The Damned of Petersburg Page 12

“I was back in New York when I heard,” Ellen Shaw explained.

  “And she sought me out,” his mother added. “So good of her.”

  Another cramp struck Barlow’s gut, compelling urgency.

  “I must excuse myself, I’m sorry. Mother. Miss Shaw.”

  He strutted off at a battlefield pace, hoping that if he could not reach the inn, he might at least last until out of their sight.

  The girl called, “Au revoir.”

  Saturday, August 6

  Richmond front

  Oates enjoyed the hanging, which he judged salutary. Hadn’t meant to attend, but a pow-wow for brigade and regimental commanders back at division headquarters had made the stroll over convenient. Wasn’t a great fuss, just one regiment drawn up to witness the doings, but the condemned deserved his fate, a two-time deserter who had insulted a country woman’s person, a scoundrel not even worthy of the customary bullets, gone to his end cussing all the world in language hot with vice. When the sergeant who had the run of things kicked the stool away—before the chaplain had quite finished up or the presiding officer gave the order—the fellow danced like a Baptist with the hallelujah shakes.

  Took over a minute for him to still.

  Handsome day for the business, that was sure. First break in the heat since May, a day of pleasant temper, when a man wasn’t likely to drop down dead just walking. With fat clouds playing at bumps above and the fields ripe all around, it was one of those days that reminded a man of life’s fineness, of the joy of drawing breath, and an extra punishment for the deserter who’d danced his final jig, sent out of this world just when a man wished to stay in it.

  Oates regretted not marching his regiment up to witness the hanging. The unspoken admonition would have served. Not that he’d had a deserter since taking command. Not yet. But it was not a matter of unconcern. Letters from home, from Alabama, were half the problem. Human nature supplied the other prod.

  Oates turned and walked back toward his camp, buoyant despite the grinding in his hip. Down on the unseen river, gunboats fussed. Not much to it, just nagging. The air wrapped around a man like fine-spun cotton.

  Those letters. Men waited for them as impatient Christians waited on salvation, wanting it right now, thank you, and damn the rest. Oh, proper letters were a joy, letters scrawled when things at home were sound. A man could march for weeks on one sweat-stained page. But the tone of many a letter had changed of late, leaving the recipient crestfallen, sorrowful, sulking. No money back home, or what money there was didn’t reach, its value fallen. Nothing to eat, or not much. Children sickly. Come home now John you done enuf come home theres no one to plow I just caint stand it no more I feel so awful not knowing and lefft alone, all misspelled and desperate, that reaching out so raw it could make a man howl, and then came the letters that spoke of things better unspoken, of men’s wives gone astray or prone to do so, with rumors of troublesome comings and goings, sometimes in broad daylight, right there on a man’s holdings, and report of the misdeeds of men who had avoided the war through some chicanery, men who, in their soft-hand way, did worse than that deserter with his neck stretched.

  Men wanted to bust out for home, men young or old, married or interrupted in their courting, men desiring what all men wanted and near crazy for the lack of it. Another man this week had been consigned to a ward for the shamefully diseased, leaving Oates unable to figure out where the wretch had caught it, for no man short of an officer with a purpose had been allowed to take himself off to Richmond. But men found ways, of course. And so did women. It was the wonder of the human animal, that propensity for coupling. Oates himself felt a longing for woman-flesh that burned right through him, maddening, so that he had to take himself off to the privacy of the woods, thinking greedily, nearly insanely, on damp, resilient flesh, of hips well met, and of the laughing duskies he couldn’t help favoring, their demands not matrimonial but immediate. Like his.

  Lust, desire. Back in the 15th Alabama—early on, that was—they’d caught two fellows behaving unspeakably with one another. After beating them half to death, their comrades had made certain that the two of them marched in the front rank in every attack until lead used them up. Oates had let the sergeants see to the fuss, but he found the behavior a source of prime bewilderment. Always had.

  How could a man not want a woman? He throbbed with longing even as he walked.

  Hadn’t had a letter himself for a time. Not that he had a woman obliged to write him. The sort he preferred didn’t have their ABCs.

