The Railroad War (44 page)

Everything Noah saw he found fault with.

When he finally left the ferries and returned to his office, there was murder in the faces of the foremen and the workers.

“There’s a lady to see you,” the corporal who was acting as Noah’s clerk and secretary announced to him as he passed through
the outer office. “She didn’t give her name.”

“A lady?” Noah asked, puzzled.

The lady, he saw when he opened the door, was sitting erectly in a chair in front of one of the windows, gazing at the river.
She was wearing something off-white, pale, and creamy. Because of the backlight, her dress seemed to glow with an inner illumination.
But Noah didn’t need to see her features in order to recognize her. He guessed who it was before he’d entered the room.

She was a most welcome sight, especially at this moment.

Even though he had innumerable questions for her, and even though prudence told him to treat her cautiously—she had after
all vanished without a trace two months ago—he needed her very much now.

“Hello, Noah,” Jane Featherstone said. Her voice was only a shade louder than a whisper.

“Hello, Jane,” he said, wanting very much to offer her a smile and a welcoming look. He thought better of it.

Jane’s head swiveled slowly so that she could face him. Her eyes and mouth were shadowed, but he could just discern the slightest
hint of a smile.

“I’m glad to see you, Noah. It’s been much too long. I missed you.”

He stared at her. She was amazingly calm, and yet at the same time she was fragile and vulnerable. One yearned to come to
the aid of this woman, but Noah had many questions for Jane Featherstone before he would let himself do that.

Some of his questions tumbled out as though from impulse, but none of Noah’s questions was impulsive. They’d been on his mind
for weeks. “Where have you been, Jane?” he asked. “What happened? You were supposed to meet me in Meridian. You weren’t on
the train. It’s been two months since you missed that train, and now here you are.” He stepped forward. “What am I supposed
to think?”

Jane rose from the chair and for a moment stood silently, poised but unmoving. Then she approached him with her hands outstretched.
She took his hands firmly in her own. “I know it’s been two months, Noah darling,” she said in her near whisper, her eyes
locked on his, confident, reassuring, “and I’ve spent every day of those two months aching for you.”

“I haven’t been hiding from you, Jane. You could have come anytime.” There was a chill in his voice, and anger.

“I haven’t been hiding from you, Noah. Believe me, I wouldn’t have stayed away from you for a second if I hadn’t been prevented
from joining you.”

“You couldn’t write, Jane? You couldn’t telegraph? You couldn’t have a friend carry a message?”

She shook her head slowly, solemnly. He paid her close attention, yet her voice was narcotic, addictive. She didn’t lull him
to sleep, but to belief. “No, Noah, I couldn’t. That’s just what I couldn’t do.”

“Why not?”

She raised her face toward the ceiling, then she turned toward the window, away from him, as though retreating from a shame
she couldn’t bear. “I have to tell you about a man…who forced his way into my life, Noah. He’s a Union officer, and a master
spy. As Joe Johnston was evacuating Jackson, this man infiltrated into the city—insidiously.”

“Go on.”

“As I was walking to the rail depot that night in Jackson, the man stopped me in the street. He seemed pleasant and presentable
and well-bred. He had a horse and carriage and offered to escort me to the train. I welcomed the offer, of course. That was
no night to be a single woman on the streets of Jackson. I entered the carriage and sat down. We had hardly started up when
he leapt upon me and held me tight. Before 1 could struggle or scream, he placed a cloth over my nose and mouth. The cloth
was drenched with some kind of soporific. It was sweet and pungent—chloroform, I think. And I was quickly unconscious.

“When I woke, I was lying on a bed, bound hand and foot in a locked and darkened room. But I was not otherwise harmed.”

“There was no…violation?” Noah asked cautiously.

“Oh, no. Nothing like that. The man might be a fiend, but not that kind of fiend.”

“Go on,” Noah said.

She nodded slowly, then continued with quiet intensity, “I was in the room, for several days, I think. I’m not sure how long.
I was fed and otherwise cared for. And I was not ill treated—except that my liberty was taken away.

