Authors: Ginny Dye
Robert ran as fast as he could, his eyes fastened on the sanctuary of the thicket of trees. It was only moments before he realized how deceptive his thinking was.
“Reload men!” he cried as soon as they reached cover.
Guns were frantically reloaded.
“Fire!”
Their guns cracked in unison as they opened on the enemy batteries and some companies of infantry stationed nearby. Almost at the same time, considerable bodies of the Union moved forward against them, overlapping their exposed right and part of their left as well.
Suddenly the protective thicket turned into a place of slaughter as a whirlwind of bullets descended upon their position. The deadly missives rained like hail among the boughs and trees. Robert groaned as he saw man after man fall.
CHAPTER NINE
Carrie looked up as her father strode into the house and was shocked by the drawn, haggard look on his face. She watched him for a moment from the shadows of her chair pulled up next to the window. She had been sitting there for hours, waiting for him, waiting for some word. There had been rumors......
“Father?” she asked quietly, afraid to hear what he had to say, but having to know.
Thomas turned slowly from where he was putting up his hat. “Hello, Carrie,” he said somberly.
Carrie’s heart sank as she looked at him. “Father, what is it?” she asked urgently.
Thomas shrugged. Then he looked at her more closely and attempted a smile. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.” He moved in the direction of the fireplace. “Come sit down here with me.”
She followed him, and when they were both seated in the soft blue, high-backed chairs he turned to her.
“A telegram came through this afternoon. Beauregard is confident the battle will be tomorrow. His troops are all in position.”
“Did Johnston make it in time?”
Thomas nodded. “Trains of his troops were still arriving when the telegram reached us.”
Carrie nodded in relief. General Johnston and all of his men had been positioned near Harpers Ferry in western Virginia. Once Davis and Lee had been assured that McDowell was going to focus his attack on Manassas, and General Patterson would not be a threat to the Confederate troops, they had ordered Johnston and his men to join Beauregard for the battle soon to take place.
“That is just one more proof of how important the railroad is to us in that part of the state,” Thomas continued. “Without it, there would be no hope of Johnston’s getting his men there in time to be of any use.” Then he paused. “He is sure there are Union sympathizers in the railroad, though.”
“What?” Carrie asked in surprise.
Thomas nodded grimly. “He said the transport of his troops is taking way too long. That the trains sometimes move at barely more than four or five miles per hour. There have been suspicious breakdowns. He is sure it is deliberate.”
“But most of them are there?”
“There will be some that may not see the battle, but the bulk of them have arrived,” Thomas said with satisfaction.
“Then why the haggard look, Father? It would seem all is going well.” She knew the answer, but she sensed her father needed to talk about it.
Thomas allowed the pain to show on his face. “No matter how well prepared we are, there will be many men who die tomorrow. Many men who will not return to their families.” He paused. “I know what it’s like to lose someone your heart is intertwined with. I wish that on no one.”
Carrie watched him sympathetically but felt the clutch of fear in her own heart. What about Robert? Where was he? Would he make it through the battle tomorrow? Would she ever see him again?
“And I’m not sure we’re ready here,” he said after a long silence.
“I thought Lee felt better about the fortifications for the defense of the city,” Carrie said quietly. She didn’t add anything about the outrage she had felt when she discovered the means by which this had been accomplished. When it had become evident the work on the defense of Richmond was going much too slowly due to lack of manpower, Governor Letcher had ordered the militia and the police to roundup and commandeer unemployed free blacks to do the needed work. The city was paying them eleven dollars a month, but Carrie knew the pay was inadequate for the degradation attached to the work.
Thomas shrugged his shoulders again, and his face took on the weary look she had become familiar with. “We have done all we can do. It will have to be enough. The truth is, though, that it’s
not
enough. If a strong force were to come against the city, I don’t think we could withstand it.” He smacked his fist against his open palm. “Beauregard must stop them! The Union battle cry is
On to Richmond!
They must be stopped!”
Carrie wanted to rush forward and comfort her father. There was nothing she could say, however. There were no words of assurance she could give him. All their hopes were resting on an army of men perched on the edge of a battlefield.
The two sat in silence for a long while, only the occasional shrill whistle of a train breaking the quiet. The streets of Church Hill were unusually still that night. People had retired to their houses early that night - to wait - and to pray...
“Father, could you kill a friend?”
“What?” Thomas asked vaguely, his thoughts jerked back from a long distance.
“I said, could you kill a friend?” Carrie repeated. Her father’s face asked for more. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. So many of the men who are fighting were once part of the United States Army. Now some fight for the North - others fight for the South. Men who once fought side by side are now going to fight against each other. How can men plan to kill and destroy other men they have depended on for their own life?” Carrie’s voice broke as she struggled to explain the feelings that had kept her awake for endless nights. “General Lee has a nephew who is fighting for the Union. Will he one day look down the barrel of a gun and have to kill him?” She rushed on. “Matthew is most likely fighting for the North. What if he and Robert meet tomorrow? Will they…?” She couldn’t finish. The idea of Robert having to shoot at tall, red-headed Matthew, his closest friend from college, was more than she could bear.
