The Secrets of Mary Bowser (33 page)

“I don’t have orders to see to nothing but the unloading of the train.” The soldier’s voice weighed heavy with whatever part he played in the battle.

“All I am asking is that you send the . . . the . . .” Mrs. Whitlock seemed unable to finish. “Colonel Gardner is to be laid in state at my home on Church Hill. Is that clear?”

The soldier turned to answer a call from inside the car, leaving Mrs. Whitlock to shove her way up and down the length of the platform, peeving out the same demand to anyone assigned to the train detail and waxing more indignant with each refusal. She went on about her poor cousin and the telegram, and clearly these soldiers were no Virginians, and wouldn’t she see to it they were reprimanded for such impertinence. She moved oblivious to the cries of the injured, and the howls of grief from those who found their menfolk already dead.

As I turned to take myself home, I caught sight of Palmer Randolph. Only a few years my senior, Palmer tramped about Church Hill tagging after Bet’s brother John when we were children. Now he wore the uniform of the Virginia Guard, and he stared at me, a glimmer of confused recognition flashing across his face. As I backed out of the circle of light cast by his lantern, Mrs. Whitlock bore through the sodden crowd to him.

“Palmer, is my husband about? I am sure he will attend to the arrangements at once.”

His face paled. “I guess you haven’t heard the news, ma’am.”

“Yes, yes, of course I’ve heard. My cousin received the news by telegram at the Spotswood. She is proud of his sacrifice, but dreadfully distressed. She asked me to see to the arrangements. But no one will assist me.”

Palmer laid a hand on her arm. “Mrs. Whitlock, I’m sorry. Sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you,” she said. “Colonel Gardner, though only my relation by marriage, was a man for whom I had a great affection.”

“I didn’t mean the colonel, ma’am. I meant”—he paused, coughing a bit—“I meant Mr. Whitlock. Major Whitlock. He took only a flesh wound at first, led us back into the fighting almost immediately. But they hit him again, right in the face. We carried him from the field quick as we could, but it was too late. I’m sorry.”

Mrs. Whitlock stared at him. “You must be mistaken. I have received no telegram.”

“I don’t know anything about a telegram. I only know your husband served, and was brave, and was lost. My condolences.”

“But I have received no telegram.”

“Mrs. Whitlock, I’m sorry.”

She kept repeating her refrain about no telegram, he kept apologizing. For all the pathos in the little scene, no one else in the crowd noticed them. And they were equally unmindful of the gangrenous smell of rotting flesh and the shrieks of misery all around them.

“Out the way there, gal, coming through.” The man addressing me was one of a pair of negroes who were maneuvering a stretcher off the cars. “Marse Randolph,” the other called out, “where’ll we put it?”

Palmer shook his head, his mouth shut fast. Mrs. Whitlock turned to see the cause. Slowly, as though everything around her were stopped in time and she was wading alone through the heavy mud molasses, she moved to the stretcher. When she drew back the winding sheet, her scream ran up my spine like a razor, swift and sharp and sure.

There, frozen in death, was what was left of Henry Whitlock. Half his face blown away, bone and muscle left exposed. An empty eye socket gazed up at his wife.

War had come to Richmond at last. And victory though they called it, Manassas took its toll.

The horror of what I saw on the train platform replayed itself in one nightmare after another until Wilson woke me just past daybreak, pulling me close and murmuring words of comfort. But as my lips found his, a pounding sounded through our house. Someone banging on the door with force enough they might have meant to shake the building down. And just as insistently calling out, “Mary, are you there? It’s urgent.”

“That damn Bet can’t have nerve enough to call my wife from our bed, without so much as a good-morning and by-your-leave,” Wilson said.

“You think that, you don’t know Bet.” Sure she’d keep shouting until I let her in, I extricated myself from the bedclothes, pulled on my summer shift, and hurried down to unlatch the door.

“They have them in one of the tobacco factories.” Her torrent of words hit me like the downpour of the night before. “I heard they’ve not been fed nor tended, not even the injured.”

“Come upstairs, where we can talk.” I pulled her inside, hoping to snatch a minute to make sense of what she was saying.

She climbed the stairs right on my heels. “I’ve filled the gig with provisions. We must go to them at once.”

