My Vicksburg Read online

  Cannon fire soon filled the air, and James began to cry. Pa reached over from Mercer's back and took James onto the saddle with him. Pa had a special place in his heart for James.

  My one wish in life was to find my special place in Pa's heart. Times I saw him eyeing me with a fondness when he didn't think I saw. But then Pa would say something jagged, covered by humor, that cut like a scalpel.

  Mama said he did not know how to act with me at my sensitive age. "When was the last time he took you on his lap?" she asked.

  Tears came to my eyes. I could not remember.

  "He doesn't want you to grow up," she told me. "He doesn't know what to do with you now that you are growing up. So he teases you."

  "He's always telling me to grow up."

  "He means behave. He is more comfortable," she said, "with his sons. So he gets brusque and stern. He dies a little inside, thinking of the boys he someday may have to share you with."

  "Mama, I'm only thirteen. Why punish me for it now?"

  "He knows what's coming."

  It sounded right, but it was not right. Not by my calculations. Pa was a doctor. He should know, more than anybody, what a girl went through when she was growing up, and what love she needed from her own father. And he was not giving it. And now he was leaving.

  As we got closer to Vicksburg, the road before us became crowded with soldiers—Confederate soldiers, ragged and some barefoot, with dirty faces and hollow eyes and shamefaced looks. They stopped and saluted when they saw Pa.

  "We been beat, sir. The enemy is pursuing us from Big Black and Bridgeport Ferry."

  "Never mind that," Pa said. "I understand there are Louisiana and Tennessee troops commanding the riverfront. So we're still strong. Vicksburg won't fall. Now, is anybody here hurt?

  One man had a slash on his head and Pa stopped, took his doctor's bag right out of the surrey, and fixed the head right there. Then we went on.

  It was night by the time we got to Vicksburg. Fierce shelling was going on from Porter's ironclad boats on the river. It was like fireworks on the Fourth of July. We didn't go home. Home was across town, Pa said, and he wouldn't let us go there. We went, instead, inside a church. The street outside was crowded with wagons, caissons, artillery, surreys, and waiting horses. I think it was the Catholic Church, St. Paul's, on the corner of Crawford and Walnut streets. We weren't Catholic, but Pa knew we would be welcome. He took us to the basement, where it was lighted with tall candles and people were sleeping in pews and on the floor.

  Soldiers and families. Up front was a grotto with the Virgin Mary in it. It was deep and looked like it was made with real rocks and it scared me. But I have friends in school who are Catholic and they tell me that if you are of that religion you are supposed to be scared, about everything.

  That goes against the grain of my family, who teach us not to be frightened of anything, that if we are right and good, nothing bad can happen to us.

  There were soldiers sleeping all over on the floor of the grotto. It seemed as if the Virgin Mary was watching them ...

  Pa went and spoke with the priest. He came back and found us a place in a corner and we settled on a rug near the confessional. He covered us with blankets Mama had brought from our grandparents. James was sleeping already.

  "I'm told there's a woman having a baby upstairs," he said to Mama. "I've got to see to her."

  Then, without caring who was looking, he took Mama in his arms and kissed her like they'd just been married. And held her close. And whispered something so low even I couldn't hear.

  Mama nodded and he held her that way for a long moment.

  He released her and looked down at me, quizzically. "You get the urge, confess your sins," he said solemnly. "The priest is right over there."

  There was the humor again. Covering what? What did he want to say? "I've got no sins," I said.

  He looked down at me for a long minute, taking my measure until I became uncomfortable. What was coming next? "Only God knows different," he said. "And me."

  I said nothing. What did he know? "What had I done?

  "Get up when I'm speaking to you," he said.

  Oh Lord, not here, not now. What had I done?

  I stood before him.

  "Don't you know you're supposed to stand in the presence of your commanding officer?" he asked.

  "Yessir," I said.

  He took off my bonnet and dropped it on the floor. He kissed me on the forehead. He looked into my face as if searching a map to find his way somewhere. Then he tenderly brushed some hair away from my face and tucked it behind my ear.

