House Divided (74 page)

“You might all have been captured, killed!”

“Not with Stuart leading. The Yankees closed in behind us; but he knew they would, so instead of going back we went on south. The
river was high, so we had to build a bridge to cross; but the Yanks were so bewildered by that time that they didn't even try to stop us.”

He was free to stay with her till Tuesday before he must report for duty again. Tuesday night after Faunt was gone, Captain Mason came to her; and Nell after the happiness of these two days with Faunt was only amused by his ill humor. To watch his chagrin she began to tell him about that ride of Stuart's men; but he said angrily:

“Don't you suppose we know all that now? The time to tell me this was a week ago. Then we'd have been ready, could have bagged them all.” Bagged them all? The thought that any word of hers might have brought harm to Faunt sent a chill wind of terror blowing in her heart. She must be careful, careful, careful; must always be sure that nothing she revealed to them could directly threaten him. “You said they were going to the Valley!” the Yankee reminded her.

“I told you that was only an opinion—and you don't trust opinions.” She added: “But no one knew the truth except Stuart, and perhaps General Lee. I told you Lee was bold.” And she added, remembering something Faunt had said: “Besides, not even Stuart knew he would ride clear around you, till he decided it was the easy way home.”

“I know all that,” he told her curtly.

“You know what he did, but I know why he did it,” she assured him. “General Lee sent Stuart, not just to annoy you and destroy your trains, but to find out how far your right extended, and how strongly it was posted. I know that to be true.” She added shrewdly: “But here is another of those opinions of which you are so suspicious. I believe General Lee plans to bring Jackson down around your right by the road Stuart took.”

“Jackson's in the Valley.”

“He needn't stay there. I'm not just guessing, Captain. General Lee wrote Jackson a letter today. There may have been orders in it. And Lee himself rode out to see your position along Beaver Dam Creek and the high ground where it rises, and he's already sending cars west to be ready to bring Jackson's army on.”

“You don't know why he's sending cars west. You're doing a lot of guessing!”

“Tell General McClellan what I've told you.”

“He'd think I was a fool.”

She smiled. “If General McClellan's mind is as firmly closed as yours, Captain, General Lee will roll you all up in a ball whenever he's ready.”

He rose to depart. “I'll give him your facts,” he promised. “That Stuart's real purpose was to scout our right; that Lee has made a personal inspection of the ground there; that railroad cars are being sent west. That's all you really know.”

“That's the A B C of it,” she assented. “You and General McClellan can take my little alphabet and spell out any words you choose.”

June-July, 1862

 

 

T
RAV'S conduct that day at Seven Pines, though Longstreet was apt to say with a twinkle in his eyes that it was Trav's horse and not Trav himself that deserved the credit, nevertheless created a new bond between him and the General. Trav himself did not at once suspect this. Longstreet's commendation at Cinda's seemed to him only politeness. But during the days that followed he realized that there was a change in the attitude of his fellows toward him. On the day of the fight, while he was sitting Nig near General Longstreet, General Stuart came to join them; and at his side rode a blond young giant who carried enough weapons to equip a dozen men: a rifle slung over his shoulder, a carbine hung at his pommel, two revolvers thrust in his sash and another in a holster, an enormous sabre on his left thigh and a heavy hunting knife on his right. Trav was too absorbed at the time to give this man more than a glance; but Tuesday morning at Longstreet's headquarters he saw the same man again, among a group of officers; and the man came toward him and Trav found himself the target of a guttural flood of hearty German syllables. Captain Sorrel introduced the stranger: Heros von Borcke, a German officer come to solicit the privilege of serving the Confederacy.

“He saw you leading that column through the abatis Saturday,” Sorrel explained. “And he's expressing his admiration”—the Captain smiled faintly—“and his surprise that you were unarmed. As you see, he believes in going prepared for anything.”

Von Borcke spoke for himself, thrusting into Trav's hand a heavy revolver of curious design, with nine cylinders and a short barrel below
the round barrel which received the balls from the cylinder. “He wants you to take it,” Sorrel interpreted.

Trav stared at the piece in some perplexity. It was marked “Col. Le Mat's Patent.” The loading lever was on the right side; the trigger guard had an ornamental spur, like a second trigger, projecting downward. “I never saw anything like this,” Trav protested. “What is it?”

“It's a grapeshot revolver,” Sorrel explained; and as von Borcke started to speak, Sorrel paused to listen, nodded, went on: “He says he got it in London. I know General Gorgas ordered five thousand of them for the army last August, and the navy's getting some, too. They're being made in Paris and sent to London for inspection. General Stuart has the mate to this one.” And he laughed and said: “Fill that lower barrel with buckshot and you can kill enough Yankees for a mess.

