Enemy Women (11 page)

For northerners . . .the enemy was neither the plantation-owner nor his slaves but poor southern white trash—“Pukes,” as northerners liked to call them. . . .Northern whites feared they too could be compelled back into a perceived impoverished barbarism, as they thought of the Pukes, away from the increasingly mature prosperity and moral tidiness by which northern freemen justified their individual existence and purpose of their society. Perhaps at some unacknowledged level there was something enticing about a wilder, unstructured life.

Louisa Lovejoy wrote: “Think of this, my sisters in New Hampshire; pure-minded, intelligent ladies fleeing from fiends in human form whose brutal lust is infinitely more to be dreaded than death itself.” (Lovejoy to the Concord, N.H.,
Independent Democrat
September 19, 1856, in “Letters of Louisa Lovejoy, 1856-64”) This beastly Puke attacked every civilized value. The beast must die.

—
FROM
Inside War

Missouri is known as the “Show Me State” supposedly for the proudly skeptical character of its natives. For some reason it is also known as the Puke State.

—
FROM
Don’t Know Much About Geography,
BY
K
ENNETH
C. D
AVIS,
A
VON
B
OOKS,
N
EW
Y
ORK,
1992

T
HE FORTUNE-TELLER WAS
named Madame Rose. She sat on the floor beside the upside-down half hogshead, in the comforting shine of the fire. She drew a pack of cards from her coat pocket.

She said, The cards care nothing for politics or the war of the Rebellion, nor General Lee nor General Meade. Only the war in the human heart. The forced marches of overweening emotions. The artillery of love. Piercings. Ambushes.

The fortune-teller laid the cards out on the barrel top. They were a strange deck, elaborate with stormy, extravagant figures. Great suns and moons and Egyptian priestesses, things Adair had seen in
Holland’s Pictorial History of the World.

And this one, the Burning Tower, speaks of the passions that come first, and after the Burning Tower comes War. Marching. The cards tell us of the Lakes of Fire that lie within us, and this one, a smooth pool, see here, the dog drinks up the water and the water of this pool will cause him to become something that is half a man. She sniffed against a running cold and regarded the card. She was oblivious to the General Ward. Walking. Got a dog’s head upon his shoulders. He will weep and weep as he walks down toward Dougherty’s Tavern. He’s begging not to be made to drink anymore. And this is what crosses everybody, the Lovers, for they both join and disjoin again and again, and there is loss in the joining and pain in the separation. Life does not remain still, sometimes it is daft and makes no reason, but in every battle there are still moments. Her worn hands shifted the cards.

The matron opened the barred door with a clanging of her keys. She was accompanied by two soldiers. The guards sat the heavy kettle of stew inside the General Ward and then backed out. Adair watched as the matron counted the number of women prisoners and then took out a dirty piece of paper and pencil stub from her skirt pocket and wrote something. Rhoda Lee had told Adair that the matron’s name was Buckley. The matron’s dress was made of a loud plaid in red and yellow and brown.

Mrs. Buckley reached back and got a basket from a guard and set it inside too. Then she began to hand out tin bowls and spoons from yet another basket. She counted loudly as she handed them out. The matron was tall with knobby hands, and her fingers were covered with fawny rings.

One two three four, she counted. Adair crowded up close, beside Rhoda.

Oh Mrs. Buckley, she said in a firm voice. Mrs. Buckley, I want to send a letter to home.

Six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve.

Adair stood with ostentatious patience, her black hair sliding out of its braids and combs, now stiff as pasteboard with dirt. Her dress bagged at the waist where it had torn loose. She gripped the plaid shawl around her dress and jacket. I must send a letter, do you reckon that will be all right?

No, said Mrs. Buckley. You’re not to be sending letters.

I ain’t allowed letters? Adair stood and stared at her. I bet I am.

Adair, I’ll tell you about the letters, let Mrs. Buckley do her job. Rhoda pulled at Adair’s sleeve.

You’re not allowed anything at all until they look into your case. Major Neumann is in charge of your case. This prison is run by the provost marshal, girl. Mrs. Buckley then wadded up the newspaper from the basket and threw it toward the fire. One of the prostitutes snatched at it. She took the printed sheet and began to smooth it out with great care.

You mean, the Missouri Union Militia?

Those scumbags! Mrs. Buckley laughed. The Militia! No sir, this prison is run by the
U.S. Army.
If you’re goin to rant on about it, I’ll have that jacket of yours. Mrs. Buckley handed out the last bowl. Then she reached and took hold of the edge of Adair’s embroidered mandarin jacket between her fingers.

Get your hands off of me, said Adair.

Ssshhh, said Rhoda. Adair, be quiet.

Take your dirty hands off me, said Adair. Adair reached up and shoved the matron’s hand away.

The tall matron looked at Adair.

Everyone else was silent.

Well, miss, I think you and I had better learn to get along with each other.

Adair paused. Good enough, I think so too, she said.

Shake on it?

All right, said Adair. She hesitated for a moment and then cautiously offered her hand. The tall woman in her bright plaid took it and crushed down with her considerable strength and Adair cried out. It seemed as though they were about to dance.

Let go, said Adair. She knew she should not cry or fight back but stand there and show that she could take it. Let go of my hand.

That’s what it takes to be a matron around here, Mrs. Buckley said. Then she jerked backward with all her strength and threw Adair to the floor.