  White women thought too much, that was their problem. Loving someone up was about the impulse, the right-now blaze of flesh, the grasping and gasping and the burst that took you next to dying. Worries were the enemies of pleasure, of every pleasure but drink, which wasn’t his vice. He longed to rampage over a merry woman.

  In that rich day, he could not hear one rifle shot. But the Yankees were out there, he knew, eyeing Richmond the way a lecher ogled a chaste girl. They’d come on soon.

  No, he had not had a letter. His mother wrote less often now, for his father had made up his mind that Oates had played Cain to Abel with his brother. He had told them honestly, sorrowfully, in his own letters how he had been obliged to leave John behind, dying bait for the Yankees, while he saved the remnants of his regiment that bad day at Gettysburg, and his father, a man who never changed his mind once that mind was made up, had decided that William C. Oates was a wayward son who had wronged his brother and family beyond atonement.

  When he got his Chattanooga wound, Oates had not gone home to recover but had taken up a planter’s invitation.

  His mother, who had held him, young, with the same fierce love with which she clutched her Bible, a Christian woman: She was caught between father and son, Oates knew, with loyalty turned one way and love another. His father was a hard and upright man, God-honoring and merciless, with the sense of justice of an Israelite, callused inside and out.

  Well, Oates supposed, the war was his home now. As he passed between quivering fields, rain touched his shoulders.

  Eleven thirty a.m., August 8

  New York City

  “It’s a lot of money, Frank,” Ed Barlow remarked to his brother. The amber light in the study left deep shadows.

  Frank Barlow nodded. With the profits Ed was making from their investments in wartime cargoes, he could have taken Belle to Europe in style.

  Belle.

  “Don’t you want to inspect the books?” his elder brother asked.

  “If I can’t trust my brother…”

  Ed donned a skeptic’s smile. “Plenty of brothers are cheats. You were a lawyer long enough to know.”

  “Ed, I choose to trust you. Regard it as a quirk.”

  The elder brother’s smile became a grin. “No quirks in this family, no sirree. Frank, you should see the bills that Mother’s run up at the dressmaker’s. Since the money began coming in. She’ll bankrupt us all.”

  Feeling the ghost of a tooth yanked the day before, Barlow said, “Take the money from my share. She’s dreamed of this day. Let her enjoy it.”

  “At some point, she’ll need restraint, though. She thinks she’s the Empress Eugenie.”

  “Not yet,” Barlow told him. It was a curious thing: Although Ed was the elder by three years and a few months, the war had reversed their roles, leaving him, the warrior, to play the paterfamilias.

  “So … how did today’s visit with the doctor go?” Ed asked.

  “Same as the others. Every one of them tells me that my feet need regular sea baths, that my drainage problems stem from ‘insalubrious atmospheres’ to which I’ve been exposed, and that, in short, they’re stumped.” Barlow reviewed the disappointments of the past few days. “I’ll credit one fellow, though. He admitted his ignorance and suggested I travel to Europe. To seek out ‘specialists.’ To Europe, for God’s sake.”

  Beyond rattling windows, the city strained and groaned, obese with wealth. The war was good to those who didn’t fight.r />
  “Why don’t you?” Ed asked.

  “What?”

  “Go to Europe.”

  “Ed … I’m a general. Haven’t you heard? With a division to command.”

  “You’re not even in command of your bowels. You could die of that sort of thing, you know. And you look a wreck.”

  “Thank you, Doctor Barlow.”

  “Really, Frank. You’ve done your part. How many wounds is it now? Resign your commission. Take care of yourself. Enjoy your new prosperity.” He paused. “Belle doesn’t need company in the grave.”

  “‘Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man.’ Oh, come. I’m not as far gone as all that.”

  “How many doctors have you seen? Since the funeral? Resign, Frank. You’re already a hero. And we don’t need any more dead ones. Just last night you were railing against your fellow generals, telling me none of them has the sense of Ned. That you’re disgusted with all of them and with the whole damned war.”

  “I am disgusted. But that doesn’t cancel my duty.” He did not add that with Belle gone, the war was all he had.

