North and South: The North and South Trilogy (97 page)

Now she was hastily finishing her toilet so that she could go to the first session in the hall on Meeting Street. Suddenly, unannounced, Brett flew into her bedroom.

“Oh, Ashton—the most wonderful news. Cuffey rode down from home last night. George Hazard’s there—”

“What does he want? A chance to snicker at our patriotic deliberations?”

“Don’t be spiteful. He came to speak to Orry about Billy and me. And guess what.”

Already a little worm of anger was gnawing away in Ashton, spoiling her excitement. “I can’t imagine,” she said, back at the mirror and patting a curl.

“Orry changed his mind. Billy and I can marry whenever we want.”

Ashton had feared her sister was going to say that. It took all her will to keep from screaming in rage. Brett bubbled on.

“I sent Cuffey to the fort with the good news. I can’t get over it! Things worked out right after all.”

“I’m so happy for you.”

Never in her life had Ashton found it this hard to smile. But smile she did. Then she embraced her sister, planted a kiss on her cheek. Brett was too flushed and breathless to catch the flash of fury in the eyes of the older girl. Otherwise Ashton’s deception was perfect.

“We must talk about the wedding,” Ashton said as she rushed to the door. “It’ll be ever so nice to help you plan it. But we have to wait a day or so, until the convention concludes its business. I declare, I’ve never seen Charleston buzzing like this—”

And she was gone, overwhelmed with jealous hatred and a renewed conviction that she must strike against her sister and Billy Hazard at all costs.

Institute Hall was silent, the air electric. Spectators in the packed gallery strained forward to hear the report from the committee charged with the task of preparing an ordinance of secession.

Two days had gone by since the arrival of the delegates. Motions had been passed, amended, tabled. Special groups of observers sent by the states of Mississippi and Alabama had been received with great ceremony. But now, on the afternoon of the twentieth, the delegates had reached the revolutionary heart of the matter. The Honorable Mr. Inglis, committee chairman, took the floor to read the proposed draft.

Cooper sat in the first row of the gallery, his elbows on the rail in front of him. People pressed against him from either side. His eyes wandered over the floor below, moved from former Governor Gist to Senator Chestnut to Huntoon, who was sitting pink-faced and smiling like some cherubic assassin.

Women composed about half the gallery crowd. Most wore secession bonnets. Far to Cooper’s right, Ashton watched the proceedings with a moist brow and parted lips. She looked as if she were experiencing something far earthier than the reading of a proclamation. Cooper found her expression not only surprising but also distasteful.

“We, the people of the State of South Carolina, in convention assembled
—”

He listened, though he really didn’t want to hear. The ramifications of this proceeding were enough to make a man’s head burst. Would there be two national postal systems tomorrow? Two bank systems next week? People seemed blithely unconcerned. When he had posed such questions to a couple of local financial leaders, he had been treated to puzzled stares that quickly turned hostile. Poor old Main, said those looks. Mad as ever.

“—
and it is hereby declared and ordained that the ordinance adopted by us in convention of the twenty-third day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, whereby the Constitution of the United States was ratified—”

Slowly and sadly, Cooper’s gaze again swept over those below him. Almost without exception, the men who had taken up this cause were prominent. They were men of intelligence and accomplishment. He could understand their anger, a generation old. But he would never understand the means they had chosen to vent that anger.

“—
and also all acts, and parts of acts of the General Assembly of this State, ratifying amendments of the said Constitution, are hereby repealed.”

The spectators pressing against him on either side cheered and applauded. He recognized one as an employee of the U.S. Customs House; the other was a clergyman’s wife. It was hard to say who howled the louder. Cooper leaned on the rail with his hands folded, thereby earning glares.

“—
and that the union now subsisting between South Carolina and other states, under the name of the United States of America, is hereby dissolved.”

Pandemonium. The gallery surged up as if on signal. Cooper remained seated. The Customs House man grabbed his shoulder.

“Stand up, damn you.”

Cooper placed his fingers on top of the man’s wrist, his thumb beneath, and removed the hand with apparent gentleness. But the man winced. Cooper gazed at him a moment longer, then returned his attention to those on the floor of the hall.

