Gwyneth Atlee

Writing a historical novel based on an actual event requires a
great deal of assistance from experts in the area. I would like to
thank the many members of the Association of Sultana Descendants
and Friends who shared their knowledge and the stories of their
ancestors. Specifically, I’d like to thank Jerry O. Potter, author of the
excellent history
The Sultana Tragedy
for his enthusiastic support
and assistance; Gene Salecker, author of
Disaster on the Mississippi,
another outstanding volume; and Michael Johnson, Pam Newhouse,
Ken Riggins, Joe W. Smith, and Helen Chandler.

Thanks also to John Dougan of the Memphis and Shelby County
Library for his help in gathering research materials and to John and
Kathy Haase for the Memphis hospitality. Kathleen Y’Barbo was also
very helpful in researching the Creole culture of New Orleans and by
faithfully reading the manuscript. Jack E. Custer of the
Egregious
Steamboat Journal
was also of assistance.

I’d like to acknowledge my editor, Tomasita Ortiz, and my
agent, Meredith Bernstein, for their encouragement and support
of this project.

Thanks also, as always, to my husband, Mike, and son, Andrew, for
offering their enthusiasm as well as a lot of quiet time in which to write.
Finally, I’d like to say thanks to the members of the Northwest
Houston Chapter of RWA, Guida Jackson, Bill Laufer, and the Friday
Nighters. But most especially, I could never do without my fabulous
critique partners, the Midwives: Bobbi Sissel, Wanda Dionne, Betty
Joffrion, and Linda Helman.

As he rested on the narrow hospital cot, Gabe could hear the
whispered speculation about the impending investigation into who
was to blame. But he barely listened, for he had little interest in the
rumors of a Confederate bomb planted near the boilers or in the
whispers about bribes passed between Union army officials and
the
Sultana
’s captain.

Some part of him realized that perhaps he ought to care whether the
steamboat had carried too much weight or had been pushed to an
excessive speed, whether the destruction was intentional or the result
of gross stupidity. But that part of his mind felt separated, as if it had
been walled off behind something lead-gray and impenetrable. None
of it really mattered now.

Only the people mattered: the soldiers catapulted from their sleep
into the flooded Mississippi, the panicked passengers clutching and
then overwhelming the same sinking wooden plank, a woman shrieking
frantically as five crewmen—her own husband among them—abandoned
her in a small boat used to sound the channels.

Yes, the people mattered, and certain people mattered to him even
more. One woman and three men. A tiny fraction of the hundreds,
perhaps even thousands, aboard the overcrowded vessel. But so was
a heartbeat a tiny portion of what made up a man. Tiny but so crucial,
something that he couldn’t live without.

He covered his eyes with bandaged hands, as if that action might
blot out the pain of all that he had seen. But darkness afforded him no
mercy, for memory is made up of far more than a man sees. As he lay
beneath a crisp white hospital sheet, his body trembled with the
smells of what had happened, the acrid odors of burning wood and
coal, the sickly, meatlike stench of roasting flesh. And even more insufferable were the sounds that rose up like specters from a thousand
moonlit graves: the muttered prayers and curses, the wrenching pleas
and screams—all nearly drowned out by the almost deafening explosion, by the thunder on the river, in the waning days of war.

Yvette hurried through the streets of Vicksburg. Nothing about the
wounded town encouraged one to linger, from the buildings scarred
by Union shells to the faces that remembered the pride of holding out
against the long siege and the shame of their ultimate surrender.
Unlike her New Orleans, which painted on its bravest face, the citizens
of Vicksburg wore their pain for all to see. She saw in it the defiant
stiffness of the backs of women as they shopped and in the sullen
expressions of men as they paused to mutter among themselves.

Had her errand not been so urgent, she would have remained hidden
aboard her stateroom on the steamboat, as she had the past two days.
She wasn’t at all certain she had not been followed, and if that devil
Captain Russell approached her here, she would not know where to
run. Her discomfort turned to distaste as a horde of shabby-looking
men shuffled past the sidewalk toward the wharf. Bedraggled men
and boys who wore the cursed Union blue.