  “Frank, you’re impossible.”

  Neither of his brothers had shown much interest in uniforms, despite Barlow’s offer to find them good positions. On the other hand, they had served the family well.

  “As a matter of fact,” Barlow said, “I’ve decided to cut my leave short. New York’s no more ‘salubrious’ than my camp. And you’ve got things in hand here, with the family. For which I’m grateful.” Earnest of mien but lighter of voice, he added, “Don’t be too hard on Mother. Indulge her a bit.”

  Bemused, Ed shook his head. “Frank, she’s got you bamboozled. As ever has been the case.” An eyebrow lifted, a smile swelled. “Did she give you a firm date? Or shouldn’t I ask?”

  “A date for what?”

  “When she expects you to marry Ellen Shaw.”

  Taken aback, Barlow managed to say, “That’s absurd. And tasteless. Good Lord … Arabella’s barely in the ground.”

  “How convenient for Mother.”

  Ten a.m. August 9

  City Point, Virginia

  “Just look at that,” John Maxwell said. “Just look.”

  His skittish companion, R. K. Dillard, did as bidden and peered between the trees concealing the pair.

  “Ever see anything like that? Busiest wharf in the world, I’d bet ten dollars.”

  “Paper money or gold?” Dillard tried to joke.

  Out on the broad, brown river, hundreds of schooners, steamers, riverboats, tugs, barges, lighters, and gunboats waited at anchor or tacked into line to take their turn at the docks, unloading supplies of an abundance unthinkable to the half-starved army Maxwell and Dillard served, if without uniforms. Of particular interest to Maxwell, a string of ammunition barges fought against the current to hold their places, riding low in the water and crowding each other.

  But that wasn’t half the spectacle. On the wharf itself, hundreds of darkies labored to empty hulls, supervised by arm-waving foremen and guarded by unenthused sentries. Pyramids of barrels and walls of crates stood between the berths and a bluff, awaiting furtherance. Up on the high ground, a locomotive of the military railroad shot steam between warehouses hammered together in haste. Beyond, acres of caissons, limbers, artillery pieces, wagons, shanties, tents, corrals, and still more warehouses stretched to the edge of a ramshackle hamlet overwhelmed by the ruckus. The Yankees had built a military city in just weeks, a sobering, even daunting, capability.

  And just past the brash display of matériel, Grant’s headquarters sat on the spit of land where the Appomattox flowed into the James.

  The view and his knowledge filled Maxwell with resolve.

  The two men crouched on either side of the wooden box containing Maxwell’s invention, his horological torpedo, a device that could be set to explode when desired.

  “You’ll never get through,” Dillard declared. “There’s guards everywhere down there.”

  “Oh, I’ll get through. It’s a rare Yank picket can’t be talked around. Lazy as they are stupid. You saw how easy we passed the lines. Just play the dunce and stand there like a clod. Nine times out of ten, they pass you through.”

  “This is different.”

  “Damned right. Fools down there are even less alert. They don’t expect a thing.”

  “I don’t like it,” Dillard said.

  “That’s fine, R.K., that’s fine. You stay here and wait for the fireworks.” Enjoying his project mightily himself, Maxwell hoped his companion wouldn’t bolt. Then he decided it didn’t really matter. It was all on him now. And he meant to do some damage.

  It had cheered him to see Grant himself debark from a steamer an hour before. Wouldn’t it be fine if his blast killed Grant? Wouldn’t that be something? He’d be a hero throughout the entire South. And even if Grant survived, the destruction might shock him so badly that he’d withdraw from Richmond and Petersburg.

  “You wait here,” he repeated. He took up the small crate.

  No one challenged him. He made it to the edge of the wharf, then did what he could to sink into the bustle, just another laboring man with a purpose none too urgent. He watched as an emptied barge cast off and a full one came in and tied up. He waited for that one to be unloaded, too. Watching for the right chance.

  And no one said so much as “Howdy-do!” The white men were preoccupied and the darkies kept to their work, singing like fools. Officers checked manifests, quarreling with old salts. Masters of obscenity, sergeants cursed. Up on the bluff, couplings chimed and railcars banged. Shouted orders carried over the water. On the river, whistles and horns demanded that others make way for their passage. The air smelled of hot tar, boiler smoke, and bread.