“And then, finally, one day I was led blindfolded, with my hands bound, to a carriage. I was driven for miles. When i was
released from the carriage, I found myself in Genaral Sherman’s camp on the Big Black River. And there standing before me,
dressed in a Union captain’s uniform, was the man who had abducted me.” She caught Noah’s eye. “His name is Hawken. Sam Hawken.”

“Sam?” Noah said. “Sam Hawken?” he laughed nervously. “Jesus!” Then his shoulders sagged.

“You’re acquainted with Captain Hawken, Noah?”

“I knew him a long time ago. We were friends then.”

“I’m sorry, Noah. I’m sorry for what this man has become. He’s an evil man now. A master spy…as I told you.” She stopped,
then resumed in a grimmer voice, fluttering her eyelids just a little. “He was the one responsible for the tragedy on the
night before the evacuation of Jackson. He caused the head-on train collision that night.”

“Sam Hawken did that?” Noah asked.

She nodded gravely. “He was the one.” She waited for a moment, watching the quiet fury kindle in him, then she resumed. “He
was in Atlanta. Jackson. Montgomery. He was everywhere, Noah, finding our weaknesses, stealing our secrets, destroying what
he could.”

“It’s hard to believe Sam Hawken would do that.”

“People change, Noah.”

Noah nodded, sadly agreeing. But the sadness was only momentary, for as Jane’s words sank in, Noah’s rage was reignited. The
possibility that his friend of long ago might be the author of so many of Noah’s miseries hit him hard, but it was credible.
Noah Ballard knew in his heart that the Sam Hawken he’d befriended at West Point was capable of such things.

“What happened then, Jane?” Noah asked. “And,” he paused, confused, “why did Sam Hawken choose to kidnap you, of all people?”

“I’ll tell you, Noah,” she sighed. “I’ll tell you the whole thing. But it’s a long story, and I’m exhausted from my traveling.”
She quickly added, “As soon as I could get away, I came directly to you.”

“What would you like then, Jane?”

She smiled warmly, wearily. “Not a lot, Noah, really. First I want to sit down. And then I’d like a very small glass of whiskey,
if you have it.”

“Oh,” he said, chagrined, “I’m sorry. I’ve left you standing.”

He quickly led her to a heavily upholstered sofa where she could rest herself. After that he took a decanter from a sideboard
and poured both of them something to drink.

Once he was sure she was comfortable, Noah pulled up a chair close to her, and she proceeded to relate for him the narrative
of her captivity and escape.

She also had a number of ideas about the kind of mission that General Sherman might send Captain Hawken on next. His target
was likely to be Mobile, Alabama.

On September 18, the battle that had been brewing in northwest Georgia finally broke out near Chickamauga Creek. After several
days of hard fighting, Confederate General Braxton Bragg was left in command of the field. By the night of September 21, General
Rosecrans, the Union commander, had retired to Chattanooga, defeated. Chattanooga was promptly surrounded by Bragg.

The Confederate victory could have been a rout but for the fortitude and steadfastness of Union General George Thomas, who
held his own lines even when other Union forces were in fast retreat. And Braxton Bragg, it has been argued, could have deployed
his forces to much better advantage, making a significant and lasting victory out of what turned out to be only a pause in
the inevitable drive of the North into the heart of the Confederacy.

But it was a pause that the Confederacy very much needed. Bragg’s victory at Chickamauga may well have kept the Confederacy
alive for another year.

That victory would not have been possible without the railroads. As frail and fragile and worn to tatters as the southern
railroads were by September 1863, the reinforcements that turned the tide at Chickamauga were transported on them.

And with Chatanooga, the Union was in possession of a city under siege for the first time.

Noah Ballard wired Atlanta on September 19, which was a Saturday. On Monday, the twenty-first, he received by wire confirmation
of Jane Featherstone’s story. A Federal spy had indeed been active in Atlanta two weeks earlier. He had, among other things,
set fire to the arsenal there, killing at least two soldiers who had apparently tried to apprehend him. There was no description
of the spy, but there was strong evidence that he had posed as a minister. And that man, from the description provided to
Noah, could have been Sam Hawken.

Out of Jane’s guess that Sam’s espionage activities would soon bring him to Mobile—what better target than Noah’s locomotives?—Noah
formed the conviction that her guess was correct.

