Читать книгу Up the Hill to Home - Jennifer Bort Yacovissi - Страница 15

Jubal’s March

1902

“Be careful, Lillie. Don’t fall. And don’t spoil your dress.” Mary watches from a few feet away as Lillie negotiates the decaying earthworks, scrambling up the steep slope using the toeholds that have been carved out by others before her. At the top, she laughs in triumph as she looks out from her high vantage point to the streets below. If it were Emma, there would have been no climbing at all, at least not in her school dress. Charley, on the other hand, would have been right behind her, watching in case she slips and egging her on to try the steepest part.

Mary has been waiting for Lillie at the school doorway. She often walks up to the Brightwood School as it lets out for the day so that the two of them can walk home hand-in-hand while Lillie tells her all the latest classroom drama. Today is so beautiful that Lillie has dropped Mary’s hand to run the circumference of the big grassy area behind the school, to consider the unnaturally uniform hillock jutting up to surround the grass semi-circle, and finally to clamber up onto the highest point. Mary stands on one of several crumbing stone platforms that are arranged at points along the earthworks and is looking over the hillock now, too.

“What’s that, Grandma?” Lillie asks, pointing to the platform.

Mary’s gesture includes all the platforms. “These are where the cannons used to be.”

“Cannons? Why?”

“Because this was a fort, Lillie. Fort Stevens.”

Lillie is confused. She and Charley make snow forts in the winter and tree forts in the summer. This is nothing like either of those. None of her forts have cannons. “It’s a fort?”

“Yes. There are forts all around the city. Soldiers used to be here during the war.”

“Oh.” She still doesn’t understand but is afraid that she is supposed to.

“Do you remember we told you that your Grampa was a surgeon in the war?”

“He was here?”

“No, not right here. The war was everywhere. But do you know who was right here? Almost right where you’re standing?”

“Who?”

“President Lincoln! He was right here during the attack on the city.”

“President Lincoln,” she echoes in wonderment. She knows about him: he was ten feet tall and the smartest and best man ever for saving the union. The meaning of that last part is still fuzzy to her, but she knows it’s somehow very important.

“He got his tall hat shot off because he kept standing up to see what was happening during the battle.” Mary stands on her tiptoes at the earthen wall and cranes her neck to scan the landscape, mimicking what the president might have been doing when the hat was attacked.

Lillie laughs at the pantomime, but still feels confused. “Who was shooting at him?”

“The Confederates. The Johnny Rebs.” It’s clear that Lillie has no concept of what she’s talking about. “Here, let me show you. Can you get down by yourself?”

Mary walks to an open spot of dirt near the end of the semi-circular hill, picking up a stick along the way. She rests herself against the earthworks while Lillie crouches down to see the map that Mary starts to draw. First, she pokes dots to outline a large circle. “See, there are forts that go all the way around the city. This is Stevens, but there’s Totten, Reno, Marcy, DeRussy. Many more.”

“Why?”

“Well, this city is the capital of the whole United States. When bad people want to hurt the country, they attack the capital. So it’s important that we defend the city against those people.” She draws a line straight down the center of the circle. “And this is the Seventh Street Road,” pointing from the line in the dirt to the road below, to indicate that they are one and the same. She continues to draw. “When your Mamma was just a little younger than you are now, Jubal Early’s army came marching down that road from the north, planning to claim Washington City for the Confederates. And our army, the Union, came marching up from south of the city to fend them off.”

Lillie’s eyes are big. “Did they come to our house?”

“Well, our house wasn’t even there yet. This was far out in the country back then, all farmland. That’s why they put the forts all the way out here, away from the city. But I’ll tell you,” Mary pokes a dot next to the road almost in the center of the circle, “your Mamma, your Aunt Mary, and I were living right here when all this was happening, and I can tell you we were mighty afraid that they were going to march right into our house.”

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Jubal Early, triumphant in his last several encounters, has marched his army down from Frederick, having swept up and around from West Virginia. Washington City, until only recently well-defended by an army of eighteen-thousand men and nine-thousand guns, is down to about four-thousand irregulars—so irregular, in fact, that some of their number is made up of invalids rousted from the local hospitals—to defend the thirty-seven miles of fortifications that circle the city. General Grant has pulled the real soldiers from Washington into the siege of Petersburg, where the Union has General Lee holed up and increasingly cut off from his supply lines. When the news comes of Early’s intention to march on Washington City, Grant dispatches seventeen-thousand troops to the capital, but Early gets there first. Some of his officers, who ride in advance of the Confederate force, find points along the breastworks that are entirely unmanned. Washington City suffers from a surfeit of generals and dearth of fighting men. In the very best tradition of the seat of U.S. power when confronted with a crisis, many important people independently declare themselves in charge, issue conflicting edicts, and remain comfortably above the ensuing chaos.

