie had him tied to the bed with linen strips. She bathed his body with cool water.

He muttered. He sat bolt upright in bed to shout, “Christ, the skin on her! Under her titties was the softest place on God's earth.” Her patient's delirium prompted Sallie to have his bed moved into her own room, where Duncan would not distress his fellows.

Duncan raved coarsely about Midge and called her Witchy. At other times he murmured tendernesses—that Midge had given herself to him as naturally as a flower opens from the bud. Why was Midge cold? Why was poor Midge shivering? “Young Master Jacob Gatewood! Young Master!” Duncan snorted and flailed his head so furiously Sallie clamped him between her palms. All of one night, Duncan raved scripture, one verse, repeated over and over: “It would be better for him if he should have a millstone hanged about his neck and he were cast into the sea than he should cause one of these little ones to stumble.” His forehead was slick with sweat. At last, almost rationally, Duncan said, “Sold south, my own son. Oh, what will they think of that?” He never said who “they” were, whether angels at the Last Judgment or men upon this earth.

The crisis came in the hour before dawn. Duncan sat upright, fever stripes writhing like snakes. “Will I perish?” he asked.

“The surgeon has hope.”

“What is that you're knitting?”

“A sock.”

He croaked, “Where will you find the horse that requires one?”

She laid her ungainly project across her lap. She smiled.

“Am I so amusing?”

“You have been ill.”

“My soul has been sick since I lay down with Midge. Do you think she poisoned me?”

Sallie brought water to his lips. Throat spasming, he swallowed; most dribbled down his chest. “More likely I poisoned her. She was sold to another master to be used as he saw fit. I prayed she would be sold as a field worker, not a house servant, because I know her perils too well. Duncan Gatewood, obedient son! Too obedient to defend my own son, my own . . . Midge. I was a coward—a damned coward.”

Sallie wrung out a cloth and wiped bristling sweat from his forehead. She touched his burn. “Few would censure you for what you have done.”

“Would you censure me? You who went to prison because of principle?”

Sadness darkened Sallie's features. “Censure cannot thrive in death's presence. After enough men die, censure is confounded. I hardly recall the penitentiary. I scarcely remember Snowy Mountain or Aunt Opal or Uther or Jesse, who was more my friend than servant. How I pray Jesse has found his way to freedom, that he is not one of the anonymous corpses this war is laying up.” She turned to the table. “You've a letter from your father. Shall I read it to you?”

Duncan shook his head. “He sees my lost arm as opportunity—wishes me to return to Stratford.” He sank back into his pillows. “Am I so very ugly now?”

“No,” she said.

His eyelids slid over his eyes. “Thank you, dear Sallie,” he whispered.

Duncan slept for sixteen hours straight, and when he woke, his forehead was cool to the touch. If he ever recalled their conversation that fever-broken night, he never mentioned it. Sallie had Duncan moved back onto the ward. Even while Duncan was in death's antechamber, other matrons had complained to Cousin Molly about the impropriety of an unmarried man and widowed woman sharing the same room.

At this time, the only wounded soldier in the ward was a cavalry sergeant from Mississippi. Consumptives and pneumonias occupied the other beds.

Sallie and Duncan resumed the easy intimacy they had enjoyed as children at Uther Botkin's knee. When Duncan finally opened his father's letter, it contained Catesby's letter, forwarded without comment. Duncan smiled. “If ever a man was born to sing in the hallelujah chorus, Catesby is that man.” Judiciously he added, “I hope Catesby isn't too sanctified around Samuel. Samuel won't stand for it.”