Stand the Storm (29 page)

He was vain of his military appearance, though reluctant to let Mary observe his failure of virtue. Before his wife, Gabriel sought to characterize his enlistment in the war as a noble duty. However, it had the pleasure of pomp and march, too. The excitement buoyed Gabriel and worked to carry him off.

The assembly of colored men into the army was cause for riotous behavior in Georgetown and Washington City. There were knots of ruffians who jeered at any colored in a group, with any semblance of uniform and with anything that resembled a weapon. For this reason the recruits were told to report in their civilian clothes to the makeshift ferry at the river’s edge that was thrown up to take them to Mason’s Island. The isle, heavily wooded, was low-lying and swampy. The main camp was at the middle of the island and out of view of either the Georgetown shore or the Virginia side.

Gabriel wore his uniform only briefly on the streets of Georgetown. When he left the shop—taking it upon himself to walk from the front of the shop in a jaunty manner—he was pursued down Bridge Street by a pack of lobster-colored boys with rocks. They were already in a high state of excitement when Gabriel emerged from the shop. They became more so at the sight of a colored man in a Union soldier’s uniform. Gabriel eluded them for most of a block, taking only a small missile to the center of his back. He then stopped in the doorway of a confectionary shop to remove his coat. Reluctantly he turned the proud jacket in upon itself, tucked it under his arm, and continued to the riverside.

Annie pulled back from the group in the absence of Gabriel. She cast herself as grim leader of the band and sternly pronounced on what they must prepare—what to look to around each corner. She formulated plans into bit-sized chores and gave out orders in a steady stream. In truth she was frightened of their fears—Ellen and Mary, Naomi and Ruth and Pearl and tiny Hannah. Survival was perilous without Gabriel, and Annie upbraided them to keep them solid and firm and focused on their duties.

Mary mitigated loneliness by throwing her energies into ever more laundry commissions and working socks through much of the nighttime. Annie’s carping directives were little pinch to her. They were an accompaniment—a constant. Oh, how Mary craved a constant now! With Gabriel gone, any a thing to hang a shawl upon! Annie’s concise delineation of household duties—“do this, do that”—was just such constancy as Mary looked for.

Ellen emerged as the clerk in the shop in the absence of Gabriel and Aaron Ridley. Less productive in her needlework than before, she enjoyed her new duties.

In the absence of Gabriel, Daniel Joshua made daily visits to the back of the shop. He entered the back door after announcing himself with scraping his shoes, slapping his hat on his clothes to shuck off dirt, and expectorating what his lungs had gathered on his circuits. He checked for chores gone wanting and found little. Annie kept herself and the others hard at it. Lately it had become a regular occupation for him to read out of the newspapers or spin out a tale as the women worked. He enjoyed his role as diversion for the needleworkers around the table. Not wanting to thwart themselves by talking, they happily listened to Daniel Joshua. A bit of tanglefoot whiskey made him hold back less than he might usually do. If there was joy in this precinct without Gabriel, then it was on these evenings of all together—the women’s industry set to the sound of Daniel Joshua’s voice.

Daniel spread the paper and brushed it smooth as the others waited.
“ ‘Though the government openly declared that it did not want the Negroes in this conflict, I look around me and see hundreds of colored men armed and ready to defend the Government at any moment; and such are my feelings that I can only say, the fetters have fallen—our bondage is over.’
So says George Hatton of North Carolina,” he read out. Daniel thumped his own chest and looked away from the newspaper.

“Who have fell, Daniel? What he mean?” Annie asked. “What fellers have fallen, man? Is’t our Gabriel?” Her voice was plaintive and frightened.

“No, Mother. He is talking ’bout the freedom. Our Gabriel is ours yet,” Mary pronounced with certainty, but was unconvinced. As the least of the needleworkers, she was particularly attentive to the reading. She worked socks to keep busy, but she was keenest for information of the war. She wanted the news of Gabriel. “Brother Daniel, please read it slowly—again—so we can come around again,” she asked. And softly, too, she prayed to herself—to savor any mention of the colored men who were fighting.

He read it out again, then paused. “ ’Tis a grim story that follows, girl,” he said.

