High Hearts (18 page)

Northrupp, head of Commissary listened but old Jacob Barnhart from Williamsburg nearly expired upon hearing this
suggestion. Southern gentlemen profiteer from the war? Never! Every man would willingly give his grain, his cattle, his sons, and himself to the cause. Henley bit his tongue while the old man spun his illusions. Jacob Barnhart had never dealt with a tradesman in his life. He had no appreciation for the mercantile instinct which seeks profit in all things, even death. Henley, because of his horse breeding business, understood it only too well. The eight other officers in the stuffy room, most of them considerably younger than Barnhart, winked at Henley. Jacob was born right after the Revolutionary War. The others were modern men, most of whom had spent time in the North. They would consider Henley’s proposal for civilian commissioners.

What stuck in Henley’s craw was the fact that the important ordinance officers were those assigned to weaponry. They’d set up offices out at Tredegar Iron Works. No one said they were that important, but the buzzing in and out of Lee’s offices in Mechanics Hall proved the point. Lee had assumed the Virginia command that Governor Letcher had offered. As each state was raising troops and putting a favored son in charge, it was confusing. Beauregard and Johnston appeared the most likely candidates for an overall command if the Confederacy could get organized.

Henley felt he deserved better than the Commissary Department. The lavish compliments on feeding the troops sounded sour in his ears. To hell with it, he wanted to fight. After all, he’d read and absorbed Henri Jomini’s
Summary of the Art of War
. He knew his military history. On this day in 1796 Napoleon had defeated the Austrians at Lodi. Henley left his card at Mechanics Hall. The new commanding officer would get to it in time. Henley fully intended to ask an already tired Robert E. Lee for a field commission.

The sun rolled over the horizon like the red rim of a wagon wheel. Henley reached into the small desk made from cherry wood and took out his Bible and the pamphlet of lessons. Lutie would be doing the same and so would Sumner and Geneva, wherever they were. It was curiously satisfying to know this.

The Old Testament lesson was 1 Samuel 15. God told Saul to kill the Amalekites, to massacre them, men, women, and children. God even told Saul to extend his heavenly wrath to the oxen, sheep, camels, and asses. Saul murdered the people,
but he and his men saved the best of the stock. This didn’t go down with the Lord, and Saul was bounced from being king of the Israelites.

Before Henley could ponder the significance of the lesson, a light rap on the door saved him.

“Colonel Chatfield.” A bright boy held out a silver tray with three letters on it.

“Thank you,” Henley said, handing him a coin.

The first letter, on plain white stationery, was from Colonel Charles Venable, aide-de-camp to General Lee. The general would be happy to see him on Thursday next.

The second letter was written on pale blue stationery. The initials KLV were centered in dark blue block letters at the top of the page. Henley liked that. Most women wallowed around in script.

Whistling, Henley folded the letter back into the envelope and placed it inside his breast pocket.

The third letter was from Geneva. She had written on Chatfield stationery, a creamy bond with the name of the estate in forest green. She was in London with the Bennetts and hoped he was well. The Wells and Ryders, also in England and old friends of the family, were fine. She received many invitations for visits to country estates. Right now she was enjoying the city. She missed Nash so much she could die, but she would be home by fall.

The salutations were most affectionate and the handwriting far prettier than he remembered, but when was the last time he had seen her hand? She had even sealed the letter with dark green wax. Henley couldn’t recall Geneva being that careful. Assuming Geneva was homesick, Henley wrote her a long letter full of Richmond gossip and posted it before breakfast.

Colonel Thomas J. Jackson’s headquarters throbbed with activity. Mars, fresh from a quick conference with the odd Jackson, walked over to his horses. Smartly uniformed men were coming and going. Every officer had brought his own batman, a personal servant who washed his clothes, ironed his shirts, polished and boned his boots, brushed his braid. Mars laughed to himself. This is the damnedest prettiest army I’ve ever seen at camp, he thought. Mars knew what it was to stay in the saddle for weeks at a time, without a bath or a change of clothes, without food. Enjoy it while you can, he thought.

“Jimmy Chatfield, what are you doing here?” he bellowed at the long, lean boy.

“Looking for you. The new mounts arrived, Major Vickers.”

