Anything But Civil (5 page)

The exercise had worked. I’d finally started to feel excited again about the upcoming festivities when the explosion had occurred.

“That was cannon fire,” a neighbor explained when Sir Arthur inquired.

“Well, bloody hell,” Sir Arthur said. We all strained to see movement in the dim gaslight that glowed over Grant Park. A crowd was gathering there too. “Finch, go get Harvey.”

“You wanted me, sir?” Harvey, the middle-aged groundskeeper and coachman, said. He stood only a few feet away. He was fully dressed but still rubbing his eyes. The cannon blast had aroused him from his room in the carriage house.

“Yes, Harvey. Bring the gig around. I want to see what all the commotion is about.” Harvey went back toward the carriage house. “Lieutenant? Care to join me? I’ll wait for you to dress.”

Triggs looked down at his wife and kissed her brow. “Sorry, Sir Arthur,” he said without his usual jovial tone, his wife still clutching his arm. “Too reminiscent of Vicksburg for my tastes.”

Sir Arthur turned to me. “Since you’re prepared as always, Hattie, fancy a midnight drive?”

Why not?
I thought.

Within minutes, Sir Arthur and I were rumbling over the Green Street Bridge toward Grant Park. Since coming to Galena a few weeks ago, I made a stop at Grant Park a regular part of my morning hikes. Spanning almost two blocks of Park Avenue, it was a place of meandering walkways and strategically located benches, all with a superb view of the river, the bluffs, and downtown, on the river’s eastern bank. It was flanked on one end by a monument honoring the Civil War soldiers from Galena and a bronze “Napoleon” cannon marked with a deep impression of some past battle, and by a statue of Ulysses S. Grant on the other. Between the two was a lovely fountain installed last year by the Ladies’ Auxiliary of a female figure, on bended knee, elevated on a pedestal. Four nude cherubs, sitting on rocks, held shells aloft from which, had the fountain been turned on, water would spray. Its pool was empty but for last autumn’s fallen leaves. I could only imagine how pleasant a spot it was in summer. Even stark and cold, the park was a peaceful place that I often had to myself. Not tonight. We’d been right about a crowd. Dozens of people had gathered in the northwest corner of the park, near the soldier’s monument. And they sounded angry.

“Stomp on the copperhead! Stomp on the copperhead!”

Sir Arthur and I pushed our way through the shouting crowd for a better view. Sir Arthur stopped short.

“Astonishing. Isn’t that . . . ?” Sir Arthur said, speechless.

“Santa Claus,” I said, finishing Sir Arthur’s thought. He looked at me perplexed.

“Santa Claus?”

“I’m sorry. I mean Henry Starrett,” I said. Sir Arthur looked at the man in the fur-trimmed overcoat and fur cap standing next to the cannon.

“I didn’t see it before, but you’re right, Hattie. Captain Starrett does bear an uncanny resemblance to Father Christmas. But what is he doing?” The captain had climbed onto the cannon, which had been turned around to face Park Avenue, and was now straddling it as if it were a horse. He waved his cap in the air as the crowd clapped and cheered him.

“Do you think that got his attention?” Henry yelled.

“Again!” several in the crowd cried.

“It didn’t hit his house!” someone else yelled.

“Enough of this,” Sir Arthur said as he pushed his way to the front of the crowd and confronted the man on the cannon. “What is the idea, Captain, disturbing the peace like this?”

“Disturbing the peace?” Captain Starrett said as he deftly leaped down from the cannon. “We’re just getting started!” He stooped over and retrieved a sack that had been lying on the ground. He waved his arm above his head. “To the copperheads!”

Captain Starrett purposely cut across the park and crossed the street. The crowd followed. As I walked among them, I recognized many of the men who had been at the G.A.R. meeting earlier this evening. They held shovels or horse whips or carried sacks or pails filled with I knew not what. I was surprised to see that I was not the only woman, but the proximity of others of my sex did not make me feel more secure. Two separate women, bent upon staying with the mob, had heedlessly trampled a brown derby hat that lay abandoned on the ground. I stayed as close to Sir Arthur as was appropriate.