Noah made quiet preparations to deal with the arrival of his one-time friend. If Sam Hawken was indeed coming to Mobile, Noah
wanted to be ready for him. At the same time, Noah did not want to give Sam any warning that he was expected. The preparations
had to be discreet and cautious.

And then, once Hawken was identified, Noah planned to play out some rope for him. He wanted to see what Hawken was up to.
He wanted to catch him in an actual act of espionage.

He informed Captain Hottel neither of the possible arrival of the Federal spy nor of his own preparations to defend against
the spy’s activities. As far as Major Noah Ballard was concerned. Captain Will Hottel was forever persona non grata. He had
not only defected from what Noah Ballard thought was right, he had betrayed Noah, and he had betrayed his own integrity.

Although Noah kept well away from Will Hottel for the time being, Captain Hottel did have a significant impact on the events
Noah was putting into play. What Noah Ballard took to be his defection added much fuel to Noah’s rage and that rage was now
directed toward Sam Hawken.

Major Ballard picked a quiet, soft-spoken captain named Peter Crandell to keep a watchful eye out for Captain Hawken. Every
day Crandell made the rounds of the town of Mobile. He went to the hotels and rooming houses, the saloons and eateries, asking
if a man meeting Hawken’s description had made an appearance.

A possible suspect arrived in Mobile on the twenty-third, a Wednesday, and checked into a rooming house on Anthony Street.
The man was tall, lanky, and sandy-haired, Crandell told Major Ballard, and maybe thirty or thirty-five years old. He went
by the name of David Pickering.

Pickering claimed to have come from Galveston, where he’d worked as first mate on a blockade-running schooner that was sunk
off Galveston in August. After the loss of the ship, he’d come east to find another ship, he said, or failing that, any work
at all. He was accompanied by a younger man, one of the schooner’s crew. The name the younger man gave was Tom Stetson.

On the twenty-third, church bells rang for what seemed hours, celebrating the victory at Chickamauga.

On the twenty-fourth, Pickering and Stetson asked for and were given jobs at the shipyards, working on the three locomotive
ferries.

That evening, at the end of the workday, while Peter Crandell stood outside examining the men passing by, Jane Featherstone
and Noah Ballard waited in a closed carriage on Front Street near the yards. Crandell had kept the man called Pickering under
surveillance for the past day. When Pickering appeared among the other workmen, Crandell made a signal to Noah and Jane and
the two of them opened the window curtains a crack to look at the man Crandell had identified.

It was, of course, Sam Hawken.

Major Ballard ordered Captain Crandell to place Hawken-Pickering under more careful surveillance—but still bearing in mind
that it was crucial that the man not be made aware that he was being watched. One of Crandell’s men booked a room at the rooming
house where Hawken and his companion were staying. Another man was placed on their work crew. Other men, in relays, followed
them—but from a distance. Noah believed that it was better to lose track of the two men now and again than to risk discovery.

On the night of the twenty-fourth, Hawken spent an hour strolling around the rail yards, carefully examining forty-six remaining
locomotives. He made no attempt to harm any of the machines; he simply poked around.

During the moves in the espionage and counterespionage game, Noah Ballard kept Jane Featherstone out of sight in a hotel room
he provided her with. And he himself stayed confined to either his office or to his quarters, except during those times he
was certain that Hawken was busy working on the ferries.

Meanwhile both Hawken and his companion acted above suspicion in every way. There were no more late night walks through the
rail yards, and the work they did at the shipyards was exemplary. They were both liked and trusted by their fellow workers.

The ferries were pronounced ready on the thirtieth of September. The sabotage attempt came that night.

It was past three in the morning, and Noah Ballard was asleep in his quarters when Peter Crandell entered his room without
knocking, and with unusual excitement shook him awake.

After Noah was on his feet and had splashed handfuls of water on his face from the pitcher at the washstand, Crandell told
him what the excitement was all about. Hawken and Stetson had slipped by the guards at the shipyards, boarded one of the ferries,
and climbed down beneath the ferry’s lowest deck into the bilge near the bow. As soon as the two men had left their rooming
house late that night, word was sent to Crandell. He then ordered five armed men to join him at the yards.