My Vicksburg (3 page)

"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.

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."

It took me some time, but I found the required paper and pen and ink. And in a few moments Mama had penned the note that would ensure that the four horses would go to good officers and be treated well. From a respected officer and doctor in the Confederate army. And that, if alive after the war, she told where they should be returned.

She gave the note to Andy.

"I believe I'll go there tomorrow at eight when the shelling stops. I know the back paths, out of the way of the Yankees, ma'am," he said. "We'll get 'em there safe. And we'll be back soon's we're finished."

I begged to be allowed to go. Mama said no. I begged to be allowed to at least say good-bye to Jewel. Mama said no to that, too. I was sent to bed with warm milk, and Mama put something in it to make me sleep. I dreamed it was Sunday morning and Pa and I were riding out early down to the river and the sun was shining and the sky was blue and he was telling me about how it was when he was in Harvard.

It was Sammy the cat who woke me the next morning before the dark had even lifted. He climbed on my bed and rubbed his face against mine and purred. Which meant he wanted to go out.

"Out" from the cave meant he had to be accompanied. I blinked my eyes and sat up to light the candle beside my bed. The cave was filled with the sound of breathing, mixed with the sound I'd heard in my sleep all night, the sound of musket and cannon fire, which I'd become used to by now as one becomes accustomed to the chiming of a grandfather clock in one's own house.

The shelling is always the most fierce at dawn, Andy had told us. One battery after another opens up. I patted Sammy's black, glossy fur. He was kneading my blanket with his white paws now. Sometimes I thought Sammy was just too smart for his own good. It seemed he had a vocabulary.

"All right, all right," I told him. "Let me get dressed."

Quickly I put on my clothes. I'd wear the same dress as yesterday. Amy's mother had told mine that prices were
already outlandish, that a simple calico dress was forty dollars. Mama said we had to ration everything.

As I laced up my boots I tried to figure out why I had such a thread of deep sadness running through me. What had happened yesterday to make me mourn so? And then, in a flash, it came back.

Jewel. Gone. The full thrust of it washed over me. Where was she now? Being given breakfast by some Yankee officer? I hoped he would pat her nose and find out how she loved carrots. Oh, I mustn't think of her now. Where would I go this morning with Sammy? And how would I get there? Yes, I'd think of that.

It came to me then. Thinking of Jewel made me remember it.

We'd go down to the stream where I used to ride with Pa of a Sunday morning. Why, the blackberries would be out in great plenty by now. I'd pick some. We needed a treat. I know we had enough flour for Mama to make some biscuits. Then, just as I was plotting what I was going to do, a strange thing happened.

The shelling stopped.

An eerie silence set in. And then I remembered. Yesterday our General Pemberton had sent out a flag of truce so the Yankees would have a chance to bury their dead soldiers. This must be the agreed-upon time to do the sad task. Good. Sammy and I wouldn't have to worry about the shells for at least three or four hours.

I told Sammy to come along, and we crept out the
main hall and into the kitchen, where I took up a two-quart pail and then went to the main entrance as quietly as I could, only to see Chip lying there on his back. He was fast asleep, with a pistol that Mama had given him clutched in his hand, which lay across his breast.

It was an unwritten rule in Vicksburg: People did not give their nigras guns. But somehow, in the face of the siege and living in caves and Pa being gone and everything being turned upside down, the rules didn't stand anymore. So Mama had given Chip a revolver. She and I both had been surprised to see that he knew how to use it.

He'd told Mama yesterday, "Nobody gonna get in this cave, not while I gots breath left in my body."

I stepped over him carefully and Sammy jumped over him lightly. And then I picked Sammy up, and taking the same path as Pa and I had taken, we entered the woods and headed down toward the stream.

And then I saw that something else was going on, something more that qualified under rules that didn't stand anymore. I would not have believed it if I had not seen it with my own eyes. Something I knew I could tell my grandchildren about someday, the way my grandmother told me stories about when she went to school in Paris in 1826.

Camped hard by the stream was the 1st Missouri Brigade. Yankees. And visiting with them were one or two members of the 3rd Louisiana Confederates.

They were
visiting.
Like a town meeting at home!

I heard laughter. I heard something about borrowed coffee made of sweet potatoes. And the weather. Then more laughter. Then the word
Rebs.

I clutched Sammy to me and hurried on.

I finally reached the spot in the stream where it curved and where Pa and I used to pick blackberries. It was so quiet and peaceful here. The birds sang as if there weren't any fool war. I smelled jasmine, honeysuckle, and apricots. I put Sammy down and he rubbed against my ankles. I set about picking the blackberries.

Ridiculous soldiers, I thought. Visiting back and forth and making jokes when all night long they were doing their best to blow each other's heads off. And look at what they'd done to us. Our beautiful town looked like something the giant in
Jack in the Beanstalk
had wreaked his havoc on. Houses were shattered, gardens ruined, people and animals killed, a whole way of life ruined.

The two-quart pail was near filled with blackberries when I heard voices carried on the clear morning air.

"I tell you, I have to put a bandage on it. And some laudanum. I can sprinkle the laudanum on. It'll help ease the pain."

There were certain inflections in the voice that reminded me of Pa. And it was a doctor talking. Could Pa be back, without telling us? I picked the pail up with one hand and Sammy with the other. "Who do you think it is?" I asked him.