  "Kiss your pa," he ordered.

  I stood on tiptoe and kissed the side of his face. He hugged me, picking me up off my feet to do so. It was a hug that needed no words. A hug that said everything. I didn't think he'd ever let me go.

  Then he set me down on my feet, and, without looking at me, told me roughly that I had best behave while he was gone, and take care of Mama, and if he heard anything to the contrary I would not sit down for a week.

  He'd never spanked me. He was making up for his display of affection. I said, "Yessir."

  In the next minute he was gone. And if I had sins, I knew they were forgiven.

  Chapter Three

  The next morning the good sisters of the church gave us coffee and bread and butter, and it never tasted so wonderful to me in my life.

  Pa was gone. He'd left at first light, Mama said, and I felt his loss like a hole inside me. I felt his unseen presence worse. Who would direct us, scold us, tell us to mind? Mama had all she could do to manage herself and the servants.

  Easter helped her gather up the blankets, and we took our leave of the church. The nuns had said there were times when we could go outside without chance of being killed.

  Life had come down to that, it seemed. Those times were an hour at eight in the morning, an hour at noon, and an hour at eight at night, when the Union artillerymen ate their meals.

  We waited until noon and then drove across town to our house, which hadn't been destroyed yet. Mama couldn't control James, who leaped from the surrey and ran up the front steps of the house, and nearly into Clothilda's arms. She and her husband, Andy, had been keeping the place while we were gone.

  "Where is he? Where's Sammy?" James demanded.

  "Good Lord, chile, he's out back, takin' in God's good sunlight," Clothilda said.

  James bounded through the center hall and out the back door. "Sammy, Sammy, I'm home. I'm here. You don't have to be frightened anymore."

  Mama shook her head in despair. "Tell me how that boy is going to live in a cave." Then to Clothilda, "We have to go to the cave my husband prepared for us."

  "I know, ma'am," Clothilda agreed. "He wuz here early this mornin' and gave us instructions. We all ready."

  "God bless that man," Mama said fervently. "Now we have less than an hour before the artillery begins again. Quickly, let's get some things together."

  "Most of it be together already." Clothilda pointed to the stack of parcels across the hall in the front parlor—blankets and pillows, sheets and towels, boxes filled with kitchen supplies. "There be food in barrels out on the back porch," Clothilda told Mama. "Andy be gettin' the sides o' ham."

  I saw tears in Mama's eyes. "I must assemble my remedies in a box," she said.

  The windows of the house were open and I heard voices from next door. Amy and her sister.

  The last I'd spoken with her, Amy had told me her father had hinted that they might go to Jackson if the Yankees came. They had people in Jackson.

  "Claire Louise, put the blankets and sheets into the wagon," Mama ordered.

  I did so and now I had some extra time. But I also had a dilemma.

  Should I go to the barn and say hello to my horse, Jewel? And tell her how sorry I was that I hadn't taken her to Grandmother's? I'd wanted to take her, but Pa said no. Grandmother had enough horses, and Andy would care for her.

  Or should I slip through the hedges th
at separated our property and go to the Clarkes'? I more or less owed that to Landon. He'd asked me to keep him apprised of Sarah Clarke's welfare.

  To put it in a delicate way, Landon was daft over Sarah. I knew they'd had some sort of falling out before he'd left, but I didn't know why.

  "Mama, can I go next door and visit Amy?"

  "No. I need you."

  I didn't bother knocking on the front door. Amy and I were that close. Her mother, Virginia, passed me in the hall. "Back, are you? How is your mother faring? Did your papa leave yet? Where did you all sleep last night? Do you all have a cave assigned to you?"

  She did go on, that woman. And she never waited for an answer. Never expected one. Just kept on with what she was about. I know she drove Landon to distraction sometimes. But he'd resigned himself to just yes-ma'aming and no-ma'aming her to death.

  I went on upstairs where I found Amy and Sarah. They were bundling some clothes into a pillowcase for Sarah.

  "Claire Louise, you're back!" Amy near screamed it.