“I wouldn't know what to do with it,” Trav protested; but von Borcke was urgent, removing the holster from his own belt, pressing it into Trav's hands, taking the revolver back again to show its operation. The hammer in normal position struck the nipples that fired the chambers in the cylinder; but the head of the hammer could be depressed so that it would strike another nipple which discharged the buckshot barrel. The German explained this in a volley of words and with repeated demonstrations, and Sorrel urged:

“Take it, Currain. Give him that pleasure.” Von Borcke spoke again, and Sorrel told Trav: “He says he has nine extra packs of cartridges to fit it, and he'll turn them over to you. It's forty-two caliber, the buckshot barrel fifty caliber, so it has to have special cartridges.”

So Trav belted on the holster, and jammed the weapon home, and von Borcke bestowed an approving buffet between Trav's shoulders, and Trav grinned and felt completely ridiculous and yet secretly pleased.

Von Borcke was not the only one from whom he had an approving word. Longstreet one day remarked: “Currain, I shall mention your gallantry in my report of the fight the other day.”

“Oh no,” Trav protested. “Of course I know your kindness, sir, but——”

Longstreet frowned. “You are mistaken, Captain. I do not bestow
praise out of kindness. I have just signed orders authorizing certain regiments to inscribe Williamsburg and Seven Pines upon streamers for their battle flags; but only regiments which behaved creditably are to have that honor. I assure you”—his tone lightened in kindness—“I have the friendliest feeling for you; but if I praise your conduct on the battlefield it will be because you have deserved that praise. Military honors are not lightly won, not lightly given.”

 

Trav was not introspective, but the cordial praise of men whose opinion he respected led him to some self-examination. Certainly that intoxicating madness which had filled him on the field of battle was new to his experience. In fact the weeks since Tilda found those letters at Great Oak had been colored by many emotions he had never felt before. At first, when close upon that stunning knowledge of his kinship with Lincoln came Tommy Cloyd's death and Julian's vanishing, he felt above all else hatred of war and of this Lincoln who was responsible. Yet with that habit of seeing both sides of a question, that trait natural to the mathematician of looking for a balance, an equation, he had begun to understand that men did what seemed to them their duty; that just as the South would not submit to Northern rule, and just as Virginia would not assist in crushing her Southern sisters, and just as he himself had been unhappy till he found some contenting task to do, so the North and Lincoln himself were under a compulsion they could not escape.

His decision to insist that Enid abandon her intent to leave him was somehow a part of this understanding. What she wished to do would place him in a position he could not tamely accept. His thoughts were not completely clear; he only knew that to let her go was to play a weakling's part; and this discovery gave him a new understanding of himself. He could—and did—compel Enid to submit to his will.

But clearly she could not stay on indefinitely at Cinda's, so he must make a home for her and for the children. The general flight from Richmond which was precipitated by the approach of McClellan's army should help him to find a house that could be bought or rented. He could understand, even though he did not share, the general panic. Since Manassas, the months had seen an almost unbroken succession of Confederate disasters. In the West and South, and at New Orleans.
and along the seaboard Federal armies were everywhere firmly established. Western Virginia beyond the Valley was largely in Yankee hands, and northern Virginia too. Norfolk was abandoned, and Suffolk; McDowell at Fredericksburg was only a few days' march away; McClellan was at Richmond's very door. So fainthearts accepted the certainty of disaster, and the city, which had been swollen to the bursting point, with even humble lodgings everywhere at a premium, was no longer crowded. Trav thought he could find a house for sale at a figure not beyond all reason; and when he went for a Sunday dinner at Cinda's he had this in his mind.

Brett was at home, and Burr. Faunt, Burr said, was on a patrol toward Fredericksburg. “I don't see much of him.”

“We rarely see him here,” Cinda assented, and Trav saw her look toward Brett, trouble in her eyes. Brett and Burr began to discuss what General Lee might now be planning, what McClellan's next move would be; and Trav watched Cinda's knitting needles and guessed a little of the strain which this waiting for the inevitably approaching battle imposed on her. The enemy was so near that if the wind served, a single cannon shot anywhere along the lines might be heard here in the city. Whenever that happened, each woman's heart must beat harder at the thought: ‘Perhaps that shot struck him.' It was only when they had their menfolk here under their eyes—Barbara yonder never looked at anyone except her young husband—that they were free from fear. Only Vesta and Jenny seemed at peace; for they could not be hurt more deeply by the future than they had been by the past.

The two men, absorbed in their conjectures, talked on till Vesta cried: “Oh I wish you'd stop it, both of you! It's bad enough having to live with it without talking about it all the time!”

Brett said: “I'm sorry, Honey. We were just thinking aloud.”

“Well, I wish you'd think to yourselves! Can't you see how it bothers Mama and Barbara?”

Cinda said gently: “Since we can think of nothing else, we might as well talk about it.” Yet pain tore words from her. “But oh, why couldn't the North have just let us go?”

Enid spoke. “Trav says if he'd been in old Lincoln's place he wouldn't have let us go either.”

