The Union Quilters (6 page)

“But what if Josiah Chester uses my money to buy rifles for Confederate soldiers, prolonging the war and thus slavery for others?”

Suddenly, Anneke understood what was happening, and she fixed Gerda with a level stare. “I realize you miss Jonathan, but don’t think for a moment that I will endure months of acting as his surrogate. Unlike the two of you, I don’t argue for sport.”

Gerda burst out laughing. The mare’s ears flicked in their direction, but the horses were too well trained to shy or break trot. “I’ll remember that,” Gerda gasped as she struggled to compose herself. “You, a replacement for Jonathan, indeed.”

Anneke muffled a sigh and took in the passing scenery.

Hans had told them not to expect him back for hours, so while Anneke tended to her chores and played with the boys in the yard, Gerda fixed a simple supper of potato pancakes and stewed greens, keeping some back to serve her brother later. It was after dusk when he finally returned home. At the sound of the horses’ hooves, Anneke set aside her sewing and Gerda her book and they both carried lanterns out to the barn to meet him.

He was weary from his long journey over the southern pass to Lewistown and back, so after embracing him and kissing him fondly to show that the morning’s argument was forgiven, Anneke refrained from querying him too much while he tended to the horses—his own, Thomas’s, and Jonathan’s. Abel’s was not among them, she noticed. Hans had passed the Wright farm on the way home, and had probably gone ahead and left Abel’s horse there, although the arrangement had been to return the horses the following day. When Gerda did not show Anneke’s restraint and began peppering him with questions, Anneke suggested rather firmly that she go inside and prepare Hans’s supper. As his sister hurried off, Hans thanked Anneke wearily and fell silent, his brow furrowing as he watered and unsaddled the horses. Anneke set down the lantern and fetched the currycomb, wondering if he regretted his decision not to enlist.

Later, after he had eaten and rested, he sighed, pushed his chair back from the table, stretched his legs in front of him, and described what he had seen in Lewistown. Men from all over the county had gathered to sign their names and put on Union blue. The men of the Elm Creek Valley had been assigned to Company L of the 49th Pennsylvania Volunteers, and as a regimental surgeon had already been appointed, Jonathan had been named one of his assistants. The next day they would join up with the rest of the regiment at Camp Curtin in Harrisburg, where they would await orders and prepare for war.

“They’re staying in Harrisburg?” asked Gerda, her face lighting up with hope.

“For now,” said Hans. “I don’t know how long.”

“We could visit them,” Gerda exclaimed. “Dorothea and I, Constance, Mary—all the ladies of the sewing circle. We could carry with us anything they might have left behind or didn’t realize they needed. You saw the camp, Hans. You can advise us what to take.” She touched Anneke on the forearm. “You wouldn’t need to go, of course, not with the boys to mind and Hans here at home, and your delicate condition.”

Anneke nodded, relieved to be spared the trip. “I’ll do whatever else I can to help you prepare. If any of our friends need any sewing or knitting for their husbands finished, or if Constance wants her sons to stay with us while she’s away—that would be all right with you, wouldn’t it, Hans?”

“They’ll likely move on before you could get organized.” Then Hans winced, raked a hand through his thick brown hair, and rested his elbows on his knees. “In any case, Constance wouldn’t need us to watch her sons because she wouldn’t be traveling with you.”

“Why not?” said Anneke. A glance to Gerda showed that she was equally perplexed.

“They didn’t let Abel enlist,” said Hans. “He argued, his friends spoke up for him, but in the end they wouldn’t let him put pen to paper. I don’t want war, you know that, but to turn away a sharpshooter, a brave man, a good loyal Unionist, all because of the color of his skin—” Hans shook his head. “Foolishness, utter foolishness, and it may cost the Union the war.”

Anneke could picture the scene vividly, and yet it was incomprehensible. Until that moment, she had thought the Union cause just and noble, their army led by wise and courageous men, and victory certain. The officers’ hubris shocked her, transformed all her confidence into doubt. How could the Union afford to turn away not only a single willing and able man, but thousands, thereby hindering the very cause they all urgently wanted to serve?