  She and I hugged, and she inquired where we were going to stay. "Neither of our houses has been hit yet," she said. "But Pa says we are going to Jackson anyway. Oh, Claire Louise, I don't want to go! I don't want to be parted from you!"

  She was crying, and now I started in, too.

  Sarah just stood by. I noticed her hair was cut short. It should have detracted from her looks, but it didn't. It made her prettier, if you ask me, more elfin looking. And she had beautiful large blue eyes. I think, I told myself, that she must have broken my brother's heart by now.

  I noticed she had on boots and a man's trousers and shirt. And there was no mole on her face.

  "Where are you going in those clothes?" I pretended ignorance.

  "To Washington," she said. "To be a nurse. Clara Barton needs nurses."

  Even if I hadn't already known the truth I'd have seen that for a lie. I ought to recognize one—I tell enough of them. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Amy roll her eyes and shake her head, no.

  "Why don't you tell the truth, Sarah?" she asked her sister. "You're running off to join the Confederate army like a man!"

  Sarah flushed. "I suppose you went and told everyone!"

  "Only Claire Louise. And only because I thought she might be able to talk you out of it."

  Sarah tossed her head like any seventeen-year-old would. Like I wished I could. "If she had such special power, why didn't she talk her brother out of joining the Yankee army, I ask you?"

  I felt my face go red. "Is that why you two argued before he left?"

  "Yes. Part of it. I'm not going to wed a turncoat. And be known all over town as the wife of that Landon Corbet. The one who turned his back on his people. And anyway, I don't want to wait until the war is over to wed. I want to do it now."

  Amy and I looked at each other and burst out in laughter. "You just contradicted yourself," Amy told her. "You won't marry a turncoat, but you wanted to marry him before he left."

  Sarah burst out in tears and flung herself into Amy's arms. Her sister held her and then I joined them, wrapping my arms around them.

  Sarah drew away and wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her shirt. "Oh, I hate that brother of yours, Claire Louise. And at the same time I love him so much I could die. Do you know what a dream he is?"

  I shook my head, no. "He's just my brother," I told her.

  "You write to him, don't you?"

  I said I did.

  "Then you can do me a favor. Tell him I ran away and joined the Confederate army. I want to punish him for thinking he can have everything his way."

  Amy was horrified. "Is that why you're going to fight like a man?"

  "Yes," Sarah snapped. "I'm joining Lee in the Cumberland Valley."

  "You have to go all the way out there?" Amy scolded. "Why not right here where we're fighting for our town?"

  "I'd be recognized," Sarah returned.

  In the stunned silence that followed we heard my mother calling up the stairs.

  "Claire Louise? Are you up there?"

  "Yes, Mama."

  "When I said you couldn't come here? You wait until I tell your father about this. He'll give you what for. Now you come down this minute, young lady. We're leaving for the cave. The shelling is about to start. Claire Louise, if you don't come this instant I'll have to come up there and get you. And then you'll be sorry."

  Mama's threats were empty. She never knew what to do to make me sorry.

  Amy kissed me. "Go," she said.

  The enormity of the situation hung over us like a sword.

  We both knew we might never see each other again.

  Both of us loved and wept over English novels. Especially Jane Austen. But this, now, was worse than anything she could dream up. Or write. And we knew it.

  We just looked at each other. "Be careful," I told her.

  The words were so empty, and I knew it.

  She nodded her promise. We hugged. I went downstairs to my waiting mama.

  As it turned out, Mama knew exactly where our cave was, and so did Chip, Pa's personal man. Chip wasn't his usual happy self. He had wanted, he told Mama, to go with Pa, to "tend to him whilst he was doin' his business of doctorin'" but Pa had said no, he'd rather have Chip home with his family. To take care of them.

  Chip and Easter were to live in the cave with us. Clothilda and Andy were staying in our house, to guard it. And if it got hit, why they'd take refuge with other servants, wherever that might be, but still keep an eye on the house so it wouldn't be ransacked.

  "You can't buy servants like this," Mama whispered to me, forgetting that Pa had, indeed, bought them. Likely down in New Orleans. He never spoke about things like that.

