The Better Angels of Our Nature (46 page)

On Grant’s right sat Sherman, long legs crossed, frock coat open, smoking compulsively, still unable to relax, and looking to all the world as if he would suddenly leap from his chair. Beside him sat Admiral Porter, far more at ease, despite suffering the effects of sunstroke.

Accompanied by three enthusiastic musicians on fiddle, harmonica, and banjo, Jesse opened her performance with “The Star Spangled Banner,” a perennial favorite, even though no one appeared to know the words of Key’s poem to their revolutionary forefathers. Then, as instructed by Rawlins earlier, she approached Grant and asked him if he had a special favorite she might sing for him. He sat hunched forward in his chair, the trapdoor mouth closed over his cigar, the pocketknife in his hand, a mound of tiny chippings between his feet and admitted, in that gravelly monotone, to the sycophantic amusement of his staff, and without a trace of shame or pride, “I only know two songs, Lieutenant. One is ‘Yankee Doodle’ and the other isn’t.”

“Lieutenant Davis, why don’t
you
choose a song for General Grant?” Rawlins suggested as though this scene had not been previously rehearsed. Jesse obliged.

“The Union forever, hurrah! Boys, hurrah!

Down with the traitor, up with the star,

While we rally round the flag, boys

Rally once again.”

By the time she had reached the chorus for the second time most of those sitting, standing, and milling around the fire were all “Shouting the Battle Cry of Freedom.”

While Sherman clapped his bony hands in time to the music, Porter stamped his foot, his natural geniality increased by periodic imbibing of his own smooth Kentucky bourbon.

Presumably, Grant enjoyed the song and the voice, it was almost impossible to judge, since the tanner’s son sat with his brown head bowed, chewing on a cigar stub, just whittling away stubbornly at the stick as though it was the very embodiment of Pemberton and his equally stubborn refusal to surrender.

From every nearby bivouac they came, eager enlisted men and young officers. Had Jesse not possessed so stirring a voice, her sheer energy alone would have lifted every heart and distracted every mind. The passionate gestures that animated the slender young body and strong features attested to the depth of feeling that went into every word issuing from those full lips.

Together, the voice of spun gold, the glowing face, and the earnestness were irresistible, even to Seth Cartwright, who now stood in the shadows by the large wall tent, trying desperately to resist, as he twisted his battered old kepi nervously in his hands, like a teenager come acalling on his sweetheart for the first time and didn’t that sweetheart look breathtaking tonight. His eyes moved slowly, in disbelief, over her slender boyish figure in the uniform of a cavalry officer. So Sherman in all his wisdom had commissioned her. Well, that was a turn-up for the books. How well the tight-fitting single-breasted Union-blue shell jacket, the light blue pants with the white stripe, the crisp white shirt, the polished riding boots, suited her, together with the stiff-brimmed hat with the crossed saber insignia and the brass-tipped cord. His eyes came eventually to rest not on her handsome flushed face or burning eyes, but on the leather holster at her narrow waist, before moving slowly to the saber in its plain sheath, hanging by her slender leg. However, Cartwright had come prepared to match such sartorial elegance. Well, he wouldn’t go quite that far, but he had brushed his frock coat, had a close shave, washed and combed his hair, and polished his boots. He was even wearing a clean shirt. He had almost made up his mind to be a little more social, to step forward, and to suggest that perhaps Captain Van Allen, his one true ally at headquarters, might pour him a glass of that fine whiskey when the arrival of several officers drove him even farther back into the concealment of the shadows. He watched with a sinking heart as they dismounted, handing their reins to an orderly. He saw Sherman get to his feet and welcome the commander of the Seventeenth Corps with a warmth that was both sincere and grateful, for perhaps the Ohioan craved the company of someone whose mind required more stimulation than stick whittling. Accompanying General McPherson were members of his staff, and Thomas Ransom.

Cartwright turned his gaze onto Jesse. As soon as she saw the Vermonter move into the firelight, her voice, if it were possible, took on an even greater vigor and pride. She attacked the third verse of “Grant’s request” with such gusto that an elderly black cook from Sherman’s own mess ran forward to dance and prance with total abandon, still wearing his overlarge apron, as he threw his white-palmed hands into the air and rallied ’round the flag, an enormous skillet clutched in his hand. Everyone laughed. Everyone applauded the wrinkled “monkey on a stick,” as one enlisted man called him.

