Undaunted Love (14 page)

Chapter Twenty-Five

June 26, 1862

Mechanicsville, Virginia

T
HE UNION ARMY WAS ENTRENCHED along both sides of the Chickahominy River, and the day before, part of General Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, led by Major General Benjamin Hooker, had engaged in an all-day battle with Union forces at Oak Grove. The Federals had only gained a quarter of a mile, but the casualties had been large, over a thousand for both sides.

Now Rafe led his small band of soldiers at Meadow Bridge. General Lee’s plan was for General Hill’s light infantry to move out when they heard General Stonewall Jackson’s guns firing on the Union’s north flank, move on to the Union pickets at Mechanicsville, then fight their way to Beaver Dam Creek. Rafe had been briefed in the dark of the early morning, and his men were ready for their first real battle of the War. But they had been waiting for almost four hours, sitting at the ready, one of them always on guard, all of them straining to hear guns. So far there had been nothing, and they talked quietly among themselves about why. Had General Jackson been killed or captured?

Rafe saw a young private running down the line, and he stopped at their unit. “General Hill says we ain’t waitin’ for Stonewall. He says we’re moving out, soon’s everyone’s been told. Listen for the drums.” He ran off to the next unit, ten yards away. Rafe’s men swallowed hard, said their prayers, and got ready. Without the artillery of Jackson’s division beating down the enemy forces, Rafe didn’t know how their Light Infantry division was going to get through the line, but when the drums gave the signal to move out, he did, leading his men in a charge against the entrenched Union forces.

From the start, it was a rout. Union General Fitz Porter fired off his artillery at Hill’s men, and pushed them back. Hundreds fell. After they regrouped, Hill sent them in again, and again Porter’s big guns fired. More hundreds fell. Hours later the guns seemed to be pulling back, and General Hill ordered another frontal assault. Again they were beaten back, and again hundreds fell.

Rafe lost three of his men, the first two in the first wave, and the last in the final assault. Three more were wounded. All around him were the screams of the injured. Soldiers, broken and battered, were left where they fell until nightfall. By then, many who could have been saved had died. Rafe took his surviving troops and helped collect the wounded. When they clutched his jacket and begged for mercy, he had nothing to offer them. By the time he’d carried fifteen men with broken limbs, bleeding guts and bloody faces, he was despairing. By the time he’d carried fifty, he was numb.

The field hospital was set up behind the lines, and men were lined up on the ground outside awaiting treatment. Screams could be heard from within, and Rafe knew that they were throwing amputated limbs into a pile behind the tent. The smell of blood, burning flesh, and chloroform was all around. Finally the word came to halt, and the men shuffled back to their tents, uniforms and hands covered with blood. Rafe found Satchel asleep on his blanket, in the same sorry state as himself. He threw himself down and closed his eyes, thankfully too tired to relive the horrors of the day, at least that night.

The fighting went on for five more days, and Rafe lost count of the men, the bullets, the screams, the running, the fighting, of eating and sleeping. In the end, the Union forces under General McClellan had retreated, and the Confederate commanders were calling it a victory. On the fifth day, rumor had it, President Davis himself had come to witness the battle. All Rafe knew was that the men under General A.P. Hill had fought hard, and many had died. He was wounded in several places, none gravely, and, miraculously, Satchel had come through the fighting virtually unscathed.

All told, the Army of Northern Virginia suffered near twenty thousand casualties, with thirty-five hundred killed, almost sixteen thousand wounded, and a thousand captured or missing. It was all Rafe could do not to weep uncontrollably sometimes, and all the men, although encouraged by both their own survival and the retreat of the Federals, still walked around shell-shocked. For the first time, Rafe didn’t know what to write in his letter to his wife. How do you describe hell?

Livvie had spent the third day of the battle pacing in her room. Emmy finally told her to leave the house, since she was not only wearing a trough in the rug, her stomping could be heard all over the house, and her mother was due home soon. By the fifth day of the battle, she had memorized the newspaper articles, she dreaded every knock on the door, and she had taken temporary possession of a chair in the general store so she could hear all the latest news right away. By the seventh day, she had moved out to the Colton house where she could stomp and pace all she wanted and no one scolded her.