“Them who?” My hastily dressed husband stood in the parlor, arms folded across his shirt front, scowling.

“The Federal prisoners. The so-called Secessionists brought them in by the trainload all night, hounding them into a factory with no food or water.”

Wilson’s scowl deepened. “Usually it’s only slaves they shut up in those factories, working all day without food or water.”

I shot him a look. “Miss Bet has no part in that,” I said. “Now, Miss Bet, you set down just for a minute while I get my hair covered, then we can go.”

I gave her a gentle push toward the sofa and brushed past Wilson into the bedroom. He followed, standing close so Bet couldn’t hear. “So you jump up whenever she orders you to, never mind you’re already scared half to death by what you insisted on seeing last night?”

I tied an apron over my skirt, to make it look like I was a house servant called away from her chores, and peered into our looking glass to plait my hair. “She didn’t order anything, she just asked for my help. At least, that’s about as close as she gets to asking.”

Truth was, I didn’t need ordering, nor much asking, from Bet or anyone. I felt something catch inside me when I thought of Mr. Lincoln’s soldiers. Not kinship exactly, but some sort of camaraderie. If I could figure something to do for the captured Federals, I was ready enough to try it.

But Wilson wasn’t yet going to understand all that as he gazed at our empty bed. “There are times I wish you’d be a little less contrary, for your husband’s sake.”

Pinning my kerchief over my plaits, I gave him a smile. “Husband, I love you, and you know it. But I better see if I can be any use to those prisoners, at least.” Though he didn’t object, I marked how neither he nor Bet would look the other in the eye as I bid him farewell and followed her out.

Bet raced her gig to where factories lined Main Street, two blocks from the York River Rail Line and the Canal Street locks. The name
LIGGON’S TOBACCO
was painted in large black letters against a white field on the three-story brick building where she stopped. A young soldier lounged before the door, observing with lazy curiosity as Bet tied the horse to a post and I unloaded our baskets of provisions.

“What you got there, ma’am?”

“Charity for the prisoners. If you will be so good as to let me pass.” Bet issued it as a command rather than a request.

He ducked his head, perplexed. “Nobody said anything about visits to the prisoners.”

Bet tipped her chin, looking at him across her long nose, eager to play the scold. “Young man, hasn’t your mother raised you as a Christian?”

Whatever enemy that boyish fellow expected to encounter when he enlisted, it sure wasn’t Bet Van Lew. “ ’Course she has, ma’am.”

“Doesn’t Christ teach us to love our enemies?”

“But these are Yankees we’ve got here, ma’am, damnable Yankees.”

Bet nodded in triumph. “All the more in need of Christian charity. Think of how proud your mother will be of your aiding such a pious act. Why, I daresay your company chaplain will commend you for your participation.” She turned to me. “Come along, we mustn’t dawdle when there’s charity to be done.”

I bowed my head, stifled my smile, and followed her past the bewildered guard.

Once inside, we found ourselves in a cavernous room, some seventy feet by forty. Massive machinery for pressing tobacco took up most of the floor, with scores of Union soldiers crowded among the menacing contraptions.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” Bet said. “We have brought you food, and some lint and bandages for the wounded. A few books, as well, for you to pass the time. But now I see so many of you, I fear we haven’t nearly enough to feed you all.”

The unkempt men surged forward, extending their hands to beg like street urchins, until a sudden banging called them to a halt. The clattering came from the middle of the room, where a short soldier had taken off his boot and was striking its heel against the long handle of a tobacco press.

“Gentlemen, remember, we represent order in this land of rebellion.” He spoke in the hard Yankee accent I knew from the New England abolitionists who visited Philadelphia on their lecture tours. “Dear lady, forgive this uncouth welcome, but we’ve had nothing to eat since we entered battle on Sunday.”

He looked ridiculous making such a formal speech in his stocking foot, his boot held up like a saber raised to lead the charge. But Bet was entranced, all gallant Federal that he was in her mind. “It is I who ought to ask forgiveness of you, on behalf of all the loyal Unionists of my native state,” she said. “What may I offer you from our meager supplies?”

He waved his boot to indicate she needn’t bother. “Someone else can have my share of the provisions. But can you get a message to my family? The Rebels refuse to report our names to the Federal commanders, and I cannot bear to think that Mother would believe me dead on the battlefield.”