Her distaste became horror when she heard the sergeant’s
order.
“Make for the
Sultana,
boys. She’s the one to take you home!”
The
Sultana
! The same steamboat she had used to flee her New
Orleans home. And though she’d left it long enough to risk a quick
trip to the telegraph office, it was the very steamer she had no choice
but to reboard.
Two old men not far from her stood talking, and she couldn’t help
but overhear their words. “Them’s those pris’ners goin’ back North.
Pris’ners of war, sent here from Andersonville, Cahaba, and the like.
And good riddance to ’em, I say.” The man jabbed the air with a walking
stick as if it were a saber. Beneath his thick white brows, his eyes
glittered with hate. “If we’d shot every Yank we’d caught, we woulda
won this war.”
“Looks to me like we
was
killin’ these—the slow way. You ever seen
the likes of that?” The second man’s white beard stopped wagging as
he gestured toward the soldiers.
This time, Yvette saw beyond the hateful uniforms, noted the shockingly thin limbs and sunken cheeks. Slow horror rose like gorge as she
realized that the South—her own people—had starved them. She’d
been so righteous in her fury over the North’s invasion of her homeland,
its occupation of her city, that she’d never given credence to the
reports of Confederate sins.
And surely, this was sinful. . . . She turned her gaze from the pathetic
wretches, but not before she felt the waves of hatred and suspicion
emanating from those men, which was shared by the people around
her on the street and threatened to erupt at any moment into jeers or
even violence.
She wished in vain she might forget the ticket she held for the
Sultana
and that these last two weeks had ever happened. She ached
to flee this tense scene and take the first steamboat heading southward—
and home. New Orleans thrashed restlessly in her memory with the
voices of her noisy family, the dancing of her fingers on her piano’s
keyboard to accompany defiant lyrics, the delicious scents of jasmine
blooming in the courtyard, of café au lait and bread pudding. All of
them together formed a mélange so sweetly painful she could cry.
But New Orleans was as lost to her as poor Marie—and her own
good name.
Turning her thoughts from home, Yvette once more focused on
the hostile glares of the Union soldiers, and the idea occurred to her
that these men blamed her—and all Southerners—not only for their
hardships but for the murder of their president as well.
Our
president, she reminded herself. Lee had weeks ago surrendered,
and the last few bands of Confederate stragglers were stacking up their
weapons. Lincoln had been their president as well.
But now he presided over no one but the dead.
Of course, Yvette realized that the mob of Yankee soldiers wouldn’t
see her as the actual assassin, but in the wake of Lincoln’s murder, all
Southerners were suspect. And if they ever learned of the charges
against her—especially if they learned it involved the death of one of
their own officers—it would be all too easy to imagine their summoning
the strength of outrage to string her up—even in the shadow of the
steamboat meant to take them home.
“Remember Old Abe! The damned Rebs killed him, too!” they
would cry. “Hang every murderer among ’em!”
Yvette shuddered, and her knees grew weak as she pictured the
noose, the very same one she had fled shortly after her arrest.
She crossed herself in an attempt to banish the horrifying image.
But the gesture did nothing to ease her foreboding until the prisoners’
footsteps faded as they passed.
She wished she did not have to follow, that instead her steps could
take her somewhere other than downhill, in the direction of the broad
brown Mississippi. Before Marie, she would have felt relief at the sight
of the familiar river. But today it seemed swollen with menace even
more than spring floodwaters. It pressed impatiently against the levee,
as if in eagerness to wash away the taint of war.
Still carrying the delicate burden of her handbasket, Yvette crossed
a gangway that led onto the wharf boat, a floating platform used to
load passengers onto waiting steamboats. As she glimpsed the muddy
water beneath the wooden span, she reminded herself that it would
also flow past home.
I’d jump in and swim there for a Hard Times token and a cup of good New
Orleans brew.
But no one offered either. Instead, she approached the
mass of waiting Yankee soldiers, wishing she could become invisible
for long enough to blend with the few female passengers aboard, then
disappear into her stateroom.
If she had more money, she’d demand a change of boats. However,
for the first time in her life, she was forced to endure the shameful
necessity of counting every penny. She’d have to make the best of it.
There simply was no other choice.
Steeling herself, she drew closer to a knot of soldiers near the line’s
end. She needed information, and there was no one else to ask.
“Excuse me.” Her heart pounded as she spoke. Surely these men
had been captured all over the South months before. Surely none
would recognize her from New Orleans. Even so, she fought to control
the quaver in her voice. “Would you know where the ticketed passengers
are boarding?”
She wondered if they recognized New Orleans in her speech, if
they would pelt her with crude remarks—or worse. But she needn’t
have worried. The moment the ragged men noticed her, those
who wore caps snatched them from their heads. Those who
didn’t made little bows, though some of the thinner ones moved
stiffly, like skeleton men whose bones might tumble into pieces
with the effort.
“Pretty gal like you can have my spot in line anytime,” one offered
with a grin. His eyes glittered brightly, but several missing teeth
spoiled the effect.
“Mine—or no man’s!” challenged a man whose neck jutted from
the collar of a dark blue shirt many sizes too large for his starved body.
Several others hooted laughter or their own claims at his boast.
From somewhere nearby a coarse whistle heated Yvette’s face with
embarrassment. She was dreadfully sure that rosy patches now
splotched both cheeks and the pale flesh exposed at her neckline.
Pulling her ivory shawl higher, she tried to screen at least some of her
thrice-accursed blush from view.
Abroad-shouldered young sergeant she’d seen earlier strode forward.
Healthy and well muscled, he looked immense compared to the
former prisoners.
“Paying passengers to the front of the line.”
His voice sounded crisp and officious, reminding Yvette of the
hated Union soldiers who had so long occupied New Orleans,
especially the one who had destroyed her life.
When she stepped away from the line, he grasped her arm and
dropped his voice. “You’ll need to find another boat, miss. These boys
have been locked up a long time. I’m afraid they may prove too rowdy
for your taste.”
She jerked her arm away from his too-familiar touch and glared
into his flat brown eyes. Ignoring the mewing that came from her
handbasket, she pulled a slip of paper from her reticule. “This ticket
says
Sultana,
and I mean to reboard her.”