We didn’t walk far. The crowd stopped suddenly in front of a small, two-story redbrick house, with green shutters and a white, pillared portico, a block from the park. Henry Starrett reached into his bag and retrieved a large, rancid cabbage.

“Now!” shouted Captain Starrett, smashing the wilted, slimy cabbage into the front door. The cabbage slid down the length of the door, leaving an oily, putrid-smelling streak. Already at the edge of the throng, I instinctively took several steps back.

With that order, men and women shouted, laughed, and gloated as they bashed windows, trampled hedges, and volleyed eggs, rotten vegetables, and animal feces at the house. Even a man with one arm missing below the elbow lobbed tomatoes at the house, creating what looked like splatters of blood. It was horrible to watch and the stench was almost unbearable.

“My God!” Sir Arthur cursed from behind the handkerchief he held to his nose. “This is barbaric.”

Mere minutes had passed when, with the damage done, Captain Starrett held up his hand and bellowed, “Come out and face us, Jamison, you traitor, you coward!”

Jamison? Was Captain Starrett going to attack the man again? Hadn’t he suffered enough?

The mob miraculously fell silent and all eyes stared at the front door. Would he come out? The door slowly opened and a man took a firm step onto his porch. A rocking chair beside him was still swaying from the impact of a brick. With gaslight from the street and a few lanterns that swayed in the midst of the crowd, it was difficult to see the man’s face clearly. Then he raised a lantern above his head, casting light on both himself and his immediate foe. I gasped. The man’s face was swollen. One eye was circled by black and purplish bruises and his nose looked slightly off center. With the evidence of Captain Starrett’s savage beating written on the man’s face, I knew Enoch Jamison at once.

“What do you want?” Enoch Jamison said. He suddenly dodged his head to the side as a rotten potato missed him by inches. “Don’t have anything better to do than attack the home of a feeble, old woman? Cowards!” he yelled.

“Traitor!” someone shouted in reply.

“Go home,” Jamison said. “Go home and frighten your own wives and mothers with your savagery.” The man whom they had called a coward then turned his back on his attackers. “And Merry Christmas!” he shouted over his shoulder before slamming the door behind him.

“Astonishing,” Sir Arthur said as the crowd slowly dispersed. Some shaking their heads, others mumbling. Most seemed ashamed of what they’d done. Not Captain Starrett. He shook hands with anyone who would take his hand and congratulated them on a job well done.

“We showed him,” I heard Captain Starrett say over and over. What was he trying to prove? He had attacked the man physically and now had succeeded in terrorizing him in his mother’s home. But why? Because of a political stance Enoch Jamison had held over a quarter of a century ago? I didn’t think I would ever understand.

As the crowd dispersed, Sir Arthur approached Captain Starrett, who now stood alone in Enoch Jamison’s front yard.

“Why?” Sir Arthur asked, wondering as I had.

“Why what?” Captain Starrett said.

“Why would you do such a thing?”

“I can’t abide copperheads.” Captain Starrett shrugged. “Plus,” Captain Starrett said, slapping Sir Arthur on the back, sending my employer forward a few inches. “It sure beats the usual evening’s entertainment,” he said, laughing as he gathered up his belongings and headed toward General Starrett’s home a few blocks away. He whistled a strain of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” as he went.

Sir Arthur stood still, his face flush with anger, watching until Captain Starrett was out of sight. I’d never seen anyone treat Sir Arthur with disrespect. And with the exception of his wife, Lady Philippa, I’d never even seen anyone touch Sir Arthur. Captain Starrett had done both in one day. I didn’t know how Sir Arthur would respond, but I knew better than to say anything.

“The impudence! The . . .” Sir Arthur was speechless with fury.

He stormed toward the horse and gig he had left tied up at the edge of the park, with me struggling to keep up. We rode back across the river and up the hill to Prospect Street in silence. Harvey was asleep on the step when we arrived. I envied his repose. I knew I wasn’t going to get any sleep tonight. Sir Arthur, after nudging Harvey awake with his foot, handed him the horse’s reins. A deep imprint of the porch banister Harvey had been leaning on marked his cheek. He rubbed it absentmindedly. As I stepped down from the gig, Sir Arthur turned on me with a pointed finger inches from my face. Startled, I took a step back, hitting my elbow against the rim of the wheel.

