Mrs. Grant and Madame Jule (15 page)

Puzzled, Julia folded her hands in her lap and nodded for her to continue.

“A few days before the battle commenced, I was seized by a strange, uncanny feeling that my husband desperately needed me, and I resolved to go to him.” Mrs. Canfield hesitated. “You will think me a superstitious fool—”

“I think nothing of the sort,” Julia assured her. “I’ve been known to have such feelings myself.”

“I arrived in Shiloh on the evening of the first day of that dreadful fight, and I was told—and I had felt it in my heart all along as I traveled—that my husband was among the wounded and was at that moment lying in a hospital a few miles down the river. I despaired when I learned that I was forbidden to go to him, that it was against orders and absolutely impossible.”

“How dreadful, after you had come so far!”

“As I stood there, utterly despondent, a cavalcade rode up, and I at once recognized General Grant and his staff. I saw, too, that the general was unable to dismount, but was helped off his horse and all but carried aboard his dispatch boat.”

“What?” Julia exclaimed. “Was he wounded?”

Mrs. Canfield clasped her hand reassuringly. “I tried to see him, but the guard told me that I could not, that the general was injured. I hesitated, but my intense anxiety to go to my husband overcame all else, and I boldly passed by the guard and boarded the boat. As I approached the general, I saw the doctors cutting the boot off the general’s foot.”

“Oh, my goodness.”

“I learned that the previous evening, his horse had stepped on a rolling stone and had fallen, landing upon his ankle. It hadn’t troubled him all day, but when he dismounted, he was astonished to find his leg quite swollen and numb.”

Julia felt faint. Had Ulys lost the leg? Was that what the grieving widow had come to tell her?

“I explained that my husband had been wounded and needed me and that I had been told I could not go to him. I begged the general to allow me to proceed.” Mrs. Canfield took a quick, quavering breath. “Your gallant husband said, ‘I will write my report at once, and you may go on the dispatch boat that will deliver it.’ Paper and ink were brought, and as soon as the general had written and sealed his report, he wrote an order to pass me on the dispatch boat, and to grant me permission to visit my husband in the hospital. Then he bade me good-bye with his sincere hopes that my husband and I would soon be reunited.”

“That is the General Grant I know,” said Julia. “Did you reach your husband in time?”

Two large tears trickled down Mrs. Canfield’s face. “I was too late, too late,” she choked out. “I was conducted down an aisle between the cots in the hospital, and my escort paused and pointed to a figure on a cot, the blanket drawn up to cover the face. I knelt beside the cot and drew the blanket down and lay my hand upon my husband’s bosom. He was still warm, but his great heart had ceased beating. The blood was clotted on his beard and breast.” Her chin trembled, she took another deep breath—and then she could restrain her weeping no longer. “I think he might have lived if I had been near.”

Julia embraced her, murmuring words of comfort even as her own tears began to fall. The poor, good woman—nothing Julia could say or do, no prayers or patriotic words about the lieutenant colonel’s sacrifice, could ease her suffering.

When Mrs. Canfield’s tears were spent, she composed herself and continued her tale. “I’m determined to devote my time to the wounded soldiers for the duration of the war,” she said. “My husband might have lived if he had only had the services of a kind nurse. I hope to spare other wives and mothers this cruel, terrible grief.”

“How noble you are!”

“No, not at all, not I. It’s something I’m compelled to do.”

“And I’m determined to help you.” Excusing herself, Julia hurried upstairs to her bedchamber and retrieved the roll of bills Ulys had given her in Cairo. After briefly considering how much Ulys would insist she save for herself and the children, she divided the bills in half, made two rolls, put one away, and hurried back to the parlor with the second. “I hope this will help you purchase supplies and make your travel easier,” Julia said, closing Mrs. Canfield’s hands around the roll of bills.

“Mrs. Grant,” she protested, astonished. “I didn’t come seeking donations. My only intention was to tell you of your husband’s great kindness. One sees such horrid things in the papers of this good man, and he has been greatly wronged, for in my hour of need he was so kind, so gentle, so full of sympathy.”

“Yes, he is,” said Julia, “and he would be the first to agree that you must take this offering for your work.”