They were slapping backs, exchanging handshakes, boisterously congratulating one another. He would never understand their mass delusion. How in God’s name could the state or the South go it alone? How could there be one continent, one people, and two governments?

After a lengthy demonstration of approval for the work of Mr. Inglis and his committee, the delegates and spectators settled down. Without debate, the ordinance was passed 169 to nothing. It would be signed—sealed—that night.

The moment that announcement was made, Institute Hall went wild again. Cooper sighed, rose, and fought his way up the packed aisle, seeing only a very few glum faces. One belonged to J. L. Petigru, a distinguished Charlestonian and old-time Whig lawyer much respected for his accomplishments and his family connections. Their eyes met briefly, like the eyes of mourners at a funeral.

Cooper rushed on out of the hall, his anger almost beyond containment.

Supper at Tradd Street was grim. Orry had brought George down from Mont Royal that morning to witness the deliberations at Institute Hall. They had been unable to get in. Orry seemed almost as downcast about secession as Cooper. George saw no point in repeating his prediction that the Federal government would respond without toleration.

Brett was depressed over the possible effects of the ordinance on her future. Fort Moultrie had been placed on alert in case the inevitable demonstrations degenerated into violence. She wouldn’t see Billy tonight, and when she would see him next was uncertain.

Shouts and band music had been heard in the streets since afternoon. After supper the noise grew much louder. Soon bells were tolling all over the city. The melancholy within the house was virtually unbearable. Cooper reached for his hat.

“Well, gentlemen, they’ve signed it. This is an historic moment—shall we go out and watch Charleston celebrate her own ruin?”

“We’re going too,” Judith announced, bringing her shawl and Brett’s. There was no arguing with them.

As the five of them left the house and turned toward Meeting, the cannon fire began.

The celebration of Lincoln’s victory had been a mere rehearsal for this one. The narrow streets seethed with people. It was almost impossible to move rapidly on the wooden walks. Not three feet from George and the Mains, a string of firecrackers went off. Judith screeched, pressed a hand to her breast, then tried to smile.

They pushed on, up one side of Meeting and back down the other. Lights and transparencies decorated many windows. Among the subjects depicted were the palmetto flag, the Gamecock and the Swamp Fox, John Calhoun, and the facade of Institute Hall. Burning barrels of rosin bathed the street in gaudy red light. A fiery line traced its way into the sky behind Saint Michael’s steeple, then burst into a bloom of pale stars. Continued explosions hurled other rockets aloft. Soon the sky twinkled with the fireworks.

Cannon on the Battery roared. Bands played. The crowd pushed back, crushing the revelers to permit the Ashley Guards to march by—one of many volunteer companies parading tonight.

A stout German blundered along, waving a placard,

HURRAH!

The Union

Is

DISSOLVED

“Wonderful,
ja?”
the placard bearer cried, blowing the odor of schnapps into Cooper’s face. “But too long in coming. Too long!”

Livid, Cooper ripped the placard out of the man’s hand. He broke the wooden slat to which it was tacked, then tore the card into pieces. Judith was pale.

Nearby spectators cursed Cooper. One or two began shoving. Orry moved beside his brother and shoved back. So did George, who jammed his face up to that of a man much taller.

“I’m a visitor to this city, but you’ll have cause to remember me if you don’t move along.”

Orry laughed. For an instant the years had sloughed away and he had been watching and listening to young Cadet Hazard of West Point. The shovers moved on, and so did the German.

The air stank of powder, perfume, tobacco, overheated bodies. The sky shone with blue- and lemon-colored lights. No tune could be heard above the cannon fire, just occasional drumbeats and raucous horn notes.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this angry,” Orry said to his older brother.

Cooper abruptly blocked the walk, confronting these four he loved; if any human beings would understand his piercing pain, they would.

“It’s because I hate the position they’ve forced me into with their damned proclamation. All at once I don’t know how I’m supposed to react. Where I’m supposed to place my loyalty. I hate feeling like a traitor to the state I’ve loved all my life. I hate being a traitor to the nation even more. The Union dissolved. For Christ’s sake—”

“Cooper, your language,” his wife whispered, unheard.

