The Sentinels of Andersonville (9 page)

“Well, this Johnny was due to muster out, and Captain Graves had a hard time getting the boys in his company to reenlist ’cause no one liked him
 
—this I learned later from a Reb who escorted me and Artie here. Well, this captain seemed keen on the soldiering qualities of that particular Johnny, so he agreed readily. Made him sign a paper. And I’ve been lookin’ for you ever since.”

“That
stupid
 
—”

“I think it was uncommon nice.”

“He traded three more years of his life for
 
—?” Lew couldn’t think straight. “What’s reenlistment in the Confederate army? Is it three years, same as us?”

“Three years.”

“That
 
—” He could only make a fist.

Harris slapped him on the back. “Someday I hope to buy the lad a drink.”

“You think that will happen?” Lew snapped. “He survived this
miserable war for three years, same as you and me
 
—you think he’ll manage it twice?” Lew looked around at the jostling press of humanity. “You think my children will see their father again? You think Carrie
 
—?”

“Pack ’em away, Lew,” Harris said. “They don’t belong here. Our war has changed. We’ll get a plan for survival, we’ll stick to it, and we’ll stick to each other. That’s what the old-timers say.” A man pushed into Harris, Harris pushed him back. “Some try and do it on their own. Look at them, look at their faces. They are alone in this great festering wound. Some survive that way, but not many.”

His tone grew soft. “Pack ’em away, Lew, the living and the dead. Your family. Robert, Dunn. Brewer and Ford. And that bonny Charley Reed. We’ll put all we have into outlasting this place. We’ll unpack ’em, one day, in a place fit for it.”

T
HE NEXT DAY,
Violet returned to Andersonville.

She knew enough to steer clear of the prison, especially since she had Lily along; they were going only to put up and distribute the handbills they had made, inviting the town to an Indignation Meeting on Tuesday Night on the Pleasantly Situated Lawn at the Home of Doctor Norton Stiles and Family, inaugurating a New Society called The Friends of Andersonville Prison.

Violet thought it especially important that the military officials in Andersonville be apprised of the meeting. She had derived a grim sort of pleasure at the thought of their reading the handbill. If she worded the document in such a way that culpability seemed to be laid directly upon local officials for the Appalling Conditions of Starvation and Neglect of Human Beings incarcerated in the Andersonville Prison, well, as Hettie Dixon said, Truth hurts.

“P. G. T. Beauregard wouldn’t put up with it,” Lily had firmly avowed. A family meeting last night brought all, including Ellen, into the truth of Andersonville. The idea of organizing a committee
to come to the aid of the starving wretches, Yankee though they be, had found such a welcome that Violet broke down into tears. It prompted an immediate reaction from the twins, Rosie and Daisy, who offered to go without okra if it could help them out, and from Posey, who declared that she
loved
the poor starving Yankees even if it sent her to hell.

Mother, after she had dried her eyes, predictably took charge. “We will have the first meeting Tuesday night. You must write on the handbill for folks to bring their own blankets to spread on the lawn, for I fear we do not have enough. I do worry about refreshment; there isn’t enough loaf sugar for decent cakes. We will have to resort to the sorghum syrup. I wish I could prophesy as to how many will attend; gingersnaps, then, for if we bake too many they will keep, though I am sorely tired of gingersnaps.”

Because yesterday’s trials had exhausted her and had produced a queasy stomach and a headache, Violet retired early and did not consult her father on the wording of the handbill. She rose late, and he was already gone to Macon with the other doctors of Americus for a forum about the conditions of government impressment for the civilian medical profession.

She had asked Mother to listen to what she composed for the handbill, and Mother had warmly approved, noting how admirably Violet managed to say things, and felt sure that it would find a sympathetic audience.

Violet, Lily, and Mother copied the sentences on pages carefully torn from Papa’s old medical journals, as no paper suitable for handbills was to be had in all of Americus. If she felt a twinge of doubt that perhaps some of the verbiage was going too far, she consigned it to the pit from whence it came, and assured herself that the conditions of the prison proved no one had gone far enough.

Lily and Violet put up five bills in the town square of Americus,
four on the corner water oaks, and one on the podium where the Americus Brass Band played. They put one on the bulletin board outside the depot, and one in the depot itself. Silas Runcorn had read the bill and kept his counsel. Violet was disappointed. And if she had hoped to get a few free fares to Andersonville since the train was going there anyway, not to mention the fact that her father owned shares of stock in the Southwestern Railroad, she was disappointed in this as well.

“I’ve never been to Andersonville alone,” Lily said, excited.

“You aren’t alone,” Violet pointed out.

“Same as,” Lily said, leaning over Violet to look out of the window as the train came into the Andersonville depot. “Mother’s not here.”