Eventually Mrs. Canfield agreed, and when she was quite restored to herself, and braced with tea and Hannah’s wholesome bread and apple butter, they parted with embraces and promises to write. Julia knew that Mrs. Canfield would offer faithful service to the Union, and for a wistful moment, she wished she could join her.

Afterward, whenever the press vilified Ulys, Julia reminded herself of Mrs. Canfield’s kind words and took heart. Although the Battle of Shiloh provoked many people to call for Ulys to be removed from his command, President Lincoln would not bow to their demands. “I can’t spare this man,” he was reported as saying. “He fights.”

M
AY
–D
ECEMBER
1862

A
t the end of April, Ulys’s army advanced on Corinth, Mississippi, settling into a long, slow siege that rendered Ulys impatient and restless. He wrote of beautiful apple and cherry orchards blooming all around the encampment, but also of the tedium of routine duties and of hundreds of men dying of dysentery. He spent his evenings around the campfire with the other officers, smoking, sharing tales of the Mexican War, and playing whist and twenty-one. The attacks in the press continued, and it vexed Ulys that the men subject to his command could not help hearing of the ludicrous charges against him.

At his new headquarters in Memphis, Ulys met his family at the wharf, all smiles for the children and tender kisses for Julia. His beard, chestnut brown with tawny threads, was neatly trimmed, and the injury to his ankle had apparently fully healed, leaving not even a trace of a limp. “My dear little wife,” he said as he embraced her, his voice a sigh of relief, and when he held her she could feel his strength and good health, but also his frustration and loneliness. Weather-beaten, he looked every bit of his forty years, and a troubled, wary look seemed permanently etched upon his features, but his eyes were as startlingly blue as ever, and they regarded her with the same love and admiration she had discovered there when she was a belle rather than a matron of thirty-six.

They had barely settled in Memphis when Ulys moved his headquarters to Corinth. When Julia and the children arrived a few days later, he sent an ambulance to meet them at the depot. Ulys rode on horseback alongside, reaching through the window for Julia’s hand. “Did you miss me as much as I missed you?” he asked.

“I missed you more,” she said warmly, smiling up at her beloved general.

Dusk was falling as they approached the Corinth encampment, the campfires alight, the rows of white tents illuminated like thousands of lanterns. “What are they singing?” Buck asked, crawling over Julia in his eagerness to listen.

“John Brown,” said Fred, and soon Julia, too, could make out the familiar melody, the verses carried by perhaps a hundred voices, with what must have been almost the entire army joining in the choruses, so powerfully did the glorious anthem ring out.

Julia did not approve of John Brown, the white abolitionist who had been hanged for attempting to lead a slave uprising in Virginia a few years before, but it was a stirring tune, and as she listened, she realized that the lyrics were quite different from those she had heard before.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,

With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me.

As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,

While God is marching on.

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

While God is marching on.

•   •   •

They were in the midst of the most anxious weeks of the war thus far, Ulys confided to Julia later that evening. The Army of the Tennessee had been ordered to guard all the territory acquired by the fall of Memphis and Corinth, dangerously extending Ulys’s lines. He lacked sufficient reinforcements to form an attack, and guerrillas lurked in copses and hollows in every direction. Julia knew that his restless nature was better suited for waging an offensive campaign than for remaining constantly on guard throughout a tedious siege, but she hoped that having his family near would help him better endure the interminable waiting.

In July, Major General Halleck was promoted to general in chief of all the Union armies, and when he was called to Washington at the end of the month, Ulys was placed in command of the rebellious territory between the Mississippi and Tennessee Rivers from the Ohio River to northern Mississippi. He was charged with protecting miles of river, railroad, and telegraph lines, even though his forces were steadily diminished by orders to send troops to the East.

Julia was proud of her husband, certain that his new responsibilities reflected his superiors’ increasing recognition of his worth. Yet her heart sank when Ulys found her in her sitting room one afternoon, invited her to sit beside him on the sofa, and gently told her that he suspected that the change in orders presaged a significant movement of the troops.

She knew before he spoke another word that he intended to send her away again.