“—a Main
bled
to create the Union! If the rest of you don’t feel like you’re being torn apart—wait. These fucking madmen don’t know what they’ve done. To themselves, their sons, all of us. They don’t know!”

Ashen, he spun and pushed on, silhouetted against the firestreaked night. The others followed closely. Brett tried to console Judith, who didn’t shock easily but was speechless now. Orry was already experiencing some of the confusion Cooper had described.

George’s head hurt from the cannon fire. He seemed to hear only the thunderous reports, not the jubilant shouting and the laughter. He thought of Mexico. It was easy to half close his eyes, squint at the fire-washed buildings, and imagine that Charleston was a city already at war.

Faces floated past Orry, faces distorted by flame and by passion. The glaring eyes, the gaping mouths, grew less human every moment. Raw emotion distorted an ordinary countenance into that of a gargoyle, and the transformation was duplicated on almost every face he saw.

Brett pressed against Orry and clutched his arm, clearly afraid of the people buffeting them. Cooper and Judith walked close behind, followed by George, a wary rear guard. No one paid attention to them now.

Orry saw three young swaggerers of the town jabbing an old Negro with their canes. Then they doused him with the contents of big, bowlike beer glasses brought from the bar of a hotel behind them. He saw a respected member of the Methodist church with the neck of a bottle protruding from his side pocket; the man clung to a black iron hitching post, puking into the street. He saw the wife of a Meeting Street jeweler leaning back in a dark doorway while a stranger fondled her. Excess was everywhere.

So were the slogans, shouted in his ear or waved on placards or silk banners produced, seemingly, overnight. Three men with an unfurled banner swept down the sidewalk. Orry had to duck and urge the others to do the same as the banner’s message loomed:
Southern Rights Shall Not Be Trampled!

The banner passed over them, and Orry straightened. Almost at once he saw Huntoon, who was hurrying in the wake of the banner carriers.

“Orry. Good evening.” Ashton’s husband tipped his hat, conspicuously adorned with a blue cockade, one of dozens Orry had seen tonight. Huntoon’s cravat was undone, the tail of his shirt hung from beneath his waistcoat—unusual for a fastidious man.

But this was an unusual night, and that showed in Huntoon’s uncharacteristically broad smile. “Is the celebration to your taste?”

The question was directed at all five of them and carried a malicious edge. Chiefly for Cooper’s benefit, Orry imagined. “Not really,” he answered. “I hate to see good South Carolinians making fools of themselves.”

Huntoon wouldn’t be baited. “I'd say revelry is quite in order and excess completely excusable. We’ve declared our freedom to the world.” His glance touched Brett. “Of course our new independence focuses attention on the Federal property in Charleston. The Customs House, the arsenal, the forts. We’re organizing a group of commissioners who will approach Buchanan on the matter. Surrender of the property to the sovereign state of South Carolina is now mandatory.”

George moved to Brett’s side. “What if Old Buck doesn’t see it that way?”

Huntoon smiled. “Then, sir, we shall resolve the question by other means.”

He tipped his hat a second time and moved on, blending into a crowd of a hundred or so that spilled through the street chanting, “Southern rights! Southern rights!
Southern rights!”

Brett watched Huntoon until he disappeared. Orry felt her hand constrict on his arm. “He said that about the forts because of Billy, didn’t he?”

Cooper overheard. “I wouldn’t doubt it. The milk of human kindness flows sparingly, if at all, in Mr. Huntoon.”

They glimpsed him again on the other side of Meeting, fighting his way up the steps of the Mills House, then turning to survey the turbulent street from the top step. The lenses of his spectacles reflected flames leaping from a barrel on the curb. The eyes of a smiling demon, Orry thought. It was one more disturbing image on top of many.

He thought of Major Anderson out at Fort Moultrie. In Mexico he had known Anderson by sight and by reputation. A fine officer, conscientious and able. What must he be feeling? Where would his loyalty lie in the coming months? With the slaveholders of his native Kentucky or with the Army?

So many Americans—so many West Pointers—would be tested now; forced to decide where they stood. Orry could almost believe some malevolent power had taken charge of the world.