“We must stick together,” Violet said, taking Lily’s arm as they stepped down to the platform. “There are nothing but soldiers here, most of them Yankees bound for captivity, and you must remember that however they have been maltreated at the prison, they remain our enemy and must be afforded all the caution given a sleeping bull. The good men of the Confederate army would never allow anything to happen to us, but we must not give them undue reason to defend us.”

“Oh, he’s handsome,” Lily whispered. “The one by the barrel.”

Lily was fifteen, and would find the barrel handsome.

“Think of it,” Violet said as they made their way to the commissary building. “If our brother had lived he would be here, perhaps escorting these men
 
—”
to their doom,
she nearly said.

“Decidedly not,” Lily said. “He would have served with Jeb Stuart and saved his life from that hateful bullet. Perhaps he would have saved Ben.” She glanced at Violet. “Does it pain you to hear his name?” It was a rare moment of the consideration of feelings other than her own, and Violet was pleased for her sister’s progress.

“Not as much,” Violet said.

Ben Robinson, Violet’s fiancé, had gone to war in one of the first units organized in Americus, the Sumter Flying Artillery. The Americus Brass Band had led the procession to the depot, and off the Sumter County boys went in a wake of waving handkerchiefs and tears. No one had doubted they would all come home as they left, handsome and whole. Ben was killed with five others from his unit on December 20, 1861, at Dranesville, Fairfax County, Virginia. A caisson had blown up and took Ben with it. He was buried in Virginia, where exactly, Violet did not care to know. They’d grown up together. They were betrothed. He was gone, and that was that.

“Do you remember George?” Lily said wistfully. “I wish I did.”

“I remember.” Violet was six, a year younger than Posey, when little George died. It was the first and the last time she had seen Papa cry. Such a terrible wrenching in Violet’s chest it had produced. She had never seen a man cry. She never thought they could.

They made it through the gauntlet of staring men, both North and South, and came into the welcome dimness of the commissary building. Lily pulled back her bonnet and looked about with interest. Violet went to the counter behind which the same clerk stood.

“Good day, Miss Stiles,” he said pleasantly.

“Good day. I have a bill here I would like to post. Is there a public area where it will be seen?”

“Well, ah . . .” He looked around, and then pointed. “I reckon you can tack it to that square pillar as you come in.”

Violet looked. It was a thick load-bearing square post, and the tan of the paper would stand out noticeably from the whitewash. “Thank you, that’ll answer just fine.” She held one out. “Would you like to read it? I encourage you to come. It’s to help those poor boys in the prison.”

The young man took the bill. “You mean the hospital?”

“That, too.”

He read the bill, and Violet watched his growing dismay with growing dismay. He looked at her. “The
prison
? I thought you was talking about the Confederate hospital, just up the tracks.”

“
That
one is sufficiently cared for,” Violet said icily. “Relief societies to the moon and back for that one.” She should know, she had run a benefit just last month.

He began to shake his head. “Oh, I don’t think you can put this up. Not as written. General Winder won’t like it.”

“General Winder won’t like it?” Violet snatched the bill back. “How do you think those boys like starving? Do you think they
like
scurvy? Have you seen the effect?”

“Why, Corporal Womack. What have you done to court the displeasure of this lovely young lady?”

A tall man with black hair and very pale eyes smiled down at Violet. He lifted his brown derby and must have thought his pale eyes to be quite something, for they stayed on Violet’s face as if expecting a blush. He was handsome, she supposed, but his lips were spare; when his face made to be pleasant, they disappeared, leaving behind a smile she did not trust.

He looked at Corporal Womack, then at the bill in her hands.

“May I?”

Reluctantly, she gave it to him.

He was all in brown, the derby, the vest, the jacket, the trousers, the leather shoes. He was probably broiling, and the style was not at all Southern. She wondered if he were one of those detectives General Winder had brought down from Richmond.

He read the handbill. Something in his face changed, and Violet did not like it.

He turned the pale eyes, which he supposed of devastating effect, upon her. She matched the stare and plucked the bill from his hands.

“Are you from Richmond?” she asked.

“Baltimore. You are Miss Stiles?” His accent was decidedly Northern. “The one who took a turn yesterday?”

Now the blush came, and she busied herself with counting the handbills. “Yes. I’m better now, thank you.”

“I can see that.” He looked her over with a frankness bordering on impertinence. “Captain Wirz was quite concerned.”

“Was he? I would rather he concern himself with those poor men in that stockade.”

“I wouldn’t put up those handbills if I were you.”

Violet’s heart picked up pace. She didn’t know what to say.

