When This Cruel War Is Over (4 page)
Read When This Cruel War Is Over Online
Authors: Thomas Fleming
The last time Paul had seen brother Jonathan, he was recovering from a bullet in the knee that had left him with a permanent limp. His hair had turned snow-white, and he had an ugly scar on his right cheek where another southern bullet had struck him during the second battle of Bull Run, knocking out numerous teeth on that side of his mouth. Most of the New Jerseyans Jonathan had recruited for the regiment he raised in response to President Lincoln's call for 75,000 volunteers were dead or wounded. Jonathan was now a major general in command of a division. He recently had confided to Paul that he feared the war might last another five years.
“You know what I think, Major?” Sergeant Washington said. “Them horse thieves wasn't deserters. They was local Democrats. That thing was an ambush. They used this poor sucker we found in the straw as an excuse to shoot us up and steal some government horses.”
“I'm inclined to agree with you.”
“Could be a sign of big trouble ahead.”
Paul remembered Dr. Yancey's warning that he might
soon need another hundred men. “You might be right about that too,” he said.
soon need another hundred men. “You might be right about that too,” he said.
Major Stapleton's agreement with Sergeant Washington was mostly a formality. He did not really think the trouble would be bigger than they could handle. As a professional soldier, he actually liked the idea of a local uprising. It would be an interesting opportunity to develop new tactics and strategies that might prove useful when the army occupied the conquered South. It might also be dangerous enough to impress Janet Todd with his daring, even if she disapproved of his politics.
IN THE FRONT PARLOR OF The Grange, the Gentry mansion on the outskirts of Keyport, Colonel Henry Todd Gentry's mother, Millicent Todd Gentry, was playing the grand piano with her usual heavy hand. Her grandniece Janet Todd was singing “The Bonnie Blue Flag” in a lilting contralto. In his cellar office, Henry Gentry asked himself who else but Todds would playâor singâa Confederate war song in the home of the Union military commander of southern Indiana?
More than once, Gentry had come close to advising his friend Abraham Lincoln not to marry a Todd. Henry's mother had reduced his father to putty before Willard Gentry died of heart disease when his son was nineteen. Henry was not surprised when Abe later remarked in a letter that one
d
was enough for God but not for the Todds. A more high-toned, imperious family never inhabited the earth.
d
was enough for God but not for the Todds. A more high-toned, imperious family never inhabited the earth.
Janet Todd seemed pressed from the same mold. At first Gentry was tempted to warn Major Paul Stapleton of the true proportions of the risk he was taking. Now he was encouraging the match in the name of military necessity. Irony. Gentry had begun to think this war was a story not of blood and iron but of blood and irony.
The colonel swigged from a bottle of bourbon on the desk of his subterranean headquarters. He had moved into the cellar when he returned from Shiloh minus his right arm. It seemed a good place to hide what was left of his body and his self-esteem. Not only was he a military failureâLincoln's Own regiment had taken casualties
of 50 percent at Shilohâhe was a lost soul. He resigned his colonel's commission and stocked the cellar with enough bourbon to keep himself in a permanent state of amnesia.
of 50 percent at Shilohâhe was a lost soul. He resigned his colonel's commission and stocked the cellar with enough bourbon to keep himself in a permanent state of amnesia.
Gentry could not begin to understand why God had chosen to disfigure Uncle Henry, favorite host of the playgirls of Louisville and Cincinnati. Walter Yancey and Andy Conway, his favorite freethinking partners in sin, tried to cheer him up, but the war had already begun undermining their friendship.
Lincoln had rescued Gentry from oblivion with one of his rarest letters. The president began with a refusal to accept Gentry's resignation as colonel. Next, Abe reminded the self-pitying hero that he had been the worst right-handed horseshoe pitcher in Indiana. Maybe he could do better left-handed. As for the ladies of Cincinnati and Louisville, Abe was sure they would be delighted to learn Gentry was home from the war and had not lost anything
essential.
Finally, in a single pseudopompous sentence, he had appointed Gentry director of military intelligence and chief bashaw for the government in Indiana and signed it: “A. Lincoln, Dictator.”
essential.
Finally, in a single pseudopompous sentence, he had appointed Gentry director of military intelligence and chief bashaw for the government in Indiana and signed it: “A. Lincoln, Dictator.”
The embattled Republican governor of Indiana, who depended totally on money Lincoln sent him from Washington, had made Gentry the commander of a three-county district along the Ohio. Gentry soon decided Lincoln needed military and political intelligence from the area and used his private funds to create a network of informers.