“Go on,” Annie and Mary said together. They fell quiet for fear of hexing and Annie crossed herself from forehead and across the chest like the papists do.

They threw their arms upwards to surrender, but were shot to death anyway! No quarter was the cry and the solemn vow!

Many colored soldiers threw down their arms, pleaded to be taken captive, and were cruelly shot numerous times while on their knees begging!

Some Negro soldiers feigned themselves dead until Union soldiers came along!

Huts and tents were set on fire with wounded still in them!

Some were shot while in the river and others were shot on the bank and kicked into the river to drown!

Some soldiers that were not dead were made to dig graves and were flung in and covered when they had done it!

Days after of rain and trampling confusion and still the ground around contained heads and arms and legs protruding!

Annie gasped and Mary and Ellen covered their eyes for fear of their imagining. Their heads were bowed. The hands were stilled. Mary rose when Daniel stopped reading and gently took the sheet from his lap to spare the young ones more of the story.

“T’aint a good thing to read long into the nighttime.” Annie fussed like a bumblebee, as if the bloody carnage at Fort Pillow would have seemed less in the daylight. Uncharacteristically, she wound and wound her yarn around her index finger in frustration. Daniel came to her and bussed her neck and petted her.

Mary took the turn to put water on the stove. She drew her shawl with a shudder as she left the room for the pump in the yard. Horrible pictures coursed through her head as she worked the handle. Colored soldiers standing for tall, raising their hands above their heads, and them hacked down with vengeance because of their audacity! No quarter! No quarter! Why give no quarter—to these! They gladly accept it when it is given to them! The surging pump water made Mary’s water come and she put down her pan and dashed to the toilet. She sat to ruminate that rebel prisoners who surrendered and were spared the bayonet were regularly paraded through Washington—still with what was left of their hated uniforms upon them! Why was it that the same feel for colored to stand firm upon their rights was so odious to the sense of the Southerner? When these brave colored men stood to fight, they were given no quarter. They were cut down where planted like sugarcane! Whither Gabriel—how was he keeping, he and Mr. Millrace?

Next came a thing the women had not expected. Amidst the crisis pulse of the town, regiments of colored soldiers marched under arms through the city streets. The Coats women fluttered to think of Gabriel, but knew he was not among them. These soldiers were brilliant in their uniforms. Annie, Ellen, Mary, Naomi, Ruth, Pearl, infant Hannah, Essie Millrace, and Winnie Wareham assembled along the thoroughfare to bless the colored troops’ passing. Upon these very ones headed south to secure the freedom rested the turning of the tide.

“Ho there! Hallo!” Bad Eva, Ellen’s companion from the Blue Jug, hailed and waved exuberantly from the back of a sutler’s wagon trailing the troops. Only loosely attached to the town and jittery fearful of the coming battle, Eva had decided to go off south behind this tide. She had fashioned herself a laundress and had found work with the moving military.

“Oh, oh,” Ellen cried at recognizing Bad Eva in the passing parade. “Farewell!” she called sincerely.

As the city’s defenders headed south to fight, rumors of an attack upon Washington flew about. Newsboys hawked extras on the corners of every thoroughfare. Dubious information swirled about and was snatched up by confused citizens. Most folk now wrestled with whether to go or stay and, if go, where to go? Trouble was rumored coming from the north—north of Washington—in precincts held by Confederates. There was no escape for the colored who feared a tide that could carry them southward. Word was the Confederates had drawn around and were tightening a noose about the capital.

Some like Eva had attached themselves as cooks, laborers, and women for pleasure, animal keepers, laundresses, bootblacks, nurses, and cobblers and moved off south with the soldiers.

“No sense in us runnin’ now. We thus planted and we done stood this far.” Daniel cut into the quiet of the women around the nighttime table. “We must to provision the cellar and keep our heads down.”

“Yes, Brother Daniel,” Annie answered him. “Where would our heart look for us if we let our gut take us on a runner?” Annie sat in her accustomed chair as if the hands in her lap were weighed with sinkers. Her thoughts were heavy and ponderous and oppressed with missing Gabriel.

