The Union Quilters (30 page)

Constance folded the letter to a silence so complete she heard the whisper of her fingers upon the paper as she slipped it into the envelope. “So you see, in the end they liberated neither prison,” she said, watching Mrs. Barrows and Mrs. Claverton exchange a significant look and Mary shift uncomfortably in her chair.

“But this still gives us reason to hope,” said Dorothea stoutly, her gaze darting to Gerda before resting upon Charlotte. “Though this raid failed, it proves that the Union Army has neither forgotten its prisoners nor abandoned them. They will surely make another attempt.”

“They would have no excuse for forgetting their prisoners,” said Gerda, “not with my report submitted to the commander in chief himself.”

“Oh, honestly,” exclaimed Charlotte. “You would take credit for the raid in addition to everything else.”

“I claim nothing of the sort,” said Gerda, surprised. “I brought the terrible circumstances to Mr. Lincoln’s attention, nothing more and nothing less.”

Charlotte waved a hand dismissively. “I’m sure you didn’t tell Mr. Lincoln anything he hadn’t already heard through more official channels, but if the raid had succeeded, all we would have heard from you for the next three months would have been how your brilliant report inspired the liberation of Jonathan and scores of other officers.”

Gerda’s eyes narrowed, and for a moment Constance was sure she would impale the younger woman on a spear of invective, but then Gerda took a deep breath and sank back into her chair. “Well. We’ll never know now, will we?”

Subdued, Charlotte blinked back angry tears and took up her quilt hoop, lowering her head until her ebony curls concealed her face.

“We all wish Jonathan had been freed,” said Mrs. Claverton quietly. “It doesn’t matter how or who is responsible.”

“But how astonishing it would have been if Abel had been the one to free Jonathan,” said Lorena. “I can imagine the look on my son’s face to see his neighbor there, opening the door to the prison.”

“Can you imagine what Abel would have expected for the Negro soldiers in that case?” asked Mrs. Barrows, shaking her head in amusement. “Perhaps the right to be a general, or to run for president.”

Mrs. Claverton laughed, but Constance was unsettled. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“Well, your husband seems to believe the Negro soldiers will be greatly rewarded for their service, more so than regular soldiers,” Mrs. Barrows explained. “Why should Negroes benefit more than whites?”

“I don’t think he believes anything of the sort,” said Constance stiffly. “Already the colored regiments receive lower pay than white regiments. And that’s for those who accept their pay. Some refuse it rather than agree to take less than whites get for the same duty.”

“Mrs. Barrows, don’t you agree that by serving their country, the colored soldiers have earned all the rights and privileges of citizenship?” asked Dorothea. “Rights that they never should have been obliged to earn, but have been already granted to them by the Constitution?”

“I’m no Copperhead, and I’ve been an abolitionist since before either of you were born,” Mrs. Barrows quickly replied, looking from Dorothea to Constance and back. “But I confess I never thought Negro men would be permitted to vote and such things.”

“But that’s a privilege denied you as a woman,” said Gerda, “and you’ve argued for that right as a woman as fiercely as any of us.”

Constance noticed that while several of the Union Quilters nodded, and others were regarding Mrs. Barrows with puzzlement equal to her own, others held perfectly still and were careful not to meet anyone’s eye, telling her as clearly as if they had shouted that they agreed with Mrs. Barrows.

Flustered, Mrs. Barrows set her quilting in her lap. “I know. I realize I contradict myself. But I’m not the only one who feels that way. You see—” She gestured helplessly. “We just don’t know what to do with you, all you free Negros.”

“Do with us?” echoed Constance, letting out an incredulous laugh. “Why, do nothing with us. White folks ‘doing’ with us has ‘done’ us nothing but injury. Give us the rights granted to all in the Constitution and then leave us be to abide by the same laws and rights and privileges as you. We don’t want your charity or pity or anxious worrying over us. We want justice. We have the right to equal liberty with you—white with colored, women with men. If we can’t stand on our own two legs, then let us fall, but at least give us the chance to stand. That’s what you say to the men who don’t think you have brains enough in your head to vote, isn’t it? Well, it’s the same with us. You ladies here, every one of you, have more in common with colored folks than with white men sometimes. You just don’t know it.”

“We know it now,” said Dorothea, and Constance could have laughed had she not been so frustrated, because out of all of the women present, only Dorothea had known it all along.

 

The winter of 1864 brought bitter cold to North and South alike, slowing the pace of battle but inflicting a different and no less dangerous suffering upon the soldiers. Thomas wrote of deep snowfalls and friends who had lost toes to frostbite. Abel thanked the Union Quilters for the warm woolen socks and scarves and asked for more for his fellow soldiers in the 6th, for many of the men were former slaves whose womenfolk were still in bondage and unable to provide them with necessities. Dorothea took a very small comfort in knowing that as deplorable as Libby Prison was, at least Jonathan was indoors, out of the elements, unlike the poor souls held on Belle Isle. Although Gerda had heard nothing to indicate that Mr. Lincoln had read her report about Libby Prison and had resolved to take action, she did receive occasional letters from her new acquaintance, Miss Van Lew in Richmond, which she read aloud at the meetings of the Union Quilters just as the wives and mothers of soldiers did. Miss Van Lew wrote frankly of the hardships the prisoners endured, but her tone seemed more guarded when she mentioned Jonathan in particular. Dorothea gathered that he suffered from a persistent illness of the chest and had lost weight, but she trusted that if his condition worsened, Miss Van Lew would inform Gerda, and if she could do anything to ease his suffering, she would.

