The black swan (67 page)

Again he brushed away the filaments of spider-web ghosts, superstitions, and expectations of trouble. He should take this run as a godsend. And still, he couldn't. The Fed-

erals were out there. Every nerve in his body sensed it. If they were, why didn't they stop him? The Ullah was not like the Liberty or the Independence. She could never outrun a cruiser. This trip she was heavily loaded, slower than ever. Though Beau would never tell Ben or Adam, he always took the Ullah out thinking it would be his last run. And tonight, by all reason, he should have been caught. Why hadn't he been? What had kept the blockading ships from guarding the Mississippi?

The Ullah slipped into the Pass a I'Outre without a shot fired or a flare to light the sky. It gave him the worst, most foreboding feeling he'd had since the war began.

After he discharged the cargo, Beau loaded a dray with special items for his family. Though the South was carrying on much as always, the shortages were being felt. Prices rose alarmingly as it became more difficult to bring supplies in. Beau had brought coffee, which his mother deemed too expensive at four dollars a pound. And he had several tins of tea, which sold in the South at eighteen to twenty dollars a pound. Muslin, even a bolt of silk, along with woolens and serge, he stacked in the dray. Last he put a box containing scarce items such as corset stays, toothbrushes, sulphur matches, needles, and an assortment of medicine, including a case of good French brandy for his father. Satisfied he had chosen well. Beau whipped up the horses and headed out of New Orleans for the LeClerc house.

Mavis, his mother's personal maid, opened the door. Her eyes immediately filled with tears. She drew him close against her bone-thin frame as he had when he was a small boy. "Mastah Beau! We gwine be all right now."

Beau disentangled himself. "What's the matter, Mavis? You spoil Ma's hair?"

"Ever'thin' gone sour, Mastah Beau. Or Mastah gone off to fight wiff Gen'ral Lovell's ahmy, an' Mastah Morgan got hisseff kilt. Ol' Miss, she workin' hersefl[ to death, an lil Miss, she doan think o' nothm' 'ceptm' Mastah Morgan an* dem Yankees. She hates 'em fierce an'—"

Beau rubbed his cheek. "Morgan's dead, and Daddy's gone. I thought Lovell was m New Orelans. Where's my mother?"

"In de pahlah. She allers in de pahlah. AUers workin*, makin' cloth fo' de uniforms. Ah cain't do nothin' wiff her no mo'."

His mother dropped the old hand card she had been

working with, her face a mixture of sorrow and joy at seeing her son.

Beau went to her, holding her, soothing her. She picked up the hand card and began to work as she talked. As supplies of ready-made clothing ran out, women who remembered the old ways hand-carded. He stopped her hand. "I've brought you plenty of cloth, even some wool. You don't need to do this by hand. Ma."

She began to work again. "But I want to. Beau. There are so many in need, and"—her face clouded—"it keeps me busy."

"What happened, Ma?"

His mother shrugged. "There's so little to tell—and so much."

"What about Daddy? Mavis says he's with General Lov-eU."

She nodded. "I don't know where. They were in the city, then they left. He'll write when he's able."

"Why didn't you write to me. Ma? There was no need for you and the girls to be alone. I would have come home."

"But I did, Beau! I write to you regularly."

Beau's feeling of foreboding grew. His mother recounted the attack on Port Royal last November seventh; but she used Morgan's words.

The island had been guarded by Morgan's Beaufort Artillery, a volunteer company on Bay Point, and by the Charleston Company, manning Fort Walker. The Federals sent a fleet of thirteen men of war and fifty troop transports. The Wabash, a double-decked steam frigate mounting sixty-two guns, was the flagship. The Confederates had little chance. Port Royal fell.

Morgan had been shot in the first few minutes of the bombardment. Seriously wounded and unable to move, he had written all that he saw and heard to Barbara. He was dead by the time the Confederates evacuated, but his letter was sent on to New Orleans.

"How is Barbara, Ma? Is she . . .'*

She rose from her chair, leading Beau into Barbara's sitting room. Barbara was with her younger sister, listening and correcting as Sissy read Ivanhoe aloud. Sissy jumped up, the book tumbling as she dashed to hug Beau. But Barbara remained in her chair. She was thin, and tired looking. It seemed impossible that she was the same radiant sixteen-year-old he had seen last fall. When she spoke, her

voice was low, too mature, too expressionless, too contained to be his sister Anguished eyes met and held Beau's. He released himself from Sissy and went to Barbara, cradling her as she cried and told him again how Morgan had died.