She wondered if Constance were at that very moment praising God for restoring her husband to her so unexpectedly, or if she were cursing the foolish officers who had shamed the man she loved by sending him away.

G
eorge and Joseph were first delighted and then puzzled to discover their father in the barn when they rose at dawn to do their chores. Constance wasn’t sure how Abel explained matters to them, but when they returned inside for breakfast, their sweet faces cloudy and brows furrowed, her heart sank. Abel would not have made false excuses but would have given them the plain, hard truth: As badly as the nation needed soldiers, the Union Army had not wanted their father because he was colored. Young boys should see the whole world open to them, but almost daily she witnessed her sons’ expectations shrink little by little. Their father would never appear less of a man in their eyes—to them he would always be the hero who had rescued their mama from an evil slave owner and brought her to freedom—but as they grew, how would they endure the restrictions and prohibitions that had chafed their father all his life? Already, Abel spoke to her in confidence about saving enough money to help the boys get a good start out west when they were grown. “I want them to have opportunities I didn’t,” he had said the last time he put a silver dollar in the iron strongbox he kept hidden beneath a loose floorboard in the kitchen.

Constance agreed that they should put money aside for their sons’ future, but not that George and Joseph should leave Pennsylvania. How could Abel be sure the West would be any better for colored men than the East? The same laws of the United States and its territories would apply. The white people would be the same out west as they were in the east, some friendly to colored folks and others hostile. And what of the boys’ desires? George adored his home—the goats, the cows, the fields, the forests—and she couldn’t imagine him happy anywhere else. Until Abel started his talk about the West, she had assumed he intended their eldest son to take over the farm someday. As for Joseph, he was so bright and so good about tending ill or injured livestock and helping Abel deliver kids and calves that Constance thought he would make a fine doctor. She had spoken to Dorothea about apprenticing him to Dr. Granger when he was old enough, and Dorothea had agreed to ask her brother when the time came. Constance figured her plans for the boys were as likely as Abel’s to ensure their future happiness—and far more likely to ensure hers. “I’ve seen too many families split up by slavery to consider dividing up mine by choice,” she had told Abel on more than one occasion. “If the boys go west, we go with them. Our family stays together.”

That usually stopped Abel’s talk of the West for a while, for he loved his farm and did not want to leave it, except to sell cheese or to fight Rebels. His people were from York County and he did not want to be more than a day’s ride from his brother, sisters, and their families. How he could entertain the idea of sending the boys away “for their own good” when he didn’t want to stray too far from his own home and kin mystified her.

At breakfast, Abel said little except to undo all the instructions he had left the boys for taking care of the farm in his absence. Constance suppressed a smile to see her sons’ barely concealed relief; for all their staunch assurances that they were ready to be the men of the house with their father away, they were thankful that the whole burden of farming and dairying wouldn’t fall on their shoulders.

The rest of the day went on like any other: seeing her boys off to school, cleaning, cooking, milking, ringing the triangle to call Abel in for lunch, tidying the house, greeting her sons when they returned home and sending them back outside again to help their father with the herd. Only as she and Abel climbed into bed that evening, weary from the day’s labors and still unsettled by the jarring return to normalcy after so much preparation for their lives to change utterly, did she tell him the truth: “I’m not sorry those white officers sent you away.” All across the valley, women were pulling back quilts and climbing into bed alone, reaching out to touch the hollows in the mattresses that once cupped their husbands’ sleeping forms. Mothers lay awake, wondering if they would ever see their precious sons alive again. Constance was one of the blessed few who had her husband and her children close and safe. “I’m only sorry about why.”

Abel managed a smile before he blew out the lamp. “I thought maybe you were looking forward to some time without me underfoot.”

As he lay down, she snuggled up beside him and rested her head on his shoulder. “Don’t talk foolishness.”

He stroked her hair and was silent for a long moment. “I wish I’d joined the Zouave Cadets when I had the chance.”

“You never did have a chance. The Twelfth Pennsylvania had organized and set out before anyone around here knew they had let colored men in that Company I.”

