Beauty From Ashes (70 page)

Selina had evidently managed to lie down and rest for a while, and for that, Anne was glad. In the cheerful atmosphere of her white-light house, even with rain pelting down outside, she knew the Western and Atlantic Railroad was running more trains than ever, bringing the sick and the wounded in droves to the little town. She marveled at the

courage and endurance of Southern women 951 who filled churches and warehouses, working as nurses as did her own Fanny in Atlanta. She had even heard that the Rebel Army had taken over some private residences emptied of their owners who had fled the danger.

Against Anne’s wishes but for Selina’s sake, Pete had kept up her daily walks to the post office, insisting that surely one day there would be a letter from George from—somewhere. It took Anne a full week to get Pete to admit that despite her strong Unionist sympathies, she, too, had begun stopping off at churches and warehouses to lend a helping hand with bandages and refreshments for wounded, lonely, homesick Rebel soldiers.

“How can I not do it, Mama?” Pete asked. “They’re human beings too, and I pray every minute I’m with any of them that someone bothered to help John Couper when he needed it most. That someone was at least kind to him. I know my blessed Fraser Demere died instantly, and while I clean up blood in the hospitals here, I give thanks that he did. Can you believe that groaning, wounded boys are lying in stacks on

counters in the stores in the Square, which have been turned into hospitals?”

Throughout the preceding month of May, Anne had been unable not to follow the frightening reports in the Macon Intelligencer of General Sherman’s advance toward Marietta. No one doubted that he was leading his forces to Atlanta. Marietta lay directly in his path, and fear gripped the city as citizens read, along with Anne, the almost daily notices of Sherman’s whereabouts: From Ringgold Gap, Tunnel Hill, to Catoosa Springs, Varnell’s Station to Resaca and Dalton, Calhoun, Adairsville, Pine Log, Kingston, and Cassville. Then, by June 5, New Hope Church, Pickett’s Mills, and Dallas.

Finally, there was the glaring news that Federal troops were in Acworth, Cobb County, less than twenty miles away! The streets swarmed with more people leaving Marietta by whatever means possible. Anne, unable to bring herself to desert her beloved house, was quick to believe what several people had assured Pete: through her marriage to John, Anne and her entire family were British subjects. They would therefore be safe if

Northern troops took over the city, 953 despite their deep-South origins, if they hung out a British flag. To buy what small amounts of food were in the stores, Anne and her daughters had been forced to sell some of their own clothing. Among the clothes they found pieces of cloth the colors of the British flag. Anne stitched them together by hand to form a flag they prayed was large enough for the invaders to see—thereby hoping to save their home.

Anne worked so fast with needle and bits of thread that the day Big Boy hung the flag from her upstairs balcony, her needle was still in it.

One big relief for Anne was Louisa Fletcher’s moving, temporarily at least, back to town to give comfort and help to her distraught daughter, Georgia, who, Louisa vowed with every brief visit to Anne, looked old and careworn from worry over her husband, Henry Greene Cole, imprisoned in Atlanta now as a Yankee spy. “Georgia has truly shown herself to be a devoted wife,” Louisa told Anne again and again. “The girl has never known real trouble, and the weight of this sudden catastrophe could make her ill. Of course,

I mean to stay with her as long as she needs me. It is almost impossible for her to believe that because Henry had always felt free to express his Unionist sympathies in Marietta, with the Rebels in charge now, he has been declared a criminal! I have come to like and respect the man and believe him to be guilty of nothing more than talking too much, but no one in charge cares a fig for what I think, Anne.”

“Louisa, I’m sure you’re right, but it’s neither poor Mr. Cole nor which side is in charge. The whole problem is with war itself!” Her eyes still filled at every thought of her own deep, personal losses of John Couper and Fraser Demere, and she begged Louisa’s forgiveness when so much tragedy still hung over Louisa’s life. “I suppose nothing looks familiar out in the county, does it?” Anne asked, hoping to move their cherished talk to a subject less painfully personal.

“Everything is different,” Louisa said. “Always there is that ghastly roar of the big guns, but almost worse, Rebel General Joseph Johnston is so determined to entrench us against the Federals, our poor countryside looks as though it’s been

torn up by its very roots! Rumors 955 abound that the Yankees will march straight into Marietta early in July, and this is the end of June! I loathe rumors, but as you say, Anne, my dear friend, it’s all war and they may well be here by then. You and I, though, have no more to fear from them than from these Rebels who have taken over our lovely little city. Less, perhaps. We’re known Unionists and that should save us.”