Next day brought word of the impending attack on New Orleans that Beau had sensed and feared. Federal ships gathered in the Gulf under the command of Captain David Farragut, whose objective was to gain control of the Mississippi, splitting the Confederacy in half.

Word spread like wildfire. The people were edgy and excited over the coming Federal defeat, for it was unthinkable that the great city of New Orleans would fall. With General Lovell ordered elsewhere, the citizens armed with whatever weapons they could muster. Beau was amazed by his mother and Barbara sitting in the parlor, two old muskets tucked neatly by their chairs. At Beau's inquiry Barbara's eyes blazed, haunting and fierce in her wasted face. "I'll do my part. We all will. Any Yankee sets foot on our soil will rue the day his mama gave birth."

"Barbara, you listen. If the Yankees come, you and Ma hide. Don't get fancy ideas about doin' your part with a weapon you can't handle."

"You talk like a defeatist, Beau. No Yankee's comin* here, 'cause New Orleans'!! never fall. We're goin' to win, 'cause we got God on our side."

"You can't talk for God, Barbara, so you just do as I tell you."

"But I can talk for God. I know. God hates all Yankees."

Beau shook his head, annoyed and saddened at her adamant hatred of the Federals. His mother was equally stub-bom if more rational. "No Yankee is goin' to drive a Le-Clerc from land we built up with our own hands. Wliatever we lack, it will never be pride or self-respect. You keep that in mind. We're Southerners, and God didn't make a man any better than that."

Beau left liis warlike family and went to the city. For the most part it was undefended, relying on Forts Philip and Jackson downriver to ward off Farragut's fleet.

Twice David Farragut had had to postpone his attack, waiting for conditions to be right. Then, on April 23, 1862, at a signal of two red lights from the flagship Hartford, Farragut's fleet of twenty-five wooden ships and nineteen mortar schooners moved into the Mississippi. The first di-

vision, under Captain Bailey headed for Fort Philip. Ten minutes later Bailey's guns were replying to the concentrated fire pouring from ,the fort.

Captain Boggs, on the Varuna, accompanied by the Oneida, hugged the shore, avoiding the heavy fire of elevated guns set to protect the midchannel of the river. The Confederates sent the Louisiana State gunboat Governor Moore and the River Defense ram Stonewall Jackson against the Varuna. The two Confederate craft forced the Varuna into shoal water, where she sank to her topgallant fo'c'sle. But the two Confederate vessels were ablaze and ran to shore. The crew of the Governor Moore under the command of Commander Kennon surrendered to the Federal cruiser Oneida.

The Confederates sent pyres on rafts into the river. The Mississippi was clogged with ships and rivercraft. The Brooklyn nearly ran afoul of the smaller Kineo. The ugly turtle-back ram Manassas appeared under the Brooklyn'^ bows, glancing off the large ship, her chain armor taking most of the impact. The ram steamed on, and the Federal Kineo met her. The bulky, awkward Manassas continued her erratic journey up and down the river, eluding most damage, until the Mississippi struck her a broadside that knocked her into deep water. On fire, the ram moved past the mortar boats and blew up.

Farragut's flagship the Hartford, trying to avoid collision with a fire raft pulled by the Confederate tug Mosher, grounded. Captain Horace Sherman, master of the tug, managed to lodge a huge torch along the side of the Hartford. Flames sprang up the ship's sides and along her rigging. But Farragut, screaming orders, would not give up his ship, and his mate fought to put the.fire out and refloat her. The little tug Mosher was broadsided and sunk with all aboard.

The mortar schooners were situated about two miles below the forts. From that strategic position they bombarded them ceaselessly. The air vibrated with noise. A thick cloud of suffocating smoke covered the area, its sulphurous sting blinding men and choking them as they struggled to identify friend from foe. The flashes of the guns were their only guide.

In New Orleans, north of the battle, the people were m the street shouting their betrayal. General Lovell's troops should have been defending their city. In the stead of three

thousand well-led troops, Wilson's Rangers were sent to help defend the forts.

Wilson's Rangers were riverboat gamblers organized into a unit better known as the Blackleg Cavalry. Ordinarily they were dandy-dressed players of games. As they rode down the streets, ladies handed them bouquets. The citizenry shouted approval and encouragement.

