Leigh Ann's Civil War Read online

  Leigh Ann's Civil War

  Ann Rinaldi

  * * *

  Harcourt

  Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  BOSTON NEW YORK 2009

  * * *

  $17.00

  Higher in Canada

  Spunky and determined, Leigh Ann Conners has a propensity for mischief that often gets her into trouble. Her estranged mother claims she is growing up wild, but Leigh Ann knows she's doing just fine; she adores her two older brothers, who are raising her, and would do anything to make them proud.

  When the dreaded Yankees arrive in Roswell, Georgia, Leigh Ann places a French flag atop her family's mill, hoping to convince the Yankees to spare it from destruction. That simple action, done out of love for her brothers, has disastrous results. Leigh Ann is arrested and sent north with the women and children who worked in the mill—all branded traitors for making fabric for Confederate uniforms.

  Disguised as a boy, Leigh Ann embarks on a journey that will force her to grow up more quickly than she imagined. In doing so, she must find her own source of strength, for only then will she be able to rise above the war raging around her—and fight for all she holds dear.

  ***

  * * *

  Other Novels by Ann Rinaldi

  My Vicksburg

  The Letter Writer

  Juliet's Moon

  The Ever-After Bird

  Come Juneteenth

  An Unlikely Friendship

  Brooklyn Rose

  Or Give Me Death

  The Staircase

  The Coffin Quilt

  Cast Two Shadows

  An Acquaintance with Darkness

  Hang a Thousand Trees with Ribbons

  Keep Smiling Through

  The Secret of Sarah Revere

  Finishing Becca

  The Fifth of March

  A Break with Charity

  A Ride into Morning

  * * *

  Copyright© 2009 byAnnRinaldi

  All rights reserved For information about permission to reproduce selections from this

  book, write to Permissions, Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt Publishing Company.

  215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

  Harcourt is an imprint of Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt Publishing Company.

  www.hmhbooks.com

  Text set in Adobe Garamond.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Rinaldi, Ann.

  Leigh Ann's Civil War / Ann Rinaldi

  p. cm

  Summary: Recounts the experiences of a spunky young girl, just eleven when the Civil War

  breaks out, as she watches her brothers go to war, helps care for her mentally ill father,

  and falls in love with a boy determined to be a soldier. Includes historical notes. Includes

  bibliographical references.

  ISBN 978-0-15-206513-3 (hardcover : alk. paper)

  1. UnitedStates-History-Civil War, 1861-1865-Juvenile fiction,[l. United States-

  History-Civil War, 1861-1865-Fiction. 2. Brothers and sisters-Fiction.

  3. Family life-Georgia-Fiction.] I Title.

  PZ7.R459Ldm2009 [Fic]-dc22 2009019520

  Printed in the United States of America

  MP 10 98765432 1

  This is a work of fiction. All the names, characters, places, organizations, and events

  portrayed in this book are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously

  to lend a sense of realism to the story.

  * * *

  In memory of my sister Ruth

  * * *

  PROLOGUE

  Summer 1864 Marietta, Georgia

  It was the dog who did it.

  If I had shot the dog with the Enfield rifle Sergeant Mulholland had given me, everything would have been agreeable to him. But I could not bring myself to shoot it.

  All six were dead in the pen near him. Flies buzzed around them in the July heat. The one I was supposed to shoot sat there, eyes fixed on me, just as Cicero, our dog at home, would do.

  How could I shoot it? How could I ever face Cicero again, if I did?

  There was nothing else to steal at the ransacked plantation, anyway. So the Yankees were down to killing the animals. They had already shot the last three remaining cows. I think the mistress had sent away the horses. At least I hoped she had. I could not bring myself to shoot a horse. I'd die first.

  The mistress, a frightened young woman who did not look old enough to have two children, had tearfully told me that we were the fourth group of bummers to come this day.

  "The others already took everything," she cried.