“Let’s go then.” Mars eased into the saddle.

As they rode along, Mars studied Jimmy. Jimmy wore his foraging cap cocked on his head, a yellow neckerchief tied in a knot at his throat. High summer wasn’t upon him, but he was as tan as his saddle. His legs had bulked up a bit. Superb rider though he was, the extra work put more muscle on him. Still too thin in the chest, though. The other young men in the camp grew beards or moustaches. Facial hair was all the rage, though for those who didn’t like to shave in the morning, it was laziness. Jimmy cultivated no moustache or beard. And while he got along with everyone, the boy kept to himself for the most part. Jimmy Chatfield was the only man who’d proven himself a better rider than Mars, so the major had a special interest in him. There was a sweetness and straightforwardness about the young man that touched him and made him regret the sons he’d never fathered.

The only thing Mars didn’t like about Jimmy was Nash
Hart. The boy acted silly over Hart, and Mars couldn’t understand it. As far as Mars was concerned, Nash Hart was so far behind everyone else he was lonesome. Yet Jimmy seemed to worship the man. Mars hoped it wasn’t a physical relationship, but he was a worldly man. Sometimes a boy does swoon over a grown man before he becomes a man himself with a grown man’s responsibilities. But it turned his stomach to think of Hart taking advantage of this youth, if in fact he was. He didn’t want Jimmy used that way, and he thought the boy was too young to know what he was doing. On the other hand, Hart seemed jealous of the boy while simultaneously pretending to ignore him.

“When are the Yankees going to attack, Major Vickers?”

Mars smiled. “Why? You getting anxious?”

“A little.” Geneva patted Dancer’s neck.

“They’ll have to attack us, because we aren’t going to attack them. Now that the government is being moved from Montgomery, Alabama, to Richmond, they’ll probably strike for Richmond.”

“How do you think they’ll make their approach to Richmond?”

“Well, there are a variety of ways they can attack: by water, straight down from Washington by land; or if they’re feeling clever, they’ll send out a body of men in one direction and the main force in another. However, I don’t think they’re that clever.”

“Are you anxious to fight, sir?”

“Fight? It’s my profession. But I’ve seen enough to know there’s no glory in it, and I’ve seen enough to know it will never end.”

“We’ll beat their pants off, and that will end it.” She jauntily trotted forward.

“What I mean, Jimmy, is after this war, there will be another war, and one after that. Man is more ape than angel.”

“But if the abolitionists had just left us alone, there wouldn’t be any war.”

“Oh, hell, boy, that is just the excuse. This war’s been brewing since I was in the cradle. I’d a damn sight prefer it if the real reason—greed—was put forward for once and not this smarmy abolitionist hypocrisy.”

Geneva’s forehead wrinkled. Surely Major Vickers didn’t mean that the South was greedy. We only ask to be allowed
to live in peace according to our creed. He must mean the North. But Geneva remembered her Aunt Poofy and Uncle Daniel. They weren’t greedy people. They were good people. They were fighting for the North. This knowledge burdened Geneva.

“Independence! That’s the real reason for this fight, Major Vickers. Doesn’t matter what the abolitionists say. We know why we’re fighting.”

“What really matters, Jimmy, is who wins this war. Then the winner’s reasons will become the official reasons.”

“Well, they aren’t going to win it.” Geneva was defiant.

Up ahead, they saw Banjo perched on a hastily constructed fence, about seventy horses behind him.

“Let’s see what we got.” Mars dismounted.

For the next several hours, the three soldiers inspected each horse. A few would be turned out to pasture or sold cheap in town. Most of them, though, would do and even the rough broke ones would bend to Vickers’s will.

“Major, why don’t we attack Washington?” asked Geneva, as they finished their task.

“Because the troops are green. Because we are not yet a fully functioning army. Because we don’t have enough provisions even if we did take Washington.”

“Maryland is on our side,” Banjo chimed in.

“Maryland’s caught between a rock and a hard place. Listen up. There’s something very different about this war. We could haul ourselves right over the Potomac and take Washington. In fact, it would be easy to take that stinking swamp city. The inhabitants would give it away, but that isn’t going to end the war. This isn’t a European war. Over there, those countries are so small that if you take the capital, it’s over. If you take Washington, the Federals can withdraw into the vast countryside. On either side, city after city can fall, but it won’t put a stop to the fighting.”