The city has lived in fear of a Confederate invasion since the disaster at First Manassas, and now, in the run-up to the fight for the city, her residents are infected by rumor, wild speculation, and general hysteria. Old Jube breathes hellfire, they say, and his vast army has burned Pennsylvania and Maryland to the smoky nub. Mary hears the breathless tales from the customers at her little dry goods counter at the back of the yard, the talk swirling around her. Soon he will have shot lightning bolts from his eyes and leveled armies by pointing his finger.

That’s not to say she’s sanguine; she comprehends the danger, especially given that their house is only one square back from the Seventh Street Pike. It’s obvious that the Pike is to be the main thoroughfare for Union movement, and for the Confederates, should they break through the northern line of defense. She has two children to protect and care for, and her weak-eyed, spindly boarder, Mr. Briggs, has fled to his parents’ farm on the Eastern Shore to avoid whatever is coming. He surely would be of no help in the crisis; his entire body twitches whenever he hears the talk. She is completely on her own. On this point, she finds herself angry rather than fearful. Where is Christian but hundreds of miles away and far from any fighting? Taking his ease, as he likes to say. He has left them to this, to fend for themselves as best they can.

To add to the misery, it is the hottest summer that any of them can remember, and in Washington City that is saying something. The oppressiveness of knowing the battle is coming is overmatched by the oppressiveness of the heat and the suffocating, wet-wool tent of inescapable humidity. Tempers flare amid the misery and speculation, but any threat of fistfights peters out in a lack of energy to engage. Decorum does not allow for any unpinning of high collars or sloughing of jackets for the decent folk, so the adults slowly boil inside their civilized clothing, waiting for the city to be overrun by southern savages. In the heat and anxiety, Mary closes her door to customers, unable to maintain her composure.

“Can you hear it?” Mrs. Slocum from next door asks Mary in the wrenching noon heat of July eleventh.

“Hear...?”

“The gunfire. It’s coming from their skirmishers. They’re harassing the picket line in front of Fort Stevens.” Mrs. Slocum’s husband is a veteran of the Mexican war, and the impending battle gives her an opportunity to display her knowledge of military tactics and terminology. She dabs her face and neck with a wet cloth while they both stand in the sliver of shade offered by their adjoining porches. Nighttime offers no relief; in fact, it often feels as though the thickened air wraps even more tightly in the dark, like a tangle of wet bedclothes that cannot be kicked off. No one has slept.

“But that’s miles away. I wouldn’t think...” Even as Mary starts to protest, she picks out the faint pops that come in bursts of five or six before trailing away. In her exhaustion, she feels tears pressing behind her eyes, and she retreats into the house before she humiliates herself.

She feels stupid from lack of sleep, disconnected and off balance. She has left the girls at the table in their damp underclothes; they both have heat rash, and, every so often, she stands them in the washtub and pats them down with cool water from the pump. To distract them, she has given Little Mary a chalk tablet to practice her letters, and Emma a square of muslin, a needle, and a length of embroidery floss for stitching. While Mary is out sweeping the porch, Emma has climbed down to lie on the cooler floorboards; she is asleep. Little Mary focuses closely on her tablet, rubbing off each set of letters with her rag before beginning another. Mary has coaxed her out of the habit of making a fist around the chalk, showing her how holding it in her fingers makes it easier to form the letters. While she watches, Little Mary wipes down the tablet and picks up the chalk to start the next set. There it stays, poised above the tablet, one second, two, three. Without thinking, Mary begins to count how long the seizure lasts. The heat seems to bring them on more frequently than usual, but it’s impossible to predict how long any of them will last. This time, after twelve seconds, the hand finishes its movement toward the tablet; Little Mary writes a capital H, sees her mother watching from over her shoulder, and holds it up to her proudly. Mary smiles and strokes her daughter’s head, but looks at the permanent red marks that show through the damp muslin against her back. She blinks again to push back pointless tears. At least without Christian here, Little Mary needn’t fear the lash. Now they just have to survive whatever is going to come storming down that road.