“I don’t care if he served as Grant’s aide-de-camp,” Sir Arthur said, turning then and stomping toward the door. “That man will not be mentioned in my book!”

T
he next morning, I took an early walk before Mass down the entire length of Main Street. My boots clicked on the dry boardwalk and, like a pioneer, I made a new discovery with every bend in the road. This downtown thoroughfare, just wide enough for two carriages to pass, was level but, unlike the straight main streets of most Middle West towns, snaked around for almost a mile, parallel to the original path of the river. With the sun not yet above the three- and four-story buildings that lined the road like a continuous wall of red brick, I was walking through a tunnel punctuated with colorful wooden awnings. At each crosswalk, I’d emerge where I could see the river or the bluffs above. But gazing at natural wonders would have to come later, I was here to peek at the shops: Henning’s bakery, Geo. Young’s books & stationery, Grumme’s confections, the Fair Store, the St. Louis Department Store, Barry Bros. Dry Goods, Siniger & Siniger’s Drugs, LeBron and Son, Jewelers, Killian’s fine groceries, Kuhn’s Meat Market, and my favorite, Mrs. Edwards’ Millinery. Fortunately for me with my extra Christmas duties, Main Street still reflected the wealth and prosperity of the town’s heyday of productive lead mines and steamboat traffic. I’d be able to find anything I needed.

The thought popped into my head as I stood in the same spot I had occupied the night before. After my walk down Main Street, I’d crossed the footbridge and strolled through Grant Park. The park was vacant, of people and of evidence that anything extraordinary had occurred. Another dusting of snow had fallen in the early morning hours, enough to cover any traces of last night’s mob. I brushed away the snow from a bench and sat down, setting my plant press on my lap to keep it dry. In the few weeks I’d been in Galena, I had only found two new specimens for my plant collection, red-osier dogwood, with its bright red branches, and blue ash twigs with winter buds. I’d gotten spoiled in Eureka Springs, where I had collected something new almost every day. But it was too cold here to find almost anything that wasn’t dead, brown, and shriveled up. So I had given up bringing my plant press along on my hikes. But today I’d brought it along as a case of false optimism. For despite the exciting day I had planned ahead of me, a melancholy had taken hold of me during the night. I’d barely slept. I looked out across the river valley to the town of redbrick buildings on the bluffs built from where the water’s edge used to be. Without the slightest breeze, smoke from chimneys and smokestacks rose unwavering straight up into the sky.

What’s wrong with me?
I wondered.

Images of Captain Henry Starrett came to mind, his mocking of Sir Arthur, his brutal attack on Mr. Jamison in the street and then on the man’s house, all in the name of a “night’s entertainment.” Men had been injured and insulted and yet all I could think of was that Santa Claus wasn’t who we thought he was. The Santa Claus of my childhood had given me the book I’ll treasure forever. With her inscription inside it, he had given me back my mother, for an instant. He was the Santa Claus who with every glimpse of him on a card or in a newspaper or in a church hall filled me with the hope of recapturing the magic, peace, and love of that Christmastime almost twenty years ago. I’d been excited about planning the Christmas festivities, but seeing a version of Santa Claus be so cruel had put a damper on my exuberance and had made me wonder if I’d ever enjoy Christmas again.

How absurd,
I thought, having felt sorry for myself when Mr. Jamison was the one who deserved my pity. Captain Starrett wasn’t Santa Claus. So why should he ruin my Christmas?

I felt immensely better. I stood, shook the snow off the hem of my dress, straightened my hat, and headed back across the bridge toward Sir Arthur’s house to change for Mass at St. Michael’s.

 

“You’re going back to the general’s house, Hattie.” Sir Arthur waved a simple gold-bordered white card in one hand and his cigar in the other. “Starrett sent word that he’s ready to talk again, now. So you’ll have to go without me.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, trying to hide my disappointment.