Geneva stopped feeling a horse’s foreleg and stood up. “I thought the war would be over before Christmas.”

“This war will only end quickly if something miraculous happens. We’re in it but good.” Mars smacked a buckskin’s hindquarters to get him out of the way. “I know you’re younger than you want me to know. Do you want out?”

Geneva’s face flushed. “No, sir.”

“Look at me,” Mars whispered. “Is it Southern independence you believe in or is it Nash Hart?”

Her face was now bright red. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Let me tell you something about your friend. War is going to come as a terrible shock to your Mr. Hart. He’s not cut out for it.”

“He’s no coward!” Geneva’s temper frayed.

“I didn’t say he was a coward,” Mars said, raising his voice. “I said he wasn’t cut out for war.”

Tears came to Geneva’s eyes. She was too angry to say anything. She focused on a bay horse.

“And another thing, Chatfield, I wish you’d stop looking at Nash Hart like a moonstruck cow.”

In silent fury, Geneva kept working. Banjo, while sympathetic, thought the major was right. He was afraid Nash was carrying the boy a little fast.

There was enough electricity between Mars and Geneva to start a thunderstorm. Oddly enough, one did roll over Harper’s Ferry in the late afternoon.

When Geneva returned to camp, she didn’t tell Nash what happened. There was enough bad blood between him and Mars as it was.

Sunrise turned the mountains from deep purple to darkest blue. A thin ridge of brilliant scarlet outlined the peaks.

Ernie June, up early because the master was coming home today, had already supervised the killing of an especially fat pig. The hot blood was spilling into a bucket, held without enthusiasm by Boyd.

“Stir slowly!” Ernie June yelled. Blood pudding was a
favorite of Henley’s, and she wanted to please him. Boyd grimaced.

“Girl, I done worse than that.” Ernie June put her hands on her hips. “Slow. Soon as it’s full up, keep turning the ladle. We gets it up the house, and then I shows you the rest.”

“Momma, the smell makin’ me sick,” Boyd protested.

“I gonna make you good and sick!” Ernie took a threatening step toward Boyd. Her daughter backed off the protest. Ernie yanked the bucket from Boyd and started for the big house.

Boyd, twitchy, scurried after her huffing mother. “Momma, I kin do it. Gimme the bucket. I jes doan likes the smell.”

“You gots to do a lot of things in this world you doan like, girl.” Ernie slammed the heavy bucket into Boyd. The daughter sniffled and followed.

When the women came into the kitchen, they heard Lutie chattering upstairs. Boyd bent over the odious bucket and stirred anew. “Miz Lutie wakes up like a blue jay. Squawky, squawky.”

“Miz Lutie has her ways.”

“Some say she’s ’teched.”

Ernie lowered her voice. “ ’Teched or not, she’s the mistress here. You hear me? Miz Lutie’s a good woman as them people go.” Ernie’s voice was barely a whisper. “She got a familiar, but that don’t mean she’s ’teched.”

“What you talkin’ ’bout, Momma?”

“You’re too young, I reckon.”

This made Boyd see pure red. “I am not!”

“You shut your trap else I shuts it for you!” Ernie hissed, “And lower that cow voice!”

Stung and curious, Boyd fell into step. She had to know what the big secret was. “Tell me ’bout this famlar.”

“Familiar.” Ernie waited and stalled to drive Boyd wild. She bustled around the kitchen collecting spices. She paused in front of the window to see if Sin-Sin, the bitch, was coming up from her little house.

“Momma!” Boyd’s hushed voice rang desperate.

“You promise to be still ’bout it?”

“I promise. I promise.” She stirred the bucket with what appeared to be delight.

Lawdy, Ernie thought to herself, what I go through to get a good day’s work out of this girl. “When Jimmy died—”

“I ’member. I was—”

“You ’member nothin’ much ’ceptin you was too big to be handed over the grave.”

Sullenly Boyd responded, “I do so ’member.”

“I thinks I be workin’ in silence today. Got me a woolly-headed, nasty girl.”

“Momma! I ain’t nasty. Tell me, Momma,” Boyd pleaded.