The surgeon watched Ransom on the periphery of the circle staring at the girl, who without hesitation began her next song, as though she had merely been awaiting his arrival.

“As the blackbird in the Spring, on the willow tree
Sat and piped, I heard him sing; singing Aura Lea
Aura Lea, Aura Lea, Maid of golden hair
Sunshine came along with thee and swallows in the air.”

There was silence now except for the crackling of the flames and Jesse’s strong, affecting contralto, quivering slightly with emotion. Ransom stood tall and erect, his hat in his hands, his deep-set eyes riveted on the young girl in the blue uniform whose curls had turned to a halo of burnished gold in the firelight.

When Captain Van Allen approached Cartwright with a tin cup and a bottle, the surgeon looked like a man standing at the very edge of a cliff trying to decide whether to jump.

After a second the New Englander said, “Doctor?”

Cartwright drew in a deep breath, called himself back from the edge with an effort and looked into the aide’s handsome face as he held up the tin cup.

“Drink, sir?”

He gave a jerk of his head; it was all he could manage. He took the cup and without ceremony drank almost half the contents in one gulp.

“Thirstier than usual,” Van Allen observed with an indulgent smile, then he said, “Are you quite well, sir?”

“Will be in a tick.” His voice was almost normal now, if a degree constricted by the alcohol. “Wooo—” He released his breath. “—Hits—the spot. Thanks.”

“For the relief you bring to our wounded and sick, sir, you deserve an
entire
distillery.”

“If I was in the Rebel army I’d have one by now. Did you know that the Rebels are opening several more distilleries in the Confederacy? They have at last realized the abundant restorative powers of alcohol to the sick and injured, not to mention those who
doctor
the sick and injured.” Van Allen laughed and placed a hand on the surgeon’s shoulder. The surgeon didn’t mind. He liked Van Allen. “It’s true. I was reading in the paper how doctors in a Virginia hospital kept a seventeen-year-old soldier alive by feeding him forty ounces of brandy a day. Now
that’s
the kind of army
I’d
like to serve in. Water and molasses, that’s all it takes. Mix one barrel of water with three gallons of molasses, add vinegar for bite and ginger for flavor, and you’ve got quite a passable substitute. Molasses gives it color and enough sugar to set your heart going a mite faster.”

Van Allen was studying his companion. “You really are, underneath all that hair, a passably good-looking fellow.” The New Englander tweaked his mustache reflectively.

Cartwright rubbed a hand over his smooth chin and managed a bleak smile that conveyed everything and nothing. The aide glanced across at Jesse and a wave of sadness came over him. As an incurable romantic himself, he wondered if there was anything quite as sorrowful as unrequited love.

“General Ransom appears to be most moved by Jesse’s singing.” Van Allen indicated the officer with his cup. The Vermonter seemed to be transfixed, as though every living thing upon this earth had disappeared, leaving only himself and the girl at the center of the universe. “Whereas you, sir, are made of far sterner stuff.” He lightly punched the surgeon’s upper arm.

“Me and old U.S.” The two men looked at Sam Grant, still whittling away, the only man in their entire gathering, apart from the zealous John Rawlins, who was
dry.
“They say Grant gets drunk when his wife isn’t around. You notice how it’s always a woman that turns a man to strong liquor? Grant’s a strange bird all right, he drinks because he misses his wife, most men drink to forget they’ve got one.” He laughed at his own pertinent observation.

“Why don’t you request that Jesse sing a song for you, Doctor? That would cheer you up, sir. Jesse’s voice could cheer the dying.”

“I don’t have a favorite song, ’cept maybe ‘Think of Your Head in the Morning.’”

Van Allen laughed.

Cartwright finished his drink. “Thanks for the whiskey
and
the conversation. I’ve had a long day, I think I’ll turn in with
Medical Illustrated.
” He slipped the handle of the cup over Van Allen’s finger and walked off into the darkness.

“May God protect us all,” Van Allen murmured. He raised his cup and drank the solitary toast.