  Our cave, the one Pa had had built for us, was located on a very high hill in the northeastern part of the town. You went in and there were arched hallways leading to rooms. And you could stand up in both the hallways and the rooms. Most people, I later came to understand, couldn't even stand up in their caves.

  Chip brought in the bedding and the other necessities for living. Pa had had planks laid on the floor so we wouldn't be walking on dirt.

  "Can I bring Sammy in?" James asked.

  "Yes," Mama said. "And keep him in. Or someone might steal him."

  She did not say for what. Neither did I. But we'd heard, already, that there would be a shortage of food soon. And that people should not let their dogs and cats wander loose. Hungry soldiers would eat anything.

  Chapter Four

  Our cave was about half a mile from town, and not too far from the Yankees. I heard firing all the way down from where the graveyard was. From Yankee entrenchments. Shells and balls fell all around us even as we were getting into the cave.

  On top of the floors, especially in the bedrooms and parlor, were Persian carpets. Pa had ordered all this, and Andy and Clothilda carried out his wishes.

  It was the nearest to home as they could make it. And Mama cried when she saw it and realized what he had done for us.

  Easter had set up a cooking area just outside the cave, because there was no ventilation inside. There were no windows. She made a pot of coffee that evening for us, during the break at eight o'clock, and we were able to go outside and see our own soldiers marching by because we were not far from the main road. They looked good, hearty and not downcast, and I could have watched them all evening, except that soon the shelling started again and Mama called me and James inside to help her make cartridges on the kitchen table.

  "It's the least we can do. A captain from the 26th Louisiana Infantry will be by to pick them up in the morning. He's the one who left the black powder and all the fixings."

  We worked until about eleven that night and made a whole pile of musket cartridges. Then we had a visitor.

  Andy, from home. He stood there in the entrance hall. "Ma'am."

  "Yes, Andy. Would you like some coffee? How did you get here with all the shelling?"

  He gave a slow smile. I noticed for the
first time that his hair was graying on top. He'd been with us as long as I could remember. Chip came in then and stood just behind him. Deferring always to Andy, even though Chip was Pa's personal man. "They's firing Parrott guns now from the peninsula across the way," Andy told us, "but I got enough 'sperience so's I know how to dodge 'em. Ma'am, I come to ask your opinion and tell you something not so good."

  "Yes, Andy." Mama stood up. She was ready for anything.

  There was a pause. Andy twisted his hat in his hands. "Well, you know our army gots about seven hundred mules. An' we gots no food for 'em. So we're givin' 'em over to the Yankees, 'cause they can feed 'em. I tell you this 'cause you all are gonna be seein' 'em driven right by on this highway on the way to the Yankees' camp tomorrow."

  "You mean we're giving all our mules to the Yankees?" Mama asked.

  "Just about," Andy said. "But that's not the bad part. Some horses, too. No corn is to be issued for the horses. Except for those in the field."

  Silence. I held my breath because I knew what was coming. So did Mama.

  "There be no officers here for Diamond and Jewel. So we get no corn. And our supply is taken by the army. We can't buy any or steal it. So I wanted to ask what you want me to do with 'em, ma'am. The horses, that is. And that means the carriage horses, too."

  "We can take them to Grandma's, Mama," I intervened. "I can ride Jewel there, and Andy can take Diamond. We can lead the carriage horses."

  "Quiet, Claire Louise." I'm sure Mama did not mean to be so sharp. "I need to think," she said. And in a moment she had thought it out.

  "What word did my husband leave with you about the horses?" Mama asked Andy.

  He looked at the floor. "That no matter what, no harm was to come to them. And not to let them starve. Shoot them first, he said. Or give them away."

  "Nooo!" I wailed.

  "Claire Louise!" Now she did mean to be sharp.

  "Yes, ma'am," I said.

  "So you know what you must do then, Andy. Take Chip with you when you bring them to the Yankees tomorrow. Wait, I'll write a note for you to give to an officer. Claire Louise, get me paper and pen."