“Yes,” Anne said halfheartedly. “We’re Unionists and I’ve been led to believe my British flag—crooked and handmade as it is—will also cause the Federals to leave my girls and me alone. Do you suppose it will, Louisa?”

“Who knows? It could well incense the Northerners because Britain has been so close to recognizing the South as a separate nation, but I’m sure just the exoticness of your being a British subject could help. After all, it’s bound to strike them more favorably than does your deep-South birth on St. Simons Island!”

Anne tried to give Louisa a courageous smile. “Well, there’s only one way to find out what the Federals will do to me and my family,

isn’t there? Wait until they get here and somehow try to contain my mixed-up emotions about their arrival. I’m a Unionist, but at least the Rebels have been somewhat courteous to most of us. Pete is helping out at the Women’s Center now. They all know she’s a Unionist, too. She insisted on Selina’s helping her some. They also know about her. We’ll just have to wait and see, won’t we?”

Neither Pete nor Selina seemed at all swayed from their loyalty to the Federalist Cause. Pete especially stayed strong in her convictions that there should again be a United States of America. Neither daughter wanted Anne to come along with them and share in their strictly humanitarian efforts to bring some comfort and peace to the suffering Southern boys. So Anne waited through one anxious evening after another for them to return from their volunteer work among the Rebel wounded with fresh word of what might be going on in Cobb County—even in Marietta itself. She went on waiting through anxious days, lately

rain-soaked, often until well after 957 dark for their return from town.

“Both of you get right upstairs and into dry clothing,” she ordered when they came back at twilight through a drenching rain on Friday, July 1. “Do you think God will ever take pity on us and stop this steady downpour of rain?” Anne asked, helping them out of wet, mud-caked cloaks.

“We’d better thank Him for the rain, Mama,” Selina said before she went upstairs to see to Johnny. “Pete can tell you what we heard from one of the Confederate soldiers in our ward today. He said the horrible weather is making it harder for the Federals to take over Kennesaw Mountain, which we know they’re trying desperately to do.”

“Which side are you on, Selina?” Pete asked lightly. “Do we want the Federals to reach Marietta so we’ll get a few more courtesies or don’t we?”

Selina sighed. “I guess we do. Whether they’re here or not won’t make any difference where poor George is concerned. He’s likely to be anywhere tonight. Why doesn’t he write?

I do hope wherever he is, it isn’t raining like this.”

“Is she allowing her love for George and her worry over him now to change her loyalties, Pete?” Anne asked when Selina had gone upstairs.

“Who knows about Selina, Mama? Anyway, don’t worry. It will all just help her grow up. But we heard all day how the roads out in the county have turned into quagmires with all this rain and those endless lines of heavy supply wagons churning over them day after day. The Rebels are pulling out, I think.”

“You do, Pete? Well, the papers declare General Sherman will be leading his troops into Marietta almost any minute now. And it has to be better when they get here. I feel so sure their enlisted men and officers will be kinder, more civilized.”

“Not all Confederate officers are brutes, Mama. Neither my brother nor Fraser Demere ever showed anything but kindness to anyone, and you know it.”

“Of course I know it,” Anne snapped, “and we must not allow this terrible war to cause us

to misunderstand each other. We’re both just 959 so tired, Pete. So, so tired. What I wouldn’t give for a good talk with Louisa Fletcher.”

“Oh, I almost forgot to tell you. Mrs. Fletcher is stuck out at Woodlawn now in all this downpour of weather. I ran into her daughter, Georgia, on the Square today. Her mother wants to be remembered to you. And the funny part of what Georgia Cole told me is that neither her mother nor her father has suffered much rough treatment at all from anyone at the Rebel encampment near Woodlawn.”

“I don’t see anything funny about that. Just strange—as strange as all the other madness around us.”

When Pete came home late the next night, she found her mother waiting more impatiently than usual.

“Did something bad happen today, Mama? You look worried.”

“I have been all day because I want to make it clear to you that when I said yesterday that I expected much kinder treatment from the Yankees when and if they

get here, I didn’t mean it to sound as though our Southern boys aren’t mainly gentlemen.”