•   •   •

White Haven buzzed with excitement when Julia’s letter arrived announcing that she was bringing the children home for a brief visit. In recent months, Jule had been as close to content as she could have reasonably expected. She and Gabriel were together. The old master regularly hired her out, but only by the day and never to the Slates, so she was earning a little money of her own again. But Julia’s visits home always disrupted the reassuring pattern of Jule’s days, and upon her departure the pieces never quite settled back into their original places.

Her apprehension eased somewhat when Julia greeted her warmly upon her arrival and the children threw their arms around her and declared that they had missed her terribly. “I missed you too,” she told them sincerely, hugging them in turn. She wondered how much longer they would love her; Dinah had warned her that white children outgrew their affection for their colored nurses over time, yet another heartbreak on her horizon.

In mid-September, word came of a fierce, bloody battle along a creek called Antietam in the far-off state of Maryland. The Union had declared victory, but most of Julia’s neighbors claimed the battle had ended in stalemate, since Union general McClellan had allowed General Robert E. Lee’s army to withdraw to Virginia without pursuit. Less than a week later, the St. Louis newspapers published a proclamation in which President Lincoln declared that “on the first day of January in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State, or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.”

It was lawyer’s language, the same sort of phrases Jule had heard Mr. Slate intone as he paced in his study preparing for a trial, but she understood enough of it to tuck the discarded newspaper under her skirt and smuggle it out to Gabriel. “What does it mean, exactly?” she asked later, sitting close beside him in the hayloft as he read.

His eyes shone and a slow smile spread across his face. “It means come the New Year, slaves in rebel territory will be free.”

“Missouri too?”

“There were rebel militia in Missouri at the start of the war, and may still be.” He set the paper aside and seized her hands. “Whether freedom comes in January for us or later, it will come. It has to. That’s what General Grant’s fighting for. He’ll win, and when the war’s done, slavery will have to end too, or the fighting never will.”

“It can’t come too soon,” said Jule, more sharply than she intended. She was tired of waiting for Julia, for the old master, for the president, for whole hosts of other people to decide to set her free.

Gabriel raised her hand to his lips. “Keep listening, keep reading,” he urged. “Learn all you can about what this means for us.”

Jule did, and in the days that followed the announcement, she realized that the new law would not affect the status of slaves in loyal Missouri. Even so, the old master and his eldest son, John, were furious that any slaves anywhere would be declared free.

“This is such an unfortunate development, isn’t it?” Julia lamented one morning as Jule arranged her hair.

“How so, Miss Julia?”

“Well, the younger slaves have already been so demoralized since this dreadful rebellion began. What will it do to them to hear that soon, all the old comforts of slavery will pass away forever?”

Jule paused, but after a moment she resumed arranging Julia’s chignon. “The old comforts of slavery,” she said, a flat echo of her mistress. “You must mean the comforts the master’s family enjoys.”

“Those exist, certainly, but the comforts I refer to are those bestowed upon your people.” Julia held her gaze in the mirror, her expression all earnest sympathy. “All your life you’ve had someone to look after you, to take care of you. You never need worry where your next meal is coming from, or whether there will be a roof over your head, or how you should spend your days. You need only to do as you’re told, to obey your master or mistress, and all is well in your world.”

“Unless I’m beaten.” Jule set down the hairbrush, her expression hardening in the mirror above Julia’s. “Unless my children are sold away from me. Unless the master decides to increase his property by getting a baby on me—”

“Jule,” Julia exclaimed. “What’s gotten into you? I’ll have none of this vulgar talk.”

The truth was vulgar, and cruel and painful to hear. That didn’t make it any less true. “All I mean is—”

“How can you say such things? You have no children, and you’ve never been beaten, at least not in this house, and to suggest that Papa would—” Julia pressed her lips together and shook her head, too distressed to continue.

Jule was careful to keep her voice low and calm. “I was speaking of others and their hardships, Miss Julia, not myself.”

“I can’t help what goes on in other households. What would you have me do? Tell my neighbors how they should treat their servants?”

Jule put her head to one side as if she needed to give her mistress’s words serious consideration, and then she nodded sagely. “That would be a good start.”

“You don’t understand, nor would I expect you to. That sort of thing simply isn’t done.”

“Shouldn’t it be, though?” Jule countered. “And shouldn’t you be the one to do it? Since your husband’s the general fighting the war to end slavery?”