I’d planned to attend the G.A.R.-sponsored home tour. I’d raced back from St. Michael’s, changed into a less formal day dress, and fetched a pencil and tablet of paper from my room before meeting Sir Arthur and Lieutenant Triggs in the foyer. I’d been especially looking forward to seeing the late Dr. Kittoe’s greenhouse.

“Take down everything Starrett feels up to talking about,” Sir Arthur said. “You know the topics I’d like him to cover, including the Custer question. I look forward to reading the material tonight.”

“Starrett?” Lieutenant Triggs asked, surprised.

“Not to worry old chap, I’m not talking about the brute but his father, General Cornelius Starrett of the Army of the Cumberland, Fourth Corps. I’m interviewing him for my book. You saw him at the G.A.R. meeting, I believe.”

“Well, I’ll be. So that was him? My brother served with the general at Missionary Ridge, though he was Major Starrett then. Had nothing but praise for the great soldier. Amazing he’s the sire of . . .” Morgan Triggs didn’t finish his thought. He didn’t have to. “I didn’t know the general was living here.”

“Well, come along after the tour then if you’d like. Bring Mrs. Triggs too if she’s up to it. I’ve been invited for tea.” Only Sir Arthur would invite two additional guests to someone else’s tea. Sir Arthur looked at his watch.

“Right!” he said. “It’s time to go.”

The tour, arranged by the G.A.R. weeks ago for Sir Arthur during his visit to Galena, began and ended with U. S. Grant’s homes, with several of Galena’s other famous men in between, including the former homes of General John Rawlins on Hill Street, Dr. Edward Kittoe’s on S. High Street, the statesman Elihu Washburne’s former home on Third Street, an impressive Greek Revival house that had appeared in
Harper’s New Monthly Magazine,
and General William Rowley’s on Park. At each home, the Union Army veterans’ group had arranged someone to show the tour group around and answer any questions Sir Arthur might have.

While he was still a clerk in his father’s leather-goods store in 1860, Grant and his family lived at 121 S. High Street, a modest brick house, only a block from Sir Arthur’s rented home. After his triumphal return in 1865, the people of Galena presented Grant with a beautiful Italianate brick house high on the hill overlooking Galena from the east side of the river. Although Grant had died seven years ago, the home was still owned by his children, who on this occasion allowed the caretaker to show the G.A.R. members and Sir Arthur around the house. So the tour was to begin with Grant’s more humble beginnings on one side of the river and finish in the grand home on the other side.

I followed Sir Arthur and Lieutenant Triggs out the door as Sir Arthur questioned the lieutenant about his brother’s experience with General Starrett. The two men carried on a lively conversation as they waited, while I unobtrusively took notes. The only exception was when Sir Arthur asked Lieutenant Triggs if he knew anything about Captain Starrett, the general’s son.

Lieutenant Triggs spit on the ground.

“That’s what I think too,” Sir Arthur said, laughing at his friend’s reaction as two Rockaway carriages arrived with Lieutenant Colonel Holbrook, his hair as tousled as last night, as if he hadn’t combed it in days, and two other men I remembered seeing at the G.A.R. meeting but was never introduced to. Lieutenant Triggs smiled and waved to me as they pulled away. I tentatively waved back, before heading down the Washington Street stairs.

The lieutenant’s reaction puzzled me. Why would Morgan Triggs spit at the mentioning of Captain Starrett’s name? I didn’t think Triggs even knew the man.

After crossing the river at the Green Street Bridge and traversing the park, I approached the scene of last night’s pandemonium, the home of Enoch Jamison, the so-called “copperhead,” on my way to General Starrett’s home. Hoping to go unnoticed, I stood behind a delivery cart, piled high with crates labeled:
Martin Dairy,
stopped in the road across the street. Except for the trampled, muddy lawn and two rhododendron bushes that looked as if someone had bedded down for the night in them, the home showed little evidence that anything had occurred to disturb its peace last night. The walls and windows, last night streaked with egg and rotten vegetables and other filth, had already been cleaned. The broken window was boarded up and the glass cleared away. As the milkman returned carrying two empty milk bottles, Enoch Jamison’s door opened. But instead of Mr. Jamison, the man who stepped out was young, only a few years older than me, bespectacled, short, and pudgy. I wouldn’t have given him a second glance except that the man wore a black suit that had gone out of fashion ten years ago. It was so faded it appeared perpetually covered in dust. And on his head was a dented foot-tall black stovepipe hat. In an unladylike manner, I stood staring, even after the milk cart pulled away and the man walked down the street in the opposite direction. I hadn’t seen a stovepipe hat like that in years.