“I will be honored to send a missive. What is your name, and where is your family?” Bet glanced my way, meaning for me to memorize whatever the man might say.

But before he could answer, the door was swung open by a stout man in a heavily decorated Virginia uniform. Announcing himself as Brigadier General John Winder, he demanded to know what we were doing in his prison.

“I am Elizabeth Van Lew, and my servant and I are on a Christian mission of charity.” Bet smiled and coquetted, though the general was twenty years her senior. “Surely a man with the intellect I see in your eyes will understand that such kindness on our part will impress the world with the worthiness of the Southern cause.”

General Winder ran a hand through his silvered hair. “This influx has been so sudden, your contribution could be of some use to us.” He called to the guard, who skulked in red-faced. “Private, see to it that this lady has an escort whenever she enters this facility. I would not trust so charming a creature to these ruffians.”

The New Englander’s face seeped disappointment as he realized he’d have no chance to dictate out a message for his family. Never one to look her own failings in the eye, Bet turned away from him to distribute food on the far side of the room, with the lanky guard at her elbow all the while.

I wasn’t about to give up so easily. After all, Mama raised me on a steady regimen of stealth and surreption, especially when it came to doing right by those in need, and Mr. Jones took up where Mama left off. I worked my way through the group of prisoners, dispersing the contents of my basket until only one item remained. By then I’d reached the place where the bootless Federal leaned against a tobacco press, struggling to hide his chagrin. I drew out the small book I’d kept in reserve and offered it to him.

“Marse, take this book instead of your breakfast. Only be mindful once you got it. Mistress takes such care with her books, she’s sure to notice any little mark someone makes in it.” I pressed the leather-bound tome into his hands with a nod. “Any mark at all,” I repeated, hoping my meaning was clear.

Bet fumed so hard as we took our places in the gig, she didn’t notice me worrying my sleeve over the prisoner. Nor did she mark my distraction as we made our way among the stalls at First Market, laying in another round of comestibles for our charges. When we returned to the impromptu jail, a new guard had taken over the watch, one with enough experience soldiering to demand a pass from Bet. Which meant we had to spend an hour or more chasing down General Winder, and then another quarter hour while he flirted with Bet, before we had the pass in hand.

By then I’d thought on the guard enough to realize we might do well to bring him a little something to ease the way for our visits. I persuaded Bet to stop on Church Hill for some of Terry Farr’s gingerbread and a bottle of buttermilk. While she muttered resentment about feeding lawless Secessionists when the Federal heroes were being half-starved, I seized my chance to slip into her father’s library for a few more books.

Once we were back inside Liggon’s, my hands shook so I thought the guard or Bet or one of the prisoners was bound to comment on it. I bided my time distributing food until the guard became distracted with reprimanding a prisoner who dared to utter a “Bless you, ma’am,” when Bet handed him some pudding. As Bet reproached the Confederate, I sidled up to the New Englander.

“Brought some more books for you, Marse.” I handed over the volumes I’d tucked into my apron pocket. “Still need the one you already got?”

“I’ll take the ones you have there, and return this.” He held out the book I’d given him that morning, his eyes shining. “I always say there’s a great message in books. A careful reader should find the one in there right off.”

I fairly hustled Bet out of the makeshift prison, I was so anxious about what might lie inside those leather covers. I settled into the gig while she untied the reins from the hitching post, biting hard on my tongue to keep from urging her to hurry.

I sat silent as Bet careened along Main Street and then up Seventh, jabbering about the dreadful treatment of the Federals. I didn’t let out a peep about the book nestled inside my apron pocket, determined to keep my plotting just as secret from her as from Brigadier General Winder himself. When she let me off just shy of Broad Street, I rushed into the side door to our house and up to the stifling heat of the parlor. Taking my seat in a straightbacked chair, I flipped open the book.

It was Mr. Ralph Emerson’s
Essays
. I’d read them years before, in Philadelphia. Though I found the style somewhat ponderous, Mr. Emerson’s theme of following one’s moral purpose rather than succumbing to the weight of social convention was inspiring. I turned the title page now with more interest than I ever had before.