As though on cue, she hears a commotion outside and steps onto the porch to see. She is surprised that the wave of dust and noise billows up from the south, when the threat comes from the north. Every one of her neighbors is outside, along with many others she doesn’t know, and the undercurrent of urgent voices finally resolves into an understandable message, “Union.” These are Union soldiers marching up the Seventh Street Pike, heading up to the northern-most forts of the city to engage the rebels.

Mrs. Slocum’s war-veteran husband, Henry, rushes up their street from the Pike, faster than Mary might have imagined he could, given the heat and his age. Mrs. Slocum sees him coming and fetches a cup of cold water fresh from the pump. He gulps it down and hands it back for more before he’s able to provide an update. Henry and a number of his cronies have formed a loose communications network that stretches all the way from the lines at the fort, through town, and down to the river. They are better informed than virtually all of the Union commanders who are feverishly working at cross-purposes. “It’s the Sixth Corps! They came into the wharves by steamer, just now. These boys have been in it, Ida Mae; they are hard-fired, I promise you. Not office clerks and derelicts.” He turns and spits, then drains his second cup. “We got to fill some buckets and get water down to them. Elsewise, they still might buckle under this hell’s breath inferno, no matter how tough they are.”

Little Mary comes out behind her, and then Emma, rubbing sleep from her eyes and tucking herself under Mary’s arm despite the heat. For the moment, Mary is too distracted to shoo them back inside in their undressed state. Henry comes staggering out of the yard with two filled buckets, and Mrs. Slocum trails with a cast iron cook pot. It contains tomatoes she has harvested over the last two days, some overripe but still edible. She’s been planning to can them, and finds herself relieved that she will not have to labor for hours over the fire now. “Mrs. Miller, perhaps you could take these down to the boys. I don’t know that I can carry the pot all the way in this heat.”

Mary glances down at the girls and back up at Mrs. Slocum, who tells her, “I’ll keep an eye on them, don’t you worry.” Mary casts another glance at Little Mary, and Mrs. Slocum says quietly, “It’s fine, dear. I know about her...spells.”

“Go inside, girls. I’ll be right back. Mrs. Slocum is going to stay with you for a little bit.” She takes the pot, surprised that it is even heavier than she expects. She follows behind Henry, who again is moving with surprising speed back toward the column, even as he takes care not to slop too much water from the buckets. She is afraid she might lose him in the crowd, which grows thicker as they get closer to the soldiers marching up the Pike. Finally she falls in behind him and takes advantage of his ability to part the throng in front. When they break through, the dust is so thick that it is difficult to see and even harder to breathe. The afternoon sun is relentless, and the humidity squeezes everything in its hot, wet grip. There are the troops, moving by in an unbroken column, dressed in their battle-worn wool uniforms; it is a wonder to Mary that they do not simply collapse like a row of dominoes, one rank behind the other. Were she to understand what the Confederates have just been through—hundreds of miles of marching in just a few days, with back-to-back battles and now the march to Washington, all in the same unflagging heat and humidity—she might be thoroughly amazed, before hardening back up and saying, “Good riddance.”

She and Henry are not the only ones who have thought to bring refreshment to the troops. There are many people rushing along beside the column, handing in food and drink. With a practiced gait, Henry moves with the soldiers, offering the ladle, which is passed hand to hand and then back again for more. Mary struggles to catch up, gasping, her arms numb and, she can feel, vast growing welts where the pot has been swinging against her. Suddenly the pot is taken from her; she looks up into the face of a lanky, sad-eyed man who holds the cook pot while handing out tomatoes to his comrades, who bite eagerly into the fruit and suck in the juices, careful not to waste any on the ground. She cannot keep up with the soldiers, so Mrs. Slocum’s pot is handed through the ranks until it gets back to her. Even though the blond young man who gives it back has not gotten a tomato, he still touches his cap to her and says, “Thank you, ma’am. Very kindly of you.”

She stands back with the pot at her feet, staring blankly as the column passes. With the excitement over, she fears that she is going to crumple where she stands. Her face is burning, but she isn’t even sweating anymore, which Christian told her once is a bad sign. Even if she is capable of walking, she knows that she will never be able to lift that pot again.