  Mulholland had sent me to the house to see if there was anything left worth taking. "Any corn or foodstuffs in the larder," he directed. "Any flour or sorghum, hominy or pea-meal. Eggs. Some of these people keep chickens in the cellar and hide eggs.

  "Get anything you can, Conners, and if I find you left her with anything I'll beat your Southern behind worse than I did last time."

  I did find some flour and eggs. I begged her to hide them under her bed upstairs. After all, she had children. Then I heard a low moan from below.

  She had a cow in the cellar!

  "Keep it quiet," I told her. "We're leaving now, anyway."

  I stood, Enfield rifle in hand, in front of the dog, praying Mulholland and the two other boys, Ressen and Parker, would soon come. They had finished at the house and were down at the stream taking a quick wash.

  The dog whined like he knew I was suffering. Dogs always do know when we're suffering. So, I thought, I'm not a good bummer after all, am I?

  What was a bummer?

  Well, another name for them is wastrels. You see, the Yankee general William T. Sherman's soldiers were made to leave their food supplies behind when they started on their grand march to destroy the South. So they had to live off the land as they went along. And somebody had to get the food for them.

  They called it foraging. And the young boys who did it were called bummers.

  It wasn't my idea to be one. When the Yankees came to our town of Roswell on the fifth of July, General Kenner Garrard, who led the invasion, arrested me, along with hundreds of other women and children, black and white, who had to do with the Roswell cotton mill.

  Garrard placed me under arrest because of my connection with the mill.

  And so here I am, serving under snake-in-the-grass Mulholland.

  He does not know I am a girl. My boys' clothes have served me well.

  He has already smacked me around twice. He has whipped me once with his hard Yankee belt so that my bottom hurt. No one except Mother has ever whipped me, and she just that once.

  My brother Teddy, who raised me up, never laid a hand on me.

  The fault is mine, of course, that Mulholland mistreated me. I never showed him the protection notice that the Yankee major J. C. McCoy gave me before I left Ros-well. It says, in an official way, on official paper, that the person it is presented to is not to beat me or starve me or they will answer to him and he will see to it they receive severe disciplinary punishment.

  I was saving it for a crucial moment.

  I may have to use it soon.

  The dog was still looking at me.

  "Don't worry," I told him. "I'm not going to shoot you. I'm going to stand up to Mulholland. Even if I have to use my protection notice here and now."

  The dog lay down, crossed his paws, put his head on them, and waited.

  Mulholland was coming back with the other boys, laboriously scaling the hill from the creek, his ample body breathing heavily. "Didn't you shoot that damned dog yet, Conners?" he yelled out as he came toward me.

  He grabbed my Enfield.
"What kind of a bummer do you think you are?"

  At this the dog got up and growled at him, just as Cicero would do.

  Mulholland readied his aim. "No!" I shouted, and at the same time pushed the rifle so when it went off it missed the dog.

  "Damn you little..." Then he used a cuss word I'd never even heard my brothers say, and they could cuss beautifully when the occasion warranted it. Mulholland came at me as if to give me a blow at the side of my head.

  Oh, I wanted to pull the protection notice out of my trouser pocket. But somehow I knew that I had to save it for a better reason.

  I stepped back to avoid his blow. He grabbed at my shirt and there was a ripping sound.

  My shirt tore away in front. I screamed and put my hands up to cover myself, but it was too late.

  He saw my bosoms. The other two boys did, too.

  "Holy God," Ressen said. "He's a girl!"

  Parker just whistled and stared.

  I gathered the remnants of my shirt and held them to me. Tears came down my face.

  The unexpectedness of it put Mulholland in a daze. "They giving me women now? Well, I'm going to report this to headquarters. My brother is in charge of these shenanigans, remember. I want no more to do with you. I'll have him ship you back tonight."

  Still clutching my shirt in front, I grabbed his arm. "Sergeant Mulholland, sir?"