“She can put ’em up if she wants to,” said Corporal Womack, his voice high and strident. The young man’s eyes were a little wide. “Gimme that thing, Miss Stiles.”

She handed him a bill, and he rummaged beneath the counter for a hammer and nails. He marched to the square post and tacked it up in the center. Then he came back to the counter swinging the hammer in a rakish way. “There you are, Miss Stiles.”

“Thank you, Mr. Womack,” Violet said archly.

“A pleasure de-vine,” he said, eyes fastened on the Baltimore dandy as he tossed the hammer to the shelf.

“Miss Stiles, my name is Joseph T. Howard.” He lifted the derby again. “I wish to acquaint you with it, for I will surely be at that meeting. Your sort of meeting is just my sort of business.”

“And what business is that?”

The lip disappeared into a garish smile. “Why, the investigation of treasonous activities.”

“Treason? I expect you’ll have to take up with the authorities on that
 
—for their treason against
mankind
.”

The pale eyes flickered. He walked away.

“Northern trash,” Corporal Womack muttered. Then he said,
“Bully for you, Miss Stiles. ’Bout time someone put those uppity
 
—” Then he saw Lily. She gazed at him with such open admiration that he blushed crimson. He swallowed, squared himself, and said, “Do you know, I just might come to that meetin’. To keep the peace and all. But Miss Stiles
 
—I wouldn’t put any more of those up. You can bet someone’ll tear that one down before the end of the day. You don’t want
 
—” He glanced at Lily.

“I don’t want what?”

He hesitated, and then said earnestly, “You don’t want to make things harder for your daddy. I don’t know what he’s thinking.” He looked at the handbills. “You best bail him out by not postin’ these at all. Them are dangerous words.”

“They aren’t his words, they’re mine,” Violet said quickly.

“Don’t matter, I suppose.”

She looked doubtfully at the papers. Then Lily was at her side. She slipped her hand around Violet’s arm and gave it a squeeze. She said to Corporal Womack, “Can we borrow your hammer and some nails?”

 
—

“Treason!” Violet said. “I declare! The idea of a foundational pillar of Americus embroiled in
treason
! A charter member of the First Methodist!”

“Where did you say General Winder’s office is?” Lily asked.

Violet shook the handbills. “Are these so inflammatory? What is treasonous about feeding starving people? I
de
clare!”

“Right on his front door,” Lily said grimly. “That’s where it will go. Just like Martin Luther did. Then one for Captain Wirz’s front door, one for the dry goods store, one for the stable, one for the mill . . . I do wish we had made more. Oh, Violet, my blood is taken up! I have never felt this way. I hope it lasts forever.”

 
—

“Pickett! Pickett, you gotta see this.”

Drover ran up the rungs, a paper held high.

“This was tacked up at the depot.” Drover gave him the paper, then leaned on his knees to catch his breath. “I’ve never seen so bold!”

Dance spread the paper on the rail.

AMERICUS, AMERICUS

Is it Possible that You are not Aware of the Appalling Conditions of Starvation and Neglect of the Human Beings incarcerated in the Andersonville Prison? Is it Possible that a mere Ten Miles separates Heaven from Hell?

Come to be Informed at an Indignation Meeting this Tuesday Night on the Pleasantly Situated Lawn at the home of Doctor Norton Stiles and Family, at the east terminus of Lamar Street, inaugurating a New Society called . . .

The Friends of Andersonville Prison.

Let the People of Americus rise up in Indignation at the Hellacious Unjust Treatment our Enemy receives at the hand of our Very Own Government! In the spirit of Southern Loyalty to Humanity, let us Secede from the Awful Indifference of a Government that should Doom men to such Misery. This isn’t Us, and it never Was.

Refreshments will be served. We respectfully ask each family or individual to bring his own spreading blanket.

“You ever seen so bold?”

Dance laid his hand on the paper.

“Dr. Stiles is my man ’til I die,” said Drover.

“May I keep this?”

“You bet
 
—I just as soon get it off my person. Don’t let Wirz find it on you. He and Winder are in a state.”

“I’ll bet they are.”

“You goin’ to that meetin’? Don’t know if I dare.”

“Well, I had better.” Dance felt lightness in his head. “I happen to be the president of the F.A.P.”

Drover breathed a respectful curse. “You know what, Pickett? I figured you had something like this in you.” He looked out over the stockade, scanning the acres of men. “I haven’t felt this hopeful for them in . . . never.” He went to the ladder. “I gotta go tell James. Do you know he wrote a letter to Jefferson Davis about this place?” He disappeared down the ladder.

Burr squinted at the handbill. “What’s that say?”

Dance read it to him.

Burr whistled. “Good night Irene. The doc’s gone and laid down a line o’ thunder.”