Henry has fallen in beside her to watch the troops also. He looks over at her, picks up the cook pot in the same hand as the two empty buckets, takes her by the elbow, and guides her into the shade under a nearby tree. She sits down heavily, spots popping in her field of vision. There is a puddle of water left in the bottom of the buckets, brown with dust and already warm, but enough to wet Henry’s handkerchief and hold against her forehead. Henry stands in front of her to help block the glances of passersby and continues to scan the scene, giving her time to recover in private. She is not the only one overcome in the heat; many onlookers have retreated to the shade, and some have truly collapsed. “They’ll be engaging right soon now. Rebs would have been over the walls already if they’d been able to form up. No one there to stop them. Let’s hope the rest of the Sixth and the Nineteenth make it here by suppertime.” He pulls out his pocket watch to check the time and sighs. “We’ll know soon enough.” He looks down at Mary; the bright red splotches against unnaturally white pallor have evened out somewhat. Her eyes seem clear, and sweat beads have formed along her hairline. She nods up to him, and he takes her hand to help her up; she holds tight to his arm as they slowly walk home.

In Washington City, the afternoon and evening are an agony of waiting and listening. Sound does not travel well in the heavy air, making the boom of occasional cannon fire even more ominous; the echoing reports of musket fire continue to thicken. The shifting sound tells the tale of air movement that is imperceptible on human skin.

For the second night in a row, no one sleeps. The heat and humidity continues unabated, and Mary spends the night sitting up in the rocking chair. Though the sounds of gun and cannon fire slow in the twilight and finally stop in the full dark, they are replaced with what Mary now knows is the sound of troop movement. During the night, columns of men continue to march north up the Pike toward the front line. Henry has said that more troops would be arriving, and here they are. She finds the rhythmic sound comforting somehow, and she prays that these boys will be able to keep them all safe, and that they will be safe themselves. That young blond boy, so polite to her this morning: he deserves to have his turn to grow up into a man, to have a wife and a family.

She must have fallen asleep at some point, because she is startled into consciousness by the sound of cannon fire. Dawn is peeking in the window, and the air is the faintest bit cooler. It is perhaps nearing six o’clock. She dresses quickly and steps past the girls, sleeping on a pallet on the floor, cooler than their bed, out onto the porch. Henry is already outside, drinking coffee, with his foot propped up on the railing. She can tell from his boots, dampened with dew, that he’s been out already. They nod to each other, and Mary realizes that she hasn’t heard more cannon fire since being jolted awake. She waits for an update.

“It’s too bad for old Jube that he couldn’t form up yesterday. He’d have walked right in and had his feet up on the desk by now. But since the Sixth is here, I think he missed his chance.”

Mary feels her heart flutter. “Is it over, then?”

“Over? Naw. The Johnnies never give up easy. It’s just that it took ’til daylight for Early to see what he’s up against, but now that it is daylight, he can’t retreat.” Mary blinks at him, not following. “We’d go after him. He’d lose more men by running than by standing.” Henry scans the street, finishing his coffee. “No, it’s not over. It’s gonna be a long day.”

The Millers and the Slocums spend most of it together. It calms Mary to be with folks who seem better prepared to deal with this; she feels as though she and the girls are under their protection, this battle-hardened old couple who as late as yesterday morning were arm’s-length neighbors. Throughout the morning, she and Mrs. Slocum—Ida Mae—constantly listen for the sounds of artillery fire, and wonder aloud to each other whether the relative calm is a good or bad sign.

They are eager to hear from Henry when he makes it home for dinner, and wait in the shade of the back porch as he washes up and cools off at the pump. He is toweling off his face and hands before he finally speaks. “Say what you want about the Rebs, at least their generals are fighting men. Seems like ours are hoping to wait until everyone dies of old age and boredom. It makes a body wonder how we’ve held out this long.”

Over dinner at the Slocum’s kitchen table, Henry describes how some of the well-to-do have come out in their carriages to picnic and watch the excitement. “Guess they’ve all forgotten Bull Run,” he snorts in disgust as he bites into a slab of bread and butter. Mary has not. The first time the war is this close to Washington, back when everyone thinks it’s going to be a quick and easy victory for the Union, people do the same thing: consider the battle a form of entertainment, and go out to watch. In the bloody rout that ensues, picnickers are trampled, and the carriages of senators and bankers clog the river bridges so that there is no clear path of retreat for the hopelessly unprepared Union boys.