She took some small comfort that she’d had no word that Rafe was dead. But would they even know yet, if he was? The newspaper reports suggested massive casualties on both sides, and massive confusion as well. Rumors were even swirling that President Davis himself had been in the midst of the chaos, although Livvie couldn’t imagine why. She’d kept the details of the battle from Mariah, fearing she would sink back into depression, so she and Nackie prayed and tried to stay busy, and paced.

On July 8, the letter came. Since it was Emmy’s job to collect the post, the old woman always had the privilege of handing Liv her letters. Usually she teased her and withheld them before finally giving them over, but today she handed it right to Olivia with shaking hands. The letter was written in Rafe’s hand, but there was no way of knowing when he had penned it. Sitting down at the kitchen table, she carefully pulled open the envelope, wanting to know, but afraid at the same time.

July 2, 1862

My Darling Liv,

By now I know you’ve heard about our long and terrible battle. Firstly, I am fine, just a few wounds to remind me of the week, but nothing to keep me from my duties. Satchel is fine as well, but we both lost men. Our division suffered much, although we still don’t know the sad tally. Our own Volunteers saw 20 killed and 133 wounded, which is a sorry tale. While we won, they say, right now I’d say it was a costly victory. For our part, we are reorganizing the troops, trying to help the good people of Richmond who had been under siege from the Federals for so long, and licking our wounds.

Please don’t worry about me. I pray that you are well, and that fighting doesn’t reach Edisto. Now that I have had the full taste of battle, I wish it on no man. But we have a duty to our country, and I will continue to do as they bid me. The sooner we win, the sooner we all go home. That is what I will keep in my thoughts as we march on.

I will write a more encouraging letter soon. The battles seem to have ended for now, and I am tired beyond reckoning. But you are always in my heart, and I knew you would all be worried. Be at ease, my love.

Rafe

Tears had begun to run down her cheeks as soon as she read that her husband was fine, and they continued throughout the letter. She could feel his sadness and regret at the loss of so many men. So many lost, on both sides. Putting the letter down, she looked up and saw Emmy watching her, anxiety written in the creases on her brow and the twin vertical lines between her eyes. She’d forgotten the old woman temporarily, and hurried to make amends.

“He’s fine, Emmy. He’s fine! I’m sorry, I should have read it to you right at first,” she said.

The old negro clapped her right hand over her heart and fanned her face with the other. “Glory be, I like to have died, seein’ you cryin’! Oh my stars, this War…” She smiled, though, and squeezed Livvie’s hand. “Mistuh Rafe be all right then, Miss Livvie, he be all right!”

Chapter Twenty-Six

B
Y MID-JULY THERE WERE NO young men left in Byrd’s Creek except Wyman Phelps. Half of the men between twenty-five and forty-five had volunteered, as well, and the town was quiet, with a deserted feeling. The women of the town, in fact the women of both Edisto and Wadmalaw Islands, were working from dawn to dusk, alone or alongside their slaves. Women were farming, fishing, hunting, and keeping family businesses alive, as well as sewing for the troops. The blockade of Charleston was strengthening with each passing month, but the women were endlessly creative in their substitutions for goods now scarce, and the summer crop of corn, along with other vegetables in gardens large and small, were keeping those at home from starving.

Hugh Byrd came home from Columbia for a two-week stay, and held long meetings with important men from all over the coast of South Carolina behind closed doors. Wyman was ever present, much to Livvie’s dismay, but as her father’s assistant, his time was much taken up with these meetings, which often turned into hasty suppers and late nights. Clara Byrd had organized a group of the town’s wealthier women to meet at the Baptist church, forming the Ladies Aid to Soldiers Society, and her days were spent collecting supplies, sewing uniforms and bandages, and collecting what funds she could to aid both the war effort and the families of those lost in battle. After the schoolteacher volunteered for the navy, Livvie found herself agreeing to take his place at the start of the next term, and was then able to excuse herself from most anything in her house by her need to get prepared.

As she was sitting at the table in the parlor, poring over school primers and ignoring the murmuring of men’s voices coming from her father’s study, she heard the front door open with bang, and loud footsteps going quickly down the hall. The door to the study opened and slammed closed. She sat for a moment, listening, hoping there wasn’t bad news from the front lines. She heard yelling, and could discern both her father’s voice and that of Wyman Phelps. This made her smile – anything that made Wyman unpopular to her father was good news to her.