As grateful as Charlotte was to have any news of her husband, it upset her that Miss Van Lew wrote to Gerda instead of her. “Those letters should come to me,” she told Dorothea privately, her pretty features hardening in anger. “I am his wife. I should not have to hear about my husband through his lover.”

It was the first time Dorothea had heard Charlotte refer to Gerda in that manner, and her sister-in-law’s grief pained her. “I agree it would be more appropriate for Miss Van Lew to write to you,” she said, “but what can we do? Gerda cultivated the friendship. If we ask Gerda to end the correspondence out of respect for you, she may not agree, although she may simply stop sharing her letters with the rest of us rather than offend you. If she does stop writing to Miss Van Lew, we don’t know that Miss Van Lew will trust you or me as a confidante as she trusts Gerda. Gerda does not always act as I wish she would, but she is my friend. I would rather have news of my brother through her than hear nothing save what Jonathan can fit into his rare, six-line letters.”

Her anger subsiding, Charlotte reluctantly agreed that she had little choice but to endure the insult of that particular messenger if she wished to continue receiving the precious messages. Dorothea’s heart went out to her sister-in-law. She had no doubt that Charlotte loved Jonathan dearly, and longed to have him love her alone in return. Charlotte had done nothing to deserve the scandal and shame she had tolerated for so many years for Jonathan’s sake. Dorothea wished Gerda would recognize the folly of her enduring desire for Jonathan and tell him firmly that he must devote himself to his wife, as he had vowed to do when he married her. If only Gerda would say the words, Jonathan would respect her wishes, but this Gerda would never do. Despite all evidence to the contrary, she clung to the hope that she and Jonathan would be married one day, a hope as stubborn and unfounded as her persistent belief that she would eventually obtain Joanna’s freedom after years of fruitless striving.

The Union Quilters doggedly endured the cold, bleak days, longing for their husbands and fathers and sons, working from dawn until dusk to hold farm and home and family together, contriving new fund-raisers and persisting with the tried and true to earn more money for their adopted regiments. The Loyal Union Sampler pattern sales exceeded their most optimistic predictions, with new subscription requests keeping pace with their pattern publications. Knowing that the people of the Elm Creek Valley needed their spirits lifted almost as much as the men at the front did, Dorothea organized entertainments at Union Hall, collecting silver and greenbacks from grateful neighbors eager for diversions from the frigid winter and the war, which seemed similarly frozen in stalemate. And yet, it seemed to Dorothea that Northern confidence was rising by almost imperceptible degrees, even as it declined in the South. The Union blockade was holding, the core Southern territory shrinking. Perhaps it would not be tempting fate to hope that the war would be over before the presidential elections in the fall.

On a snowy Monday in mid-February, Dorothea was in the kitchen kneading bread dough while Abigail played with her favorite rag doll on the floor nearby, when she heard the merry jingling of bells. She glanced out the window above the sink and spotted an unfamiliar cutter pulled by a black horse coming up the road, the driver unrecognizable in a heavy coat and scarf. “Mrs. Hennessey?” she called. They were not expecting company as far as she could recall.

“She’s in the washhouse doing laundry,” said Anneke, returning downstairs after putting baby Albert down for his nap and, after encountering some resistance, putting the twins to bed as well. “I daresay a housekeeper is a luxury I could grow accustomed to. Shall I summon her for you?”

“No, it’s all right,” said Dorothea, indicating the scene outside with a nod. “Someone’s paying us a call.”

“In this weather?” Anneke joined Dorothea at the window and peered outside. “I know that horse. It’s one of Hans’s. He sold it to Mr. Schultz.”

They watched the horse and cutter continue up the road until a corner of the house blocked them from sight. Suddenly anxious, Dorothea put the dough in a bowl and set it near the stove to rise, wiping flour from her hands with her apron. She scooped up Abigail and carried her to the front room window where the view of the road was better, Anneke close behind. As the cutter approached, she suddenly recognized Mary’s fifteen-year-old brother at the reins, and her heart went into her throat. Her thoughts flew to the casualty lists that Mr. Schultz collected daily from the telegraph office—but if Thomas’s name was on it, the Schultzes surely would not have sent young Peter to tell her. Unless—Mary had mentioned that Peter had hoped to get a job as a messenger since he was still too young to enlist in the army—

ʺMama?ʺ said Abigail worriedly, placing her hands on her motherʹs face.

Dorothea realized she had been clutching her daughter too tightly and immediately relaxed her grip. “Sorry, darling,” she said, forcing a reassuring smile.

“Do you want me to speak to him?” asked Anneke.

Dorothea took a deep breath, shook her head, and opened the front door just as Peter reached the top step.

“Mrs. Nelson, Mrs. Bergstrom,” he said, his dark eyes snapping with excitement, his cheeks and the tip of his nose red with cold. “There’s been an escape from Libby Prison.”

“An attempted rescue,” Dorothea corrected. “Yes, I know. Mr. Wright wrote to his wife about it.”

“No, no, not that, ma’am,” he said. “A group of prisoners tunneled out. The story was in
The New York Times
this morning.” He tugged off a mitten, reached into his coat, and pulled out a folded newspaper from the inside breast pocket. “Your friend Miss Bergstrom asked me to bring you this.”

Heart pounding, Dorothea handed Abigail to Anneke, took the newspaper from the eager young man, and began to read.

Dorothea read the article a second time, breath catching in her throat. “One hundred and nine men escaped,” she said in wonder. “Is anything more known about the identity of these men?”