 

“Come in,” someone said. “Ah, here she is,” the general said when I opened the door. “Sir Arthur said you’d be on time.”

The old general was seated in a rocking chair near the fire. He indicated a chair across from him. “Ready?” he said enthusiastically, smiling and rubbing his hands together. He lit his pipe as I retrieved my notebook from my bag, flipped to the last entry, and sat poised to take down his every word.

“As I was saying when my son interrupted us yesterday, reveille was at 0500 hours. Grant was already up and complaining of a headache. The general had received a message from Lee the night before requesting a meeting at 1000 hours the next day, but at 1150 that morning we were only about four miles west of Walker’s Church. . . .”

It was as if he were recounting the events of the day before. Every detail, every thought, every emotion from that day almost thirty years ago had been stamped on his memory like a photograph. Twice I had to scramble to catch up with the dictation, having been mesmerized by the general’s story.

“. . . Lee, with his man Marshall, and Babcock had arrived first and were waiting for the general in the home of Wilmer McLean. Funny one that McLean. Claimed that the war began in his front yard and ended in his front parlor!” The general burst into a fit of laughter that turned into coughing. He waved me away when I rose to help. “Doggone it! I hate getting old. Now where was I?”

He stared up at the ceiling for a moment. I followed his gaze to the wallpaper border of brown deer leaping through a swirl of olive and blue–colored leaves, flowers, and birds. A cobweb stretched across the corner above the general’s head.

“Oh, yes, I remember,” he said. “We arrived in Appomattox Court House around 1300 hours. Grant had us wait outside on the front lawn while he went in to meet Lee. I whittled two sticks to straws I was so anxious waiting until he summoned us. Hats in hand, we entered quietly and arranged ourselves on either side of the large parlor room. I’ll never forget what a contrast those two made. Grant, short, in his rough traveling suit, without a sword, and with barely any insignia, was sitting in the middle of the room, at a small oval table. Lee, a tall, commanding man, was wearing a new uniform and bejeweled long sword and sat beside a marble-topped table in the corner facing him. The silence was heavy, as if we entered a dying patient’s sick chamber. But then Grant said, ‘I met you once before, General Lee, while we were serving in—’ ”

A knock on the door interrupted the general mid-sentence.

“Oh, what is it now?” the general said peevishly. Adella Reynard opened the door.

“Oh, Papa, must you smoke that thing?” she said, waving her hand about to dispel the smoke from the air.

“What do you want, Adella? I’m about to dictate my story to Sir Arthur’s secretary,” the general said.

“I know that, Papa,” Adella said, kissing her grandfather’s almost bald head. “I wanted to give her something.” She handed me an envelope with gold foil trim. “Give this to Sir Arthur, won’t you?”

“Yes, of course,” I said.

“What is it?” General Starrett asked.

“It’s an invitation for tomorrow night.”

“Oh,” General Starrett said, raising his pipe to his lips.

“Now don’t let him talk too long, Miss Davish. He tires easily,” Adella said as she plucked a book from the shelf,
A Woman’s Trip to Alaska,
and then made for the door. She waved her hand in the air again. “And do put that pipe away, Papa.” As the door closed behind the young woman the general shook his head, then smiled.

“Means well, that one,” he said. He lifted his pipe slightly away from his lips.

“Do you really not mind the smoke, dear girl?” he asked.

“Actually, the smell of a pipe is sweet and pleasant. My father smoked a pipe.” I knew better than to completely contradict Sir Arthur and mention my abhorrence for cigars.

“Sir Arthur’s right. You are a treasure,” the general said, and then took a long puff. “Now where was I?”