By the time Jesse had reached the last verse of “Lorena” there wasn’t a dry eye in the camps, except perhaps one. She looked across at General Sherman; his eyes were dry but they remained intensely focused upon her face while she sang, as though the song, about love found and denied, had taken him to a time and place far beyond this one. To his youth perhaps, or into a future he did not care to see or acknowledge. Admiral Porter winked at her—or did he?

General McPherson sat unashamed of his tears, thinking no doubt of his beloved Emily now at home with her disapproving parents in that seething cauldron of confused loyalties at Baltimore. Any day now, according to the newspapers, “the thunder of cannon and the cries of the wounded might be heard in that State as the armies of Hooker and Lee clashed on the outskirts of the Federal capital in a battle that could well decide the fate of the nation.”

There were so many shouted requests and so much cheering and clapping that Sherman got to his feet, his glittering eyes staring at the faces of the enlisted men and low-ranking officers, all drawn to Grant’s bivouac by the singing and the music.

“Damn you!” he said with pretend anger. “Is anyone
left
out there to guard our entrenchments?” He jammed his cigar into the corner of his mouth. “I tell you boys, this would be a fine time for Joe Johnston to sneak into Vicksburg, but I swear he would pause at the Jackson Road and on hearing Lieutenant Davis’s glorious voice be so damned enthralled he would forget what he came for, and surrender!” The cheers turned to riotous laughter. “A little whiskey to keep your vocal cords loose, Lieutenant Davis.” He offered his own cup.

“Thank you, sir.” She raised the cup to him in a silent toast and then drank.

Admiral Porter topped up her cup. “Drink up, my boy,” he instructed, “how about a cigar?” He put one of the tobacco batons into her mouth, and he said, “Like father, like son.” Or maybe he didn’t, the cheering and laughter and applause was so deafening that it was impossible to tell.

Four more musical interpretations later and with the audience enthralled by Corporal Buford Crabtree’s “dancing fiddle,” Jesse was able to escape. She walked around the outside of the circle, toward Thomas Ransom standing alone at the edge of the festivities. He saw her, but instead of coming to meet her, he turned around and would have made good his escape, had two young officers not stopped him. Jesse waited as they talked with him about the siege, their voices and eyes filled with respect and admiration for the young general. When they walked away toward the fire, Jesse came forward.

“Good evening, sir,” she said.

“Good evening,” he said formally.

“You once accused me of hiding from you. Now I think you’re trying to avoid me.”

“Forgive me. I’m not feeling particularly sociable this evening.”

“Yet you came?”

“General McPherson told me you would be singing.” He laughed shortly. “I’m only human.”

Jesse looked at the rigid back and ramrod-straight shoulders, the determinedly steely profile under the stiff-brimmed hat, and murmured, “Sometimes I wonder.”

If Ransom heard it, he let it pass. “Congratulations on your promotion.”

“Do you mean that?” She looked for irony in his tone or expression and found none.

“It’s a queer situation,” he said quietly. “I am surprised that Sherman approves.”

“It was General Rawlins’s idea, and General Grant’s decision.”

He nodded. “The other evening I heard an officer of Grant’s staff say if you knocked Grant on the head Rawlins’s brain would fall out.” A small group of officers to their left turned their heads to look at Jesse as she laughed. “Our conversation may appear suspicious,” Ransom said. “A general and a lieutenant.”

“Can you walk with me?”

“I don’t think that would be wise, Jesse.”

“Why wouldn’t it be wise? At Big Black, you kissed me and I felt so alive. Why didn’t you come and see me? I sent you three notes. Why didn’t you answer them? I was wary of coming to your headquarters without your permission.” She waited and then said, “I sang your song.”

He glanced across at a small group of young officers who were watching them with curiosity. “Perhaps we
should
walk.”

They walked in silence until they’d left the headquarters guards in their rear and had not yet reached the picket guards in their front. When they came level with the cluster of a half-dozen closely standing oak trees, Ransom stepped into the shadows where they could not be seen or heard. Ever the gentleman, he removed his hat.

They blended into the darkness, invisible, except to each other. Now he could kiss her. Jesse was trembling a little with anticipation; now would be a good time to kiss her. The feeling she’d had at the Big Black when he kissed her had almost driven her mad. She removed her hat, held her breath. The branches rustled overhead. The stars were hard points of glittering light.