  He pulled his arm away. "Now what? Don't think I won't beat the pants off you even if you are a girl."

  "Would you have my sister-in-law Carol and my sister, Viola, shipped back, too?"

  He scowled. "Now why should I do a thing like that for a brat like you? Wait a minute. You say your name is Conners? Why does that name sound familiar to me?"

  I drew myself up proudly, in spite of my dusty trousers, dirty face, and torn shirt. "My pa is Hunter Con-ners, sir. He built and owned the mill in Roswell that you all burned."

  "They say he's crazier than a bedbug."

  "And you were always hovering around my sister-in-law Carol Conners, sir, on the way here, if I may be so bold as to say."

  "You may not be! I've got a right to. She's the spoils of war. And so are you. So watch yourself. And here, cover yourself up."

  He grabbed an extra shirt from his haversack and threw it at me. It smelled, but I put it on.

  "Your sister-in-law, eh? Which one of your brothers is she married to?"

  "My brother Teddy."

  He laughed. His laugh was evil, nothing less. "The mill may be burned, but that's some fine plantation he's got there. And rumor has it that before he went crazy your pa put all his Confederate money into Northern script. Secretary Chase's greenbacks, you people call 'em. Maybe your brother even has some gold coin. All you plantation folk are worth a lot of money."

  More laughter now. This time, calculating. "That Carol of his is some looker. No doubt he misses her sorely. Am I right?"

  I decided not to answer. And I would never admit to him that she was pregnant.

  He grinned, showing three gold teeth. "I was planning on taking her north and making her my woman. Where is she now?"

  "Working in the field hospital. Major General Grenville Dodge got her and Viola jobs as nurses there," I said importantly.

  "Well, as I said, my brother is in charge of this whole Marietta operation. All I gotta say is I want Carol and I'll get her. Not for my own. But to send back where I can get a handsome price for her from your brother. Hell, you people buy and sell slaves all the time. And my brother likes money as much as any man."

  My mind was working fast. I felt loath to say anything to this despicable man.

  Should I show him the protection notice I had from Major McCoy? No, I decided. He had his plans all set. He might rip it up and pretend it never existed, especially since he had already mistreated me.

  I would give it to his brother. I would use it to get Viola released along with me and Carol, and for protection for all of us on the way home.

  "All right," he said. "Come on, we're going back to camp to have a talk with my brother."

  As the four of us made our way back to the camp, nobody said anything about the dog who trailed along next to me.

  ***

  Major Thomas MuLhoLLand and the Army of the Cumberland were headquartered at the Georgia Military Institute on the hill. The lovely, rolling grounds were spotted now with things that should make them quarantined. Yankee tents and horses, and all the cooking and military gear soldiers need to convince themselves that what they were doing was not a crime but brave. That it was all right to trample flower beds, once so lovingly cared for, and pee in the hedges and strip bare the fruit trees and mangle neat fences.

  At the moment, the institute also housed mill workers waiting to be taken by rail to Nashville, but Major Mulholland's headquarters were in a separate part of the building.

  His brother left the other two bummers outside and took me right to him. The dog went with me.

  "He can't come in here," Sergeant Mulholland said outside his brother's office.

  "He goes where I go," I said firmly. "I leave him outside and they'll shoot him. He stays outside and I'll tell your brother you beat me."

  It was chancy, but it worked. He nodded. The guard opened the door of the office and announced us, and in a moment we were ushered in.

  It must have once been the office of the commander-in-chief of the military academy, or whatever fancy name they called him. For it was very commodious, with shelves full of books that told young boys how to make war, paneled walls, oaken floors covered with Persian carpets, and velvet drapes on the windows.

  Major Mulholland was not a bad-looking man for a Northerner, if I, at fourteen, am a judge at all of men. And having grown up around my brothers, I think I am.