I am not unfair! Mrs. Buckley turned to the prison in general. I am not unhelpful to you dismal bitches! Am I?

No, no, said the women. The guards laughed, but quietly.

Adair got her legs underneath her, in her tangled skirts. She got up. Her head rang.

You just keep your drawers on, you little Rebel bitch, said Mrs. Buckley. You’re going to be interrogated by the major before you get to write anything.

THAT NIGHT WHEN
most of the others were asleep she sat up in her blankets and took her piece of candle to the fire and lit it with a splinter. She looked in her little beaded bag for the tiny book of poems. She never read poems but there were blank pages in it. Then she tore out a flyleaf from
Friendship’s Offering,
and took up her pencil, and wrote a letter to her sisters at Dalton’s Store. It was very brief. She fell asleep with it in her hand.

8

As Missouri came under [Union] martial law, the Union military operated as the law enforcement agency during much of the war in most of the state, in effect superseding whatever civil legal structures remained in place. In such a position, the military had enormous discretionary power over civilians in the areas they controlled, unchecked by any truly effective appeals system.

—
FROM
Inside War

Prisoner Mary Pitman testifying against Mrs. William J. Dixon, wife of the keeper of the St. Charles Street Prison for Women:

“Forced Mrs. Carney, who was pregnant, to sew for the Dixon family and sleep in filthy rags. . . .on one occasion she demanded prisoner White’s new comforter. . . .Dixon then locked White in her room on half rations and without toilet facilities. . . .Dixon only allowed her to clean herself and her room when the Union Colonel who employed the Dixons came for one of his inspections. Dixon also arranged evenings alone in the parlor for one prisoner, Miss Warren, and Captain Keyser, a defense lawyer. One evening I saw her lying in his arms.”

—I
NVESTIGATION OF THE
S
T.
C
HARLES
S
TREET
P
RISON FOR
W
OMEN,
S
T.
L
OUIS,
J
ANUARY
5, 1864, T
WO OR
M
ORE
N
AME
F
ILE,
2635, R
ECORD
G
ROUP
393, NA,
QUOTED IN
Inside War

W
HEN THEY WERE
allowed out into the courtyard, Adair could hear the crowds in the streets with their tapestry of noises. People were flocking into the city in wagons, in streams of ragged folk, black and
white, to get away from the incessant warring and burning in southeastern Missouri. Southerners who finally realized the only safe place was to the north, among northern civilians. They were all becoming street people, peddlers, ditch diggers, people who had once had homes.

The winter air was still and unmoving, but warm air flowed out of the barred windows of the General Ward and stirred young Kisia’s frail hair. The girl held Adair’s hand in her own. I can come and go as I want, said Kisia. I am just here because my aunt was jailed for stealing and I ain’t got nobody else to care for me.

Adair patted her hand and they walked on.

How were you disloyal? Kisia asked. Were you spying or cutting telegraph lines?

I killed a Yankee soldier, Adair said. I had a woman witch his horse and it threw him and broke his neck. He was a captain of artillery.

Oh you did not, said Rhoda Cobb. Her voice was prim and pinched. I warrant you never did any such thing, Adair. Witching is un-Christian.

Oh all right, then, said Adair. She joined the other women walking around the courtyard. Cloris strode along with the terrier at her feet. I shot him with a fowling piece. Rhoda hurried to walk beside her.

Now, Adair, you have to think better thoughts. About getting out of here. She leaned closer to whisper. My lawyer is
very
sympathetic. He is in the provost marshal’s department.

What’s that? Adair asked.

That’s the part of the army that puts people in prison.

Adair looked up at the two guards sitting on the wall smoking, one of them had only one arm, but he was interested enough, grinning down at them out of his Federal blue. He was a hard grinner. The other was a child of about fourteen who was looking away. His mother probably told him not to look at or speak to the bad women.

Kisia and two other younger girls were running around the brick prison courtyard, among the barrels and crocks of soap. They were tagging one another.

Where is your family? asked Adair.

Scattered around, said Rhoda. And the darkies almost all run off and the fields are ruined. Five hundred acres of Missouri River bottomland in cotton and hemp and now it’s all full of cockleburs. Mama just hides in that big brick house, her and her old darky woman. Rhoda bit her lip and stared at the cobblestones. Did you all have servants?

We never did, said Adair. We just let everthing go to ruin without worrying about it too much.

A young lady should have a personal servant. Life is so much better. Well, if we’d have known darkies was going to be so much trouble we’d have picked our own cotton. Rhoda put her hands over her face.

It would have done you good, said Adair. Builds character.

But it is so grand to have a maid. Somebody to do your hair and bring coffee to the bed in the morning.

Rhoda’s voice took on a yearning tone. She took up the torn lace on the hem of her petticoat.

And do your sewing. I told Daddy I didn’t want one born before 1850. We could have got a ’51 if we’d have taken out a mortgage on Pompey and Juppy Easter at seven percent interest for only about eight hundred. And then if she didn’t work out, if she sulked or one thing or another, she would have been good on resale. But Daddy said, Oh no, the war’s a-coming, and any money put into darkies is money lost. Rhoda Lee looked at the line of women waiting to do their washing, standing in the steam of the barrels of boiling water. And here I am doing my own washing.