The intelligence director's cellar office was especially suitable on this particular day. The business he was conducting was subterranean in every sense of the word. In the dim light from the half-window that looked out on the garden, Janet Todd's body servant, Lucy, was reciting her owner's latest letter. Lucy's voice was low and the words were rushed and frightened. She knew what she was risking.
“She say you must come because nothin' matter now but victory. Otherwise the dead won't rest easy.”
“But she didn't mention when the guns and money would arrive?”
“No s'r.”
“I need a date.”
“I'll listen hard, Major. I surely will. What about my sister Maybelle? You found her in New Orleans?”
“I'm trying my best.”
“Federal government runs New Orleans now, don't they?”
“I told youâI'm trying to find her. But it isn't easy. They may have changed her nameâ”
“I won't quit on you if you find her. I swears it 'fore God.”
Lucy was not stupid. She could read Gentry's devious spymaster's mind. She could see into the recesses of his hardened heart. Gentry understood, now, why no one in George Washington's army wanted anything to do with spying at first. Nothing corrupted a man faster than intelligence work. To ferret out the truths necessary to win the war, the spymaster lied or told half-truths to almost everyone.
“We need a date. The exact day.”
“I'll try to learn it.”
“Colonel Gentry! Can you spare me a few minutes?”
It was Major Paul Stapleton, back from the Fitzsimmons farm. Gentry realized the piano had ceased. Female voices rippled behind the major at the head of the cellar stairs.
Terror shredded Lucy's oval face. “Just a minute, Major!” Gentry called. “Let me light you down the stairs!”
He signaled Lucy to vanish. In sixty seconds she had slipped out the storm cellar door into the garden between the house and the barn. Gentry lit a candle and lumbered to the foot of the stairs. Major Stapleton
clumped down the wooden steps in his cavalryman's boots and followed Gentry into his office.
clumped down the wooden steps in his cavalryman's boots and followed Gentry into his office.
“I've got some unpleasant news to report,” Major Stapleton said. “We ran into an ambush at the Fitzsimmons farm. Four men, including Captain Otis, have been wounded. We killed one of the attackers. Maybe you can help identify the body.”
“What a hell of a thing. On the Fourth of July.”
“Another reason why I think it was an ambush,” Major Stapleton said.
“Is Otis badly hurt?” Gentry asked.
“He thinks he is. I've sent for Doctor Yancey. I trust he'll treat my troopers as well.”
“I'm sure he will.”
They went out the cellar door and around to the barn where the troopers had deposited the wounded and the body of the dead ambusher. Gentry stared at the swarthy face of the corpse, the pupils rolled back in final agony. “My God,” he said. “That's one of Rogers Jameson's hired men, Frankie Worth.”
“Who's Rogers Jameson?”
“He owns Rose Hill, on the Kentucky shore. He runs a big sawmill on this side of the river. He's Andy Conway's brother-in-lawâand the chief backer of his newspaper.”
“Is he a friend of yours?”
“A friendly enemy would be more exact.”
“Is Frankie a deserter?”
Gentry shook his head. “He's a Democrat. You couldn't have gotten him or anyone else in his family into the army.”
“I'm in favor of delivering this body to Mr. Jamesonâand searching his sawmill and his plantation,” Major Stapleton said. “They stole four of our horses.”
It was remarkable, Gentry thought, how the major's boyish face could become an inflexible mask when he
assumed a military role. Did they teach such transformations at West Point? Or was it an inherited trait?
assumed a military role. Did they teach such transformations at West Point? Or was it an inherited trait?
“That would be a rather cruel thing to do,” Gentry said. “Frankie's mother lives just down the road from the sawmill. She might be there.”
“The bullets this fellow and his friends put into my men were rather cruel, too,” Major Stapleton said.
They faced each other there in the hot barn, the amateur and the professional soldier. “Do I have your permission to conduct a search, Colonel?”
“I think not,” Gentry said. “Rogers Jameson is too smart to leave any evidence aroundâif he's linked in any way with this ambush. I'll send one of my field hands to tell him to pick up the body.”
The clop of horses' hooves interrupted them. Coming through the gate of Gentry's property was a massive blond-haired man on a buckboard drawn by two fine white horses. As usual, Rogers Jameson was hatless in the summer sun. His face was tanned a mulatto brown. Beside him was a younger man who could have been a double for the dead Frankie.
“Here he is now,” Gentry said. “That's Frankie's twin brother, Pete Worth, with him.”
“Isn't this a good argument to conduct a search? He's obviously trying to head one off,” Major Stapleton said.