The newspapers that touted the Confederates at the door to the capital proved correct. The flood of country folk coming in from northwest of town carried word of secesh troops as close as Rockville and hard on the city. A great many of the sick and wounded troops in the city’s hospitals were roused up and pressed to defend the city. Colored troops and contrabands were rounded up to work on fortifications. Even staunch but peaceable nurses like William Higgins were given arms and put to defense.

My mother,
My dear Mary,
My sister,
Daughters,

We have arrived in the Camp. I will not tarry on this page with descriptions of Camp Greene. We are training hard. We are given little free time. We are not to be allowed to return to our homes. We are awakened at 5:00 a.m. by bugle call of reveille. This is followed by roll call, breakfast, sick call, cleanup of the compound, guard duty or picket duty, and much drilling. We drill again after our noon meal then we assemble for a dress parade before we eat our supper. Many of the men have never eaten so much and so often—with so much regularity. Some ignorant ones fear we are being fatted up to feed the white soldiers. In truth our rations are meager. We are allowed a period of free time to attend to wants before the beating of tattoo commands us to our quarters. Our day ends with the bugle call of taps, for we are made to put lights out. This is a difficult time of day for me. It is at this time that my eyes fill with water. I miss all with my heart and soul, especially in the deep dark. I occupy myself with some knitting to pass these long hours of darkness, as I am unaccustomed to sleep so early. Though truly we reach this time of day in a very weary state. As I have little yarn, Mother, I undo and begin again. Mr. Millrace, too, yearns for his home when we reach our cots and try to close our eyes. In the dark he speaks of the young Miss Essie Millrace. He greatly misses her and his dogs.

I am thankful that I am well equipped with warm clothing. Also, I am well able to trade the stores that I brought. We are kept apart from the town and have only our uniforms. Several of the men were amused at the large bundles that I carried. They are now thankful for the socks. The ground is very damp and our feet are often wet.

We have also found that many who are already here have traversed much of the country on foot from the slave states. They have walked long to reach here. Many are without any shoes—let alone socks. I am requesting that you work diligently upon more socks that I may sell some, barter some, and give some away. Will you three jewels work hard on this task? No fancy, dear Ellen. Simply knit.

The one who is devoted to you all,
Pvt. Gabriel Coats

Gabriel imagined the group at table—at work on the socks. He worried about their comfort and safety, as they must be worried about him. But his fears were soothed when he thought of them seated in the kitchen humming about their duties. The picture of Nanny, at head of them all, sitting and knitting, reassured him. If his mam was there, steady at her tasks and ringed by all the others intent upon their work, then all was well. When Gabriel contemplated his mother it was her finished work that he pictured. This “milk of the fingers” was nearly flawless when she wanted it to be. It was distinctive and distinguishable by him from that of any other. He imagined that it was only he who could see the impact of the mother’s fingers upon the work. Only a tiny—nearly invisible—-bubble was ever there in the fabric of her quilting or a length of her knitting to tell that it had been Annie’s needlework. But this tiny bubble was instructive and it stamped a thing as Sewing Annie’s own. It was possible to begin here, contemplating his mother’s needlework, and dream of them all in turn with heads bowed somewhat and intent upon the growing in Sewing Annie’s lap.

The women were hardly ever sitting and ruminating these days as Gabriel imagined them. During the daytime, the kitchen, the yard, and environs of the tailor shop had now been given over to washing laundry. The entire precinct was hung with sheets and what all else that was put to dry. Sweet and fine needlework was pushed aside for brute hauling and churning and punching suds for the Sanitary Commission. Mary applied all worrying energies not spent on Gabriel and the babes to the laundry barrels. Guarding the wooden laundry casks was essential, as the hunt for firewood imperiled any crate, fence, chair, or barrel in the town. It had become common to see a woman walk straight to a slat fence, kick it with her foot, and tear away what would come off to haul to an alley enclave.

Daniel Joshua was a component of the increased commerce of the shop, for he used his wagon to collect wood and gather coal to feed the women’s water stoves. His help kept them efficient and, in some measure, safer. In times such as these, clubs like the Ladies of Olives were no better than twigs.