Trav saw all of them turn to look at him in startled wonder; and under the weight of their eyes he felt his cheek burn with anger at Enid for thus distressing them. Cinda asked him: “Really, Travis?”

“I expect he did what he thought he must,” he confessed. “Most men do.”

For a moment there was silence. Then Brett said thoughtfully: “I heard Lincoln make a speech once, out in Illinois, five or six years ago. I've told you, Cinda. He said—he told the South—” Brett hesitated. “I remember his words. He's an impressive speaker. He said: ‘We won't leave the Union, and you shan't!'” And he added: “I know what Trav means. Lincoln did what he thought he had to. A lot of Virginia men loved the Union, but we thought we had to go with our state. He did what he thought he had to, and so did we.”

Trav spoke thoughtfully. “Longstreet says to stick with the South was hard even for General Lee. Lee is aging fast. His beard's quite gray.”

Cinda said: “Really? His hair and mustache weren't gray at all, last year.”

“They are now.”

Burr commented, almost sulkily: “It's lucky not many ot us feel as you do, Uncle Trav.”

There was an uncomfortable hush; then Cinda spoke to her son. “You know, Burr, it didn't prevent Uncle Travis from fighting as hard as anyone.”

Burr colored, spoke in quick apology: “I'm sorry, sir.”

Trav said affectionately: “It's all right, Burr. The trouble with me is I think too much. Probably it's a mistake. To think means asking yourself questions, and that's always unsettling. I used to be sure of some things, but there's not much I'm sure of now.”

Burr nodded slowly. “I know what you mean. That's one good thing about being a soldier. You learn to stop thinking and just do what you're told.”

At Caesar's summons they rose to go to the table, and as they moved into the dining room, Vesta came to Trav's side and kissed him and said softly: “I love you very much, Uncle Trav. Some ways, you're like my Tommy.” There was no sadness in her tone. “I know the way you meant that.”

Trav saw Enid watching them. Probably she would use that tongue of hers to poison them all against him if she could. Certainly he must make a home for her, if only to keep her apart from them. When after dinner he and Cinda and Brett were alone, he spoke of this intention.

“She can stay here, Travis,” Cinda assured him.

“I don't want to impose on you.”

“Oh, with a family as big as mine, two or three more don't matter.”

But he persisted, and they discussed possibilities and it was Brett who said: “See here, Trav; Barbara's father and mother don't intend to come back to Richmond. Mr. Pierce told us before they left. They might be willing to rent their Clay Street house, or even to sell it.”

Cinda agreed. “Because they're not well-to-do, of course; and with prices so high——”

Trav said thoughtfully: “I can ask Burr to ask Barbara what she thinks.”

“You needn't hurry, Travis. Enid and the children are welcome here as long as you'd like to have them stay; and Barbara's baby is coming so soon, I wouldn't bother her now.”

So they agreed the matter could wait.

 

Burr was away on that great ride with Stuart when Barbara's baby was born. Trav came to Fifth Street for Sunday dinner to hear that the baby, a boy, was already two days old. He brought them the first news of Stuart's exploit. “And they had only one man killed, Captain Latane,” he said. “So Burr is safe.” Cinda hurried upstairs to tell Barbara, and late that afternoon Burr, hot and tired and dusty, rode up to the door; and when he had seen his son and his Barbara he came down to tell them the tale of his great adventure. Before he was done, Dolly arrived, her eyes big with bright excitement.

“Oh I think General Stuart's just simply wonderful,” she cried. “Richmond's gone crazy over him! There's nobody like him in the whole world!” She added wistfully: “Not since poor General Ashby was killed.”

Enid asked teasingly: “Not even Captain Pew?”

Dolly tossed her head. “Heavens no! Captain Pew just scares the life out of me; he's so big and fierce and cruel. But gracious knows I don't care a fig about him.”

Burr said: “You'd never have been afraid of Turner Ashby, Dolly.”

“Oh Burr, did you know him? What was he like? Was he wonderfully handsome?”

Burr smiled. “I don't know, honestly. He always wore gray clothes, and his jacket was too big for him, and too long, and his boots were especially high, and he was probably as fine a rider as you'd find in Virginia, but—well, you didn't notice whether he was handsome or not. He was so gentle and so modest.”

“Like Cousin Faunt?” Enid asked, and Burr hesitated and said uncertainly:

“Why, no. You can't help noticing Uncle Faunt.” Trav was watching Enid, struck by something in her tone when she spoke of his brother. “But you didn't notice Turner Ashby, except in a fight. He would shout ‘Follow me!' and go racing ahead; and his men always said he grew a foot taller in a charge.”

“The poor darling!” Dolly's eyes were brimming. “I never met him, but I loved him all the same!”

“But he wasn't as good as General Stuart,” Burr assured her. “He didn't command men; he just led them. General Ashby's men could follow him if they chose, but they didn't have to! But General Stuart's men know they have to follow him!”

“I'd follow him anywhere!” Dolly vowed. “So would every girl in Richmond!”