Henry leaves again right after dinner. Over the next several hours, the sound of gun and cannon fire pick up, but remain sporadic. It is perhaps four o’clock when he comes with the story about President Lincoln. Henry has been up near Fort Stevens himself, and says that the tall, gaunt figure in his signature hat and a long tan coat was unmistakable. “He was like a rube seeing the big city for the first time. He kept leaning over the wall gawking, and they kept yelling at him to get down. Bullets were flying everywhere, and here he was, just taking in the view. One of the men next to him was hit in the leg, and they still couldn’t get him to stay down. Whatever damn fool let him up there in the first place is a bigger idiot than the president.”

As afternoon wears closer into evening—to Mary, the day seems without end—the gunfire thickens. Suddenly, there is a resounding boom of multiple cannons being fired at once. Distant though it is, Mary thinks she can feel it through the floorboards. Little Mary shrieks and claps her hands to her ears; both girls begin to wail. The gunfire is now thick and continuous. Mary gathers the girls to her, trying to comfort them, but she looks wide-eyed over their heads at Ida Mae, who is pale but calm. “There’s the root cellar, if it comes to that,” she says. “I think we can all fit.” Mary feels her mouth drop open. “But I’m sure it won’t come to that.”

“I wish Henry were here,” Mary whispers.

“I know, dear. So do I.”

The fire is continuous now, underscored by frequent cannon salvos. As Mary sits in Ida Mae’s rocking chair with the girls huddled against her, she pieces together the rhythm and timing of the cannon bursts, which seem to be taking turns in strict order. The consistency of the sequence gives her something to hold on to; as long as the rhythm holds, the Union boys are still by themselves on top of the wall at Fort Stevens, holding the Rebs at bay.

The light is finally softening at the edge of the afternoon, though the heat hasn’t fallen off. Mary manages to settle the girls down and get them to eat some snap peas and cold boiled potatoes for supper, but she and Ida Mae have no thoughts of eating. They both startle at the sound of steps coming up the front and onto the porch—Henry would come in through the back. The voice comes along with the knock on the door, “Miz Slocum? It’s John Carter, Jack Carter’s boy.”

Ida Mae breathes out in relief as she goes to the door. “Jack is one of Henry’s old friends.” She leads the young man into the kitchen; he is grimy and has sweated through his shirt. The girls stare up at him from the last of their supper as Ida Mae sits him down and gives him water and his own plate, with some salt pork on top of the potatoes. He wolfs it down.

“Mr. Slocum asked me to look in on you on my way into the city. I’m bringing news to my daddy.”

Mary and Ida Mae exchange a look. Finally, Ida Mae is able to ask, “And what is the news?”

“The Johnnies are fighting hard, harder than we thought they could. But Mr. Slocum said to tell you he surely believes that General Early will still have to fall back once it’s full dark. He’ll head back out the way he came in.” In the long Washington summer, it won’t be completely dark until after eight o’clock; a glance outside shows the shadows haven’t yet melted into twilight. “Mr. Slocum says to say he’s staying up at the fort until he’s certain they’re turning back, then he’ll be home directly.” He stands up, even as he gulps down the last of his water. “I need to get these messages to my daddy. Thank you, ma’am.” There is a stillness after he leaves, and wordlessly the women sit, the girls between them, and watch as the light draws back up into the sky, leaving the land in muddy darkness even as the colors of the sunset linger above.

“The cannons.”

“Yes. They’ve stopped.”

“Mamma, what’s happening? Is it bad?” Little Mary’s voice has a quaver in it.

“I don’t think so, dearest. I hope not.”

They both strain to listen; the faint pop of gunfire is still there, but sporadically now. Soon, Mary can’t tell whether she can still hear something, or if that is simply the after-image of the sound echoing inside her. And then even that fades. They continue to sit and listen as the darkness draws in, until Emma begins to whimper; Mary lights one of the lamps.

Both women hear it together and jump up: boots on the back steps and then the creak of the porch floorboards. There is Henry standing in the kitchen doorway. For a moment, the three are frozen in place. “It’s over. They’re gone.”

Ida Mae takes two steps toward Henry and he closes the gap between them as she throws her arms around his neck, and he hugs her tightly to him. Mary sits down hard in a kitchen chair, and has to press her handkerchief tight against her eyes to hold back tears, her breath coming in uneven gasps. She feels like someone has caught her frayed end and she has unraveled in one pull. Henry puts a hand on her shoulder, including her in their shared release.

That night, with the girls pulled close against her in bed, she sleeps.