Julia clenched her hands together in her lap, a flush rising in her fair cheeks. “General Grant is fighting to preserve the Union. His mission is not to end slavery but to end the rebellion.”

“Is that what you think or just what you say because it’s expected?” Jule knew she ought to close her mouth and gaze meekly at the floor, but she had held back the questions and accusations too long, and once the floodgate was opened, she could not close it again. “What happened? Remember our ginger-and-cream days? You used to be the girl who asked questions, who spoke up when you saw wrongdoing.”

“Jule—”

“When your papa said you can’t ride this or that horse, you didn’t say, ‘Yes, sir.’ You asked, ‘Why?’ When the missus told you to punish me for learning my letters, you said, ‘I won’t.’ When your papa said you couldn’t marry your lieutenant, you vowed you would someday. What happened to make you close your mind?”

“Stop it!” Julia bolted to her feet. “I am quite out of patience with you. No more of this, no more. Go call the children inside and be sure they wash before breakfast. As for myself, I have completely lost my appetite.”

She waved Jule out of the room and shut the door behind her.

For a moment Jule stood with her hand on the knob, her forehead resting against the door, heart pounding, wondering if she had gone too far, if she should hurry back into the room and beg forgiveness. Then something hardened within her. She had spoken too frankly, but she had said nothing untrue.

Julia was in the wrong. It was she who ought to beg forgiveness from Jule.

But instead of an apology, which would have astonished Jule, or a punishment, which she would have expected, Julia acted as if the incident had never happened. Only a new chill in her manner, a distance in her voice when she issued instructions, revealed her displeasure. And yet there was an element of uncertainty too, as if she did not understand the nature of their argument and wished desperately that it had never happened.

Julia was not so displeased with Jule that she wished to leave her behind when she and the children left White Haven. In late October, after General Grant led his armies to victories at Iuka and Corinth, he established his headquarters at Jackson and sent word for Julia to join him there. “You will accompany me,” Julia told Jule evenly, not quite meeting her eye. “I will leave Fred, Buck, and Nellie in Covington with General Grant’s parents. You will continue on with me to Jackson so you can look after Jesse.”

“Yes, Miss Julia,” Jule said quietly, for she knew it was pointless to protest.

On the night before her departure, Jule lay in Gabriel’s arms in the loft, the hay crackling around them beneath the pallet they shared, the chirping of cicadas a forlorn accompaniment to the soft sighing of the autumn winds. Her heart ached with pain and uncertainty, not knowing when she would feel the warmth of his embrace again.

“Jule?”

“Yes, Gabriel?”

“You remember everything that lieutenant told you when he brought you here, everything about Cincinnati and how to find your way north?”

“Every word.”

“After you leave here with Miss Julia and the children . . . if you get the chance, run.”

“Not without you I won’t.”

“Jule, listen.” He shifted in the darkness, rolling onto his side to gaze into her eyes firmly but lovingly as he traced the lines of her face with his hand. “I’m not likely to ever find myself aboard a steamer to Cincinnati.”

“When we run, we run together,” she replied. “If we can’t, then I’ll wait until the president frees slaves everywhere. I’m not going without you, so don’t ask me again.”

•   •   •

In Jackson, Ulys had chosen as his headquarters a sprawling old country residence, part frame house and part log cabin, with a long, low piazza on the southern exposure. Julia immediately set about making the unfamiliar place feel more like home, sorting out bedchambers for herself and Ulys, Jesse, and Jule; inspecting the kitchen; and introducing herself to the household staff, a single maid who assured Julia she could cook if need be.

The domestic flourishes were, perhaps, more for herself and Jesse than for Ulys. He was never one to fuss about his attire, dressing not as a general on parade but as a soldier in the field, a man who could expect exertion and mud and rough weather. His endurance had become legendary among his troops; he could outride every officer on his staff, he could go without food or sleep longer than his youngest and strongest men, and he seemed unaffected by the cold, heat, fatigue, and exposure to the elements that brought other soldiers staggering into shelter. Julia too was impressed by her husband’s extraordinary fortitude, but when she was in camp, she wanted a proper home, even if it was only a tent.