Gentry hurried across the lawn toward the buckboard as Rogers Jameson climbed down from the seat. The sheer size of the man was still intimidating. Jameson was about Gentry's heightâsix feetâbut twice as wide, with shoulders the size of a bull's haunches and a huge head. Years of poling flatboats on the Ohio and Mississippi had given him arms the size of an ordinary man's thigh. Age and good eating had added a layer of fat to his hulking torso, but he still moved with the agility of an athlete. Only one man had ever thrown Rogers Jameson in a wrestling match: Abe Lincoln.
“Does this visit have something to do with Frankie Worth?” Gentry asked.
“Where is he?” Jameson said.
“His body is in the barn.”
“Killed by your niggers. How can you face yourself in the mirror each morning, Henry?”
“He was killed by my troopers, sir,” Major Stapleton said. He had followed Gentry down to the dusty oval in front of the main house. “Killed after he and his friends fired on them without provocation.”
“That's not what Pete here tells me,” Jameson said. “They were at the Fitzsimmons farm for a Fourth of July party. Pete here's courtin' Sarah Fitzsimmons. The niggers and their captain, John Brown Jr., just rode up, said they was deserters, and tried to arrest them. Frankie told them to go to hell and they shot him dead.”
“That is a complete and total fabrication, sir,” Major Stapleton said.
“I have no interest in listenin' to lies told by Abe Lincoln's hired scum,” Jameson said. He had his hand on a pistol in a holster on his belt. Major Stapleton had his hand on his pistol. They were seconds away from drawing and firing.
“For God's sake, Rogers, control yourself,” Gentry said, stepping between the two men. “There are young women watching us.”
Janet Todd and Dorothy Schreiber, both in festive white, were peering out the parlor windows at the confrontation.
“Henry, you've always been an asshole. You were born a two-armed asshole; you'll die a one-armed asshole. Events will soon prove you and your asshole friend Abe are a matched pair.”
The insult did not surprise Gentry. Rogers Jameson had been telling people in Hunter County that Henry Todd Gentry was a fool for a long time. The idea had
taken root with the pertinacity of ragweed. Hardly surprising, really. It gave a lot of people intense pleasure to think that Henry Gentry, inheritor of 6,000 prime acres on the Ohio, a threshing mill, a thriving general store and a ferry service, was a nitwit.
taken root with the pertinacity of ragweed. Hardly surprising, really. It gave a lot of people intense pleasure to think that Henry Gentry, inheritor of 6,000 prime acres on the Ohio, a threshing mill, a thriving general store and a ferry service, was a nitwit.
Jameson and Pete Worth strode to the barn, picked up Frankie Worth's body, deposited it in the buckboard and rode away without saying another word. As they rattled out the gate, Major Stapleton asked, “Why didn't you arrest them both? Are you going to let them bury that fellow without another word?”
“We'll deal with them at the appropriate time and place,” Gentry said. Inwardly he winced at the disgust on Stapleton's face. Maybe it was time to explain to this young man why he preferred to play a waiting game with Rogers Jameson and his Democratic friends.
“I almost forgot another matter,” the major said. “We caught a deserter. He wasn't involved in the skirmish. Would you like to talk to him?”
“Of course. Where is he?”
The deserter was in the back of the barn in a stall that Sergeant Washington had fitted out as an office. The prisoner did not look more than fifteen years old. Gentry dismissed the trooper who was guarding him and asked the boy his name. “Robert Garner,” he said. “I didn't plan to desert. I just come north to see my momma.”
“Why did you go to the Fitzsimmons farm?” Gentry asked.
“Joe Fitz' was my friend in the armyâthe only friend I hadâuntil he got killed at Vicksburg. They made us charge a Confederate battery. A cannonball took his head off. His blood covered meâmy hands, my face. Ever since that happened I been sick. I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep.”
“Colonel?” Sergeant Washington loomed in the doorway. “Trooper Bowen give this to me. Says he saw this guy tryin' to hide it in his shoe.”
The piece of paper was grimy with sweat and dirt. Gentry opened it and read: “âI, Robert Garner, do solemnly swear that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Confederate States of America, and that I will to the best of my ability support its Constitution and its laws, so help me God.
“âSubscribed and sworn to before me, Post Commandant, at Richmond, Kentucky.
“âColonel William C. Danforth.'”
“I don't mean a word of that,” Garner said. “I had to sign it to get through the Confederate lines. They control everything in southeast Kentucky.”
“What do you know about the men who fired on Major Stapleton's troopers?” Gentry asked.
“I never saw them before. They came to the farm this mornin'. They wanted me to join them. I said I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't shoot a Union soldier. They cursed me for a coward.”
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