Beau was not cheering. Inwardly he seethed. It was criminal negligence to allow New Orleans to fall to the Federals. Jefferson Davis had no concept of the importance of the sea and the Mississippi. Like Adam and Ben, Beau believed that the army that controlled the Mississippi and the ocean was the army that would win the war. To allow the Mississippi and New Orleans to fall to Farragut was something Beau hated deep inside. Along with the others he felt betrayed.

Just short of the forts the Blackleg Cavalry was greeted by a salvo of shot. With admirable speed the regiment of riverboat gamblers snipped the distinctive buttons from their uniforms along with their dreams of heroism. They headed ignominously back to the city, to melt unseen into the population.

The fire bells began to peal in New Orleans. Twelve strokes four times repeated. Farragut had passed the forts. The city's defenses had crumbled.

Beau felt desperate. For once he wished he had joined the army. He wished he were in one of those forts, any fort just to be able to stop Farragut or any other damned Yankee who dared threaten his city. As it was, he felt helpless and useless when New Orleans needed him most.

The closer Farragut came, the more chaotic the city grew. Bestirred men and women shouted patriotism, reaffirming they would never surrender, cursing the cowardly imbeciles who had allowed the city to fall, and declaring the Yankees would bum, loot, and pillage. It would be Carthage again. With typical Southern flamboyance, shopkeepers flung wide their doors, inviting the citizenry to cart away whatever they could.

"Not one damned lick of molasses to the Yankees!'*

With frantic greed, people fought over the spoils that lined sidewalks and streets. Some hired drays to haul loot home. Beau cringed as Barbara, her shoes covered with molasses that ran in the gutter, fought to destroy the goods in New Orleans rather than let a Yankee belly be filled.

Beau left the destruction, dodging the flying firkins of butter, spilled coffee, tea, potatoes rolling crazily down the cobbled streets. He went to the piers, where steamers under the direction of Governor Thomas Moore were being loaded with ordnance and military stores to be taken up-river to safety.

Beau rounded up half a dozen of his scattered crew. When he arrived at the pier, several steamers were already on their way north. He approached the government official overseeing the loading. "Load your ship with cotton," the man ordered in distracted haste.

"My ship is the large steamer, sir! She can haul stores upriver."

"Don't need her," the man said curtly. "Load her with cotton and set her adrift with the others. It'll slow them down a little."

Beau felt he might choke on his own spittle. Managing only to bark out clipped orders, he joined his crew in loading the cotton that stood on the wharf onto the UllaKs decks. Quixotically, he loaded the Ullah as compactly and neatly as she had ever been.

Beau's face was grim as they worked through the mom-mg of the twenty-fourth. Bonfires burned on the piers and streets. The hideous scent of burning ham and sugar mingled with the more acrid odor of scorching cotton. People heaped piles of provisions ready for the torch. Fifteen thousand bales of cotton would burn on the streets or be loaded in ships like the Ullah.

After Farragut passed the fortifications at Chalmette, there was little to stop him from coming directly to the city. Beau gritted his teeth. For one horrible moment he thought he would cry. His hand trembling, he tossed the first sputtering torch onto the damp cotton on the Ullah. His men handed him others. One by one he lobbed the torches onto the old ship's decks until she was ablaze and drifting out into the current of the Mississippi.

Beau watched her become a giant ball of flame, great bursts of cotton exploding from her decks into the suffocating haze of smoke. As much as he wanted to, he couldn't look away from her until he saw her hit by shot from an unseen vessel. The planking of her spar deck and one of her stacks flew high into the air. The Ullah shuddered as she was broadsided again. Then she listed gently, still burning, a fiery beacon in the haze.

Feeling empty and sick at heart, Beau didn't wait to see Farragut's fleet. He returned home. Sissy, eleven and full of the wonders of a world that hadn't touched her yet, looked frightened, her eyes darting from the smoke-smudged face of her brother to that of her pale, strained mother.

"I saw Barbara at the docks," Beau said wearily. "She told me when she came in. She said you had to fire your ship. I'm sorry. Beau. I know what the ship meant to you—all of you boys."

"It couldn't be helped. Adam or Ben would have done the same. What hurts is that the Ulla^ went for nothing. New Orleans was already lost. It was such a waste—the cotton and food, and the ships."