  Maxwell saw his opportunity. The captain of a newly docked ordnance barge waved off a deckhand and leapt ashore as soon as the gangplank dropped. Maxwell held back until the man walked out of sight. Then he gave it five minutes more.

  One sentry to pass. He stopped Maxwell, but without menace.

  “Where you going?”

  Balancing the crate, Maxwell pointed. “Captain told me to take this box aboard.” He shrugged. “Just doing like I’m told, same as every man.”

  The soldier grimaced and waved him through. A few paces along, Maxwell set down the box and arched his back as though it pained him. Even now, the spectacle on the river was mesmerizing, the riches piled up on land a marvel.

  It was all about to end. With any luck, he’d be known as the man who turned the war around and made Grant run.

  When he bent to pick up the box again, he pressed a hidden button to start the timer. He had thirty minutes. And had to hope the captain wouldn’t return and lift the lid.

  He approached the barge, its bow lettered J. E. Kendrick. A string of Negroes awaited the order to start unloading the cargo.

  Maxwell started up the plank, but a deckhand stopped him.

  “What do you want?”

  Maxwell repeated his practiced shrug. “Ain’t nothing I want. But your captain wants this box here. Told me to set it aboard.”

  The deckhand pondered the business.

  “All the same beans to me,” Maxwell told him. “But when he asks, you tell him I come down and did as told.”

  “Give me the box,” the deckhand said. “And you go on your way.”

  Maxwell handed over the crate. He was enjoying his role and, for a moment, he just stood there. “No tip?” he asked.

  “You want a goddamned tip, you can take your cracker backside somewheres else.”

  “No need to do man down,” Maxwell told him. And he turned away, barely containing the smile that fought to spread across his face.

  He took things gently until he’d put the wharf’s hubbub behind him. Then, atop the bluff, he switched to a jaunty walk, touching his hat when officers passed and whistling “Camptown Races.”

  Cautious at the last, he rejoined Dillard.

  “Just you watch now,
” Maxwell said. “You watch.”

  Eleven thirty a.m., August 9

  Grant’s headquarters, City Point

  Grant had moved his chair out of the tent to enjoy the breeze. And that was about the only thing to enjoy. He’d been gone for just two days, off to Washington and Monocacy Junction to put things right for Sheridan, and the amount of work that had massed to attack him upon his return was a trial.

  George Sharpe had reported that Confederate spies were lurking around City Point. Rawlins dismissed the idea and they’d argued. Requests, complaints, and petitions sat stacked up. The cavalry was going through horses at a stupendous pace. The sick rate had climbed in every marching army except Sherman’s, where it already had been high. Sherman needed reinforcement, and a contingent had to be pried loose from Paducah. The Navy wanted to withdraw two ironclads from the James. The members of a New Hampshire delegation felt themselves slighted, as if the war should pause for their convenience, and a letter from the governor of New York all but demanded a favorite’s promotion. Meade wanted to see him, “at your leisure.” And the sanitary commissioner stood off to the side, tapping his foot and scowling, doubtless bearing another report that would crush him with details while adding nothing to his understanding.

  And Julia had grown unsure again about the schools for the children.

  He marveled to think of Lincoln, of his sturdy humor when faced with insulting demands, his forbearance when attacked by petty men, the curses of politics. Grant was glad he didn’t bear those burdens.

  The breeze died.

  “All right,” Grant said, “what’s next?”

  The blast was the loudest thing he’d ever heard.

  A storm of hot air and debris swept over the bluff, tearing down tents and shaking those left standing, but the drama was down on the wharf.

  The explosion was immense. Men, munitions, wagon wheels, boards, entire walls, the wreckage of boats and warehouses, all flew madly skyward, flung to all points of the compass. The power seemed greater—much greater—than the mine upheaval had been.

  More explosions followed. Fires flared. Men shouted, screamed, fled. On the river, boats careened. The bright day turned ash gray. Blown powder reeked.