Chapter Twelve

April 1861

Two days later, I was still thinking about Eli’s words when I attended Sunday worship services at St. Paul’s Church with Charles and his family. The minister, Dr. Minnigerode, was careful not to use God’s pulpit to preach politics, instead praying for His wisdom, for calm hearts, and for peace to prevail. The tranquillity of that beautiful sanctuary, the reassuring words of Scripture, and the hymns that spoke of God’s love and faithfulness helped me forget the ugly reality of war for a while. But when the appointed Old Testament Scripture for that Sunday was read, I sensed a ripple of excitement pass through the congregation. “But I will remove far off from you the northern army, and will drive him into a land barren and desolate. . . .”

People nudged each other, exchanging glances, as if the scheduled reading from the book of Joel was prophesying a Southern victory. But weren’t people in the North gathering in their churches this morning, too, asking for God’s blessing on their cause? Which side was right? God couldn’t be on both sides, yet both sides prayed to Him, believed in Him. I had worshipped in both places, and I knew that there were faithful Christians in the North as well as the South who trusted Christ and looked to Him for guidance. How was He supposed to choose between them?

Near the end of the service, as Dr. Minnigerode asked us to bow for the closing prayer, the harsh clanging of the alarm bell sounding from the tower across Ninth Street on Capitol Square destroyed the morning’s tranquillity. It rang the signal for danger— two peals, a pause, a third peal—over and over again, shattering the quiet noon hour.

“What is it, Charles?” Mrs. St. John asked. “Why is that bell ringing?”

He sat on the edge of his seat, alert, listening. “It’s signaling danger. All able-bodied men are supposed to go to the armories and find out what the emergency is.”

The church was thrown into confusion as people sprang to their feet. Many of the men briefly embraced their wives before stepping toward the aisles and hurrying from the sanctuary. Charles gripped my hand in his for a moment, then left to join the others. He’d had no time to reassure me, to say “don’t worry” or “everything will be all right.” Perhaps he knew his words would be spoken in vain. Judging by the pale, frightened faces all around me, I wasn’t the only woman who feared for her loved ones.

When all the men of fighting age had departed, the rest of the congregation made its way outside into the warm spring sunshine. “Wait here,” Charles’ father told us. “I’ll go over and see if I can learn anything.” We watched him walk across the street to the bell tower, his steps slowed by rheumatism.

Sally held my hand while we waited. “I’m so scared! Aren’t you, Caroline?”

“Yes,” I admitted. I longed to run home to Tessie and Eli for comfort, but I couldn’t leave until I knew the danger we were all facing. After what seemed to be an endless wait, Mr. St. John limped back with his report. He spoke calmly, but his anxiety was evident in the way he quickly herded us toward the carriage.

“Governor Letcher ordered the alarm to be sounded,” he said. “Let’s start home, and I’ll tell you what little I know on the way.”

So much traffic jammed the streets as people raced about that we probably could have walked the few blocks to the St. Johns’ mansion faster than it took us to drive there. But once we were all settled inside the carriage, Mr. St. John told us what was wrong.

“The U.S. warship Pawnee has been operating in Norfolk Harbor for the past few weeks. The governor received a report this morning that it’s currently moving up the James River toward Richmond.”

“Daddy, no!” Sally cried. “Can’t we stop it?”

“Well, it won’t be easy to stop a warship, but we’re certainly going to try. We’re mustering the militia, the Richmond Howitzer Battalion, the Fayette Artillery . . .”

“How could the Yankees move to attack us so quickly?” Mrs. St. John asked. “We just announced our secession a few days ago.”

“I know, I know. They were prepared, we weren’t. We haven’t had time to equip any shore batteries, so we have absolutely no defenses between here and Norfolk.We can’t stop the Pawnee from sailing up to our doorstep.”

“What will the ship do once it’s here?” I asked shakily.

When her husband hesitated, Mrs. St. John said, “It’s all right to tell us, dear. We need to know.”

“Well, I imagine they’ll bombard us from offshore. Richmond is one of the South’s most industrialized cities. They’ll try to demolish Tredegar Iron Works . . . perhaps destroy the entire city.”

“Your flour mills?” Sally asked. He shrugged helplessly.

Our vulnerability and impotence made me sick with fear, not only for my own safety but also for Charles’. Did the governor expect him and the other men to stand on shore with rifles, facing an armed warship’s cannon? How could we have entered a war without any defenses?

When we finally reached the St. Johns’ house, Charles’ father invited me to stay and wait for the latest news with them. Their cook had prepared an enormous Sunday dinner, but I was too ill with worry to eat any of it. I begged Mr. St. John to let his driver take me home.

“If you wish,” he agreed, “but I insist on escorting you there myself.”

It