“Even so . . .” He sighed heavily in the darkness. “Joe and I have been talking—us and our sisters’ husbands and some other Centre and York County colored men. We thought we might form our own company, see if some of the mustered-out Zouave Cadets would join us, find a sergeant and officers to take charge and train us. Colored businessmen from Williamsport to Mercersburg have pledged enough money to completely outfit a company with uniforms, rifles, and supplies.”

When had all this talk been going on? Constance sat up on her elbows and stared at him in the semidarkness. “Where you going to find a colored sergeant and officers?”

“Not colored, white. With white officers, supplies, and proper training, we won’t be easily dismissed.”

Constance fell back against the pillow and flung an arm over her eyes, muffling a groan. Just when she thought her husband was safe—but she should have known he would persist. When he grabbed hold of something, he held on like a bulldog—growling, relentless, and determined. “You really think they’d muster you in?”

“They mustered in the Zouave Cadets.”

“But what about those Hannibal Guards? What if the Union Army treats you the same way?”

Abel fell silent, and Constance knew he was reflecting upon the company of colored men that had formed in Pittsburgh back in April, at a time when one by one the Southern states were voting to secede and President Lincoln had issued a call for seventy-five thousand militia to put down the insurrection. “We consider ourselves American citizens and interested in the Commonwealth of our white fellow citizens,” the captain of the Hannibal Guards, Samuel Sanders, had declared. “Although deprived of all political rights, we yet wish the government of the United States to be sustained against the tyranny of slavery, and are willing to assist in any honorable way or manner to sustain the present administration.” His fine words had sent a thrill of pride and apprehension down her spine when Abel had read them aloud from the newspaper, but the Union Army had apparently remained unmoved, for the Hannibal Guards had never been mustered into service.

“Captain Sanders is colored,” said Abel. “We’ll have a white officer.”

“If you can find one.” Constance rolled over onto her side, her back to him. “One who isn’t already leading a white company and is willing to lose a lot of white friends by agreeing to lead colored men into battle.”

“There must be a veteran from the Mexican War who would put love of country above all else, who would see only soldiers in blue Union wool and not black or white skin.”

“A man with so much love of country is probably already volunteering,” Constance countered. “But say you do find such a man, and say they let your company muster in. What if they put you to digging ditches or guarding trains?”

Abel ran a hand over his jaw. “It would be a start. If we have to prove ourselves before they let us fight, then so be it.”

Constance was too weary to prolong the argument, and after a time, she fell into fitful sleep. The next day, Abel said nothing about his plans to form a colored company with his brother and brothers-in-law, but the next week, he made an overnight trip to Mercersburg to meet with them and other potential volunteers. He returned, energized and optimistic, bursting with news of names enrolled and money raised. They had not found a white officer, but a corporal from the disbanded Company I of the Pennsylvania 12th had agreed to train them while they continued to search.

Throughout October, the men of the Susquehanna Militia, African Descent met on an open field outside of Mercersburg every Saturday to drill and march, in uniforms sewn by their wives and mothers. Constance felt her resistance ebbing when she saw Abel’s pride reflected in their children’s eyes every time he put on the blue frock coat and trousers she had reluctantly but faithfully sewn. Wasn’t it their country too, even as Abel said? If the fight belonged to anyone, it belonged to the colored.

She did not want Abel to risk his life, but it was his to risk, and the cause was just.

November came, and still they had not found a white officer willing to assume command of the company. For a time, Abel and his comrades were heartened by reports from the South of “contraband,” escaped slaves who had crossed federal lines and wanted to serve the Union. Some Union officers had already used contraband on fortifications and were anxious to continue, so they asked Washington to clarify its official policy. Eventually, the secretary of war had concluded that the Fugitive Slave Law must be respected in loyal states, but in those states in insurrection, runaway slaves clearly could not be returned to their rebellious owners. For more than a year, the Union Navy had been paying contraband laborers a full day’s ration and ten dollars a month, while the Union Army offered eight dollars a month for men and four dollars for women at Fort Monroe. It was not soldiering, but it was a start, and rich with the hope of more to come.