Pete, tired as she was, laughed. “Don’t fret, Mama. I know what an expert worrier you are, and I also know it makes you exaggerate. I also know no two men are alike—North or South. Forget it. Just try to rest tonight.”

“You’ve always been short-spoken, Pete,” Anne said, “but tonight you’re almost curt. Are you keeping something from me?”

On a big sigh, Pete said, “Yes. Yes, Mama, I am. Johnston’s Confederate Army, which has been trying to hold on to their good lookout post and the parts of Kennesaw Mountain they took, are hightailing it away from Marietta.”

“What?”

“They’re giving up. Retreating. The streets today were seething with activity while the Rebels loaded their wagons and headed down toward Smyrna. So far as I can tell, everything that belongs to the South, including the wounded, is being sent out as fast as possible. General Johnston sensed Sherman’s plans to force him to come down from the mountain, so the Rebels tore up the Western

and Atlantic Railroad tracks from 961 the foot of Kennesaw Mountain into the city. I also heard they destroyed four miles of telegraph wires. Just after dark as I was starting home, both Johnston’s artillery and troops began to move south.”

“Pete! Were you just going to bed without telling me any of this? Am I such a nervous wreck you don’t trust your own mother to keep control of herself at a time like this?”

“None of that. I’m just tired. So tired I could drop in a heap right here on the parlor floor. But now you know. I fully expect Sherman’s forces, at least some of them, to be among us by tomorrow. Most Federals will be in hot pursuit of Johnston and his men, but they’re paying us a visit first. For how long, no one knows. But Mama, they’re probably pouring into the Square right now!”

The sudden, loud banging at the front door startled both women.

“Pete,” Anne gasped.

“Yes, Mama. I heard it and I’ll go see who’s on our porch.”

“In the name of heaven, Pete, be careful!”

“The way I feel tonight, I can promise nothing, Mama.”

“Don’t be afraid. I’m right behind you.”

“I’m too tired to be afraid.”

Still wearing her hospital uniform, Pete charged the front door, jerked it open, and murmured, “Good grief.”

“Who’s there, Pete?” Anne demanded.

“It’s Beaulah Matthews, Mrs. Fraser,” the plump, out-of-breath woman gasped from the porch. “Please, may I come inside? My heart’s so broken, I can hardly stand up on this porch, and I practically ran the whole way here from the Square. The tragedy that’s going on in our Square tonight is enough to send a weaker woman to her grave!”

“But we all know you’re not weak, Mrs. Matthews,” Pete said in her most scalding manner. “Of course you may come in. There aren’t any savages living in this house. We’re Unionists, but we’re perfectly civilized.”

“Pete,” Anne scolded under her breath, then raised her voice. “Do come inside, Mrs. Matthews. What on earth’s the matter?”

“Our splendid Confederate forces are

skedaddling in retreat before that Yankee 963 monster, General Sherman, and he’ll come bringing his murderous troops with him and only God knows what’s going to happen to us! Besides that, Mrs. Fraser—was Her usually strong voice broke and she began to weep. “Oh, Mrs. Fraser, they wrote me from near Petersburg, Virginia, that my boy, Buster, is nowhere to be found!”

“He probably got scared and ran away,” Pete said flatly.

“Buster would never do that, but oh, the boy’s been through so much, so much hard fighting. Why, he was even at Gettysburg last year in all that slaughter!”

“We—we know about Gettysburg,” Anne said softly, but in full command of her voice. “My son, John Couper, died there.”

“Oh, my,” Beaulah moaned. “I’m sorry to learn that. I mean, I knew, of course, that those vicious Yanks got your boy, but I—oh, could I come on into your parlor and sit down just for a few minutes?”

Pete made an elaborate bow toward the parlor, where Anne and Beaulah Matthews took chairs. Pete stood. “Does my sister

Fanny know about Buster?”

“Not that I know of,” Beaulah said. “I’ve been too overwrought to write to that poor, patriotic child down there in Atlanta giving comfort to the real heroes in this war. I was hoping she’d written to you.”

“Is that why you came at this ungodly hour?” Pete asked.

“I—I guess so. That and a slim hope that one of you might reach a—helping hand toward me. Buster’s all I have! I don’t have any family to turn to. I just need someone to say, `I’m sorry you’re suffering, Mrs. Matthews.`”