Soon they entered the hall, closing the door behind them, to continue their argument, and now Livvie could hear the words.

“I won’t go!” Wyman yelled. “I’ll pay a substitute, or just not report in. My father can pay someone. My place is here, not out there in the swamps somewhere, trying to shoot at strangers!”

“You
will
go,” Hugh Byrd said forcefully. “You will honor your family, honor me, and honor the Confederacy. Why should you not go, when so many have willingly volunteered, lesser men than you, sir?”

“I am of use to the country and to South Carolina when I assist you. You yourself are working for the governor, and that is honorable work, indeed,” Wyman insisted.

“I am fifty years old, young man. Were I a youth, I would have volunteered at President Davis’ first call, and considered it both my duty and a privilege.”

Livvie grinned. She knew what arguing with Hugh Byrd was like, and she knew that no one ever won against him. Wyman’s options were few: report as ordered, or desert and return to his father. But his father was, she thought, a man much like her own, and she didn’t think he’d cotton to a cowardly deserter for a son, nor pay for a substitute to fight in his place. Wyman was well and truly cornered. It just was a matter of how quickly he’d acquiesce.

But like a dog with a bone, he carried on. “If I’d wanted to fight, I would have joined. I am not a soldier! I don’t take orders well, and I don’t relish living in a tent in a swamp, surrounded by unwashed and uneducated men, filth and disease.”

Her father’s voice was now cold and flat, a tone she recognized well. “In wartime, one does one’s duty, whether one desires it or not.”

Apparently Wyman didn’t hear the warning and kept trying to prove his point. “I am doing my duty by working for you, sir!”

“You are not irreplaceable, Mr. Phelps,” Hugh Byrd said. “And I will not have a craven coward representing me in Byrd’s Creek nor anywhere else. Should you wish to have this job for more than the next five minutes, you will do as you’ve been ordered to do. When you return, you may resume your duties here with me. But if you choose the other course of action, “ saying ‘other’ like it gave him a horrible taste in his mouth, “consider your employment terminated, immediately.”

If she could have, she would have clapped and cheered. Her father was often wrong, and always a hard man, but in this he was right. Not to mention that Wyman going to fight would mean he was no longer always under foot. She put her hands over her mouth to stifle any sound and continued listening.

There was a long time of silence, and Livvie wished she could have seen Wyman’s face as he obviously struggled to come up with appropriate words. However, being slightly more ambitious than he was craven, duty won out. “I will report to headquarters in Charleston tomorrow, sir,” he said in a strained voice. “Please excuse me, I must make preparations for my departure.” She heard footsteps, then the front door open and close. Her father returned to his study and the men he’d left waiting, and she could no longer hear.

Jumping up, she ran quietly into the kitchen. Not finding Emmy there, she went outside and saw her hanging clothes on the line, clothespins in her mouth.

“Emmy!” she said, brimming over with excitement. “You won’t guess what’s happened!”

Using the last clothespin to hang a chemise on the line, she said, “Mistuh Rafe comin’ home again?”

“No! No! Wyman has been conscripted, and he told Daddy he wasn’t going to go, that he’d get a substitute, and Daddy made him! He’s going tomorrow to Charleston, and then off to who knows where. But he’s
leaving
, Emmy, for good!”

“Praise the Lord!” the old woman exclaimed. “I been prayin’ that God would take that fool outa this here house. Yo mama’s gonna be mighty happy, too.”

“I don’t want the war to last, but now, if Wyman comes home, that means Rafe is coming home, too, and we’ll be husband and wife before everybody. I’m free!” She twirled around, giddy with excitement. She knew Rafe would be happy, too. He was none too pleased that the handsome, wealthy young man her father had been trying to marry her off to was so often at her house. She laughed. It was wonderful!

“We want all them boys to come home safe, though, Miss Livvie, don’t you forget that. It’s one thing for Mr. Phelps to take hisself off to the War, and to be glad of it. But let’s us make good and sure we’re praying that they
all
come home safe, and sooner rather than later.”