  For one thing he was physically in better condition than his brother the sergeant. And although he wore a beard, it was kept in tow and not allowed to grow wild, all over the place. His fingernails were clean; I could see that right from the get-go. Both my brothers were fastidious about their fingernails. I fancied that taken out of that Yankee uniform and put in some human clothes he could be downright passable.

  "What's this, Sergeant?" he asked his brother. "You know I don't meet with any of the mill workers. And what is that dog doing in here?"

  "She isn't a mill worker," Mulholland answered. "She was passed off to me as a bummer. And I can explain about the dog."

  So he did, in crisp, careful words, with no cussing. It was clear that he respected his brother. It was also clear that he knew how to get around him.

  The major listened carefully, nodding and thinking. "So she's been arrested by Garrard. What gives us the right to go against his orders and send her back?"

  "She's trouble, Tom. Talks to birds. Knows all that negro hoodoo crap."

  "So, we'll ship her off to Nashville with the rest of them."

  "We could. But I have another plan."

  "You have a plan. Excuse me, Russ, but we're not kids at home anymore planning to raid the pantry. I've got a good record in this man's army and I'm not about to ruin it."

  Sergeant Mulholland stepped closer to his brother's desk and, lowering his tone, imparted his plan to his brother.

  The major listened again.

  I watched his face.

  He raised his eyebrows, looked over at me, bit his bottom lip, looked over at me again, shook his head no, and this time took my measure from head to toe and nodded yes.

  Then he opened a drawer of his desk, took out a bottle of whiskey and two glasses, and offered one to his brother. They both drank the amber-colored liquid down quickly, because obviously Russ's plan necessitated it.

  "Tell me why," he asked me, "should I let you and the Viola girl go and not just this Carol we're to negotiate for?"

  It was time.

  I reached into my pocket, took out the protection notice, walked over to his desk, and gave it to him.

  He read it and his face went white. "Major McCoy, eh?" he said. "A high-ranking
Yankee official."

  "Yes, sir," I answered.

  "It doesn't say we have to let you go."

  "No, it doesn't, sir. But your brother here beat me and smacked me around. He tore my shirt in front and exposed me. I can report that to Major McCoy."

  He thought for a moment. "Did you show this notice to my brother?"

  I felt a cloud of dread. "No, sir. I was saving it for the right moment."

  He laughed. "Then you have no complaint against him. You gave him no warning." He laughed again. "I always did say you Southerners were dense. Did you know that we caught the person sent here from Philadelphia to spirit you and your sisters away? Could have arrested him. Sent him back." He was gloating.

  I thought quickly. "Either we all go home, sir," I told him, "or none of us goes."

  "What's that you say?"

  "I'm just telling you what my sister-in-law Carol will tell you. What she will say. Carol won't go without me and Viola. She wouldn't let us come on this trip alone and she won't let us continue alone. I just thought you ought to know."

  "Damned stubborn Southerners."

  "Yessir."

  "Why are you so polite?"

  "I was raised that way, sir."

  "Who raised you? They say your pa's crazy and your ma's a slut."

  "My brothers, sir. Louis and Teddy. They are both Southern gentlemen."

  He humphed. "Manners are all they got left. All right, all right. We'll use this protection notice for all three of you to be sent back under the guidance of my brother here. And for God's sake, Russ, no more beating her or smacking her around, you hear?"

  "Yeah, I hear."

  "And get her some decent clothing."

  "How am I gonna do that?"

  "Excuse me, sir," I said, "but I'd just as lief stay in my boys' clothes. I can get another shirt. And if I can take the dog with me."

  "The dog? Are you sure there isn't anything else you want?"

  "Yessir. I'd like my protection notice returned, if you please."

  He leaned back in his chair, smiling. "Russ, secure a horse for each of them. And five days' worth of rations for each. And the dog. As for the protection notice, little girl..." He held it in his hands, looking at it. "You've used it up. It's like Yankee script. Once you've used it, it's spent. Did your brothers teach you nothing about money?"