She choked back tears and looked at her father. She didn’t really think he would have an answer. It was more that, on the eve of this battle, she needed to express her feelings. She was half afraid her father would be angry - think she was disloyal to the cause. Instead, he was looking at her with understanding sympathy.
“In spite of the pressures of being in the government,” he said quietly, “I have been very thankful I am not on the front having to make those decisions. There are many men my age in the army, and I think the number will grow daily if this war drags on. I am sure I have many friends and business associates who would be across the lines from me. That question has haunted me as well.”
“Do you think there is an answer?” Carrie asked quietly, somehow reassured by the mute pain on his face.
Thomas winced. “I think that may be one of the questions of life for which there
is
no answer,” he said. “At least not one that can be answered by someone not in that situation. But I do have a theory,” he continued. “I think it possible that in the midst of a battle, men cease to see other men as men. They simply become part of the tactical strategy of war. They are an obstacle that must be overcome.” He paused for a long moment and then continued slowly. “Maybe that is what enables men to fight - the ignoring of individual humanity behind each gun...”
The shrill whistle of a train pulling out of the station on Broad Street seemed to pull Thomas from his reflective mood. His eyes lost their faraway look and his face hardened. “That, and the knowledge that the cause they fight for is just and right!” his voice rang out clearly.
Carrie merely looked at him. The idea that Robert was fighting for a cause he perceived as just and right did nothing to abate her own deep worries and concern for him.
Just then Micah appeared at the door to the parlor. “I’ve had the cook keep dinner hot, Marse Cromwell. Wills you be wantin’ to eat?”
Thomas looked up as the clock struck eight o’clock. “I suppose I should,” he sighed. “Carrie, have you eaten?”
“I was waiting for you. You need to eat, Father. May’s chicken is wonderful tonight.”
They were halfway through dinner when Thomas looked up with a smile. “I heard about a very unusual woman today.”
“Oh?” Carrie pulled her thoughts back to the dining room with difficulty. She supposed she should be interested in anything that could put a smile on her father’s face. “Who is she?”
“I think you would like her,” he said wryly as he settled back in his chair and lit his pipe. When the smoke was curling toward the ceiling, he continued. “She is the wife of Major Bradley T. Johnston, a Confederate officer from Maryland. She decided she didn’t want to be left behind while her husband was on the battlefield, so she joined him in Harpers Ferry.”
“They let her?” Carrie asked in amazement.
“I think she didn’t really give them the option,” Thomas chuckled. “Anyway, the first thing she saw when she got there was that his regiment had no arms. Now, this was back in May,” he hastened to add. “Anyway, she left right away, bound for North Carolina and some influential friends who she believed could raise the money they needed for the guns. She didn’t have to, however. She presented her case to the governor, who then presented her with 500 rifles, 10,000 rounds of ammunition, and 3,500 musket caps. Once she had those, she came here to Richmond. Governor Letcher provided her with blankets, tents and other camp equipment. It took her less than a week and a half to accomplish her goal.”
Carrie listened, smiling reluctantly. “She sounds like a remarkable woman.”
“Remarkable, indeed,” her father replied. “One of the men she met in North Carolina paid her quite a tribute. He told her that if great events produce great men, then what she had done was proof that great events also produce great women.”
As Carrie listened, she was filled with a sudden desire that the same would be said of her one day. It was a feeling she had felt before but never with quite this same intensity and determination. She fought to control the sigh of frustration that wanted to escape through her lips. She didn’t know how anything like that was going to happen while she was here in Richmond, forced to wait for the outcome of a battle in a war she didn’t believe in.
The last week and a half in Richmond had been very difficult for her. She had watched as the city had grown more and more crowded. Most of the military had moved out to reinforce Beauregard at Manassas. The steady stream of humanity pouring into the city had not ceased, however. More troops were coming in for training and assignment. As the new government became firmly established, there was a continual flow of politicians and civil servants. And then there were what her father called the hangers-on - people who had come to Richmond looking for opportunity in the burgeoning city.
The people of Richmond were adjusting now that the initial shock had worn off. Officials were searching for ways to deal with the rising crime rate, the horrendous overcrowding and the struggle to provide for so many people. Food, which had always been such a plenteous commodity, was now causing hardship for many people.
“A penny for your thoughts.”
Carrie looked up at her father and tried to smile. “I want to go home.”
Thomas frowned. “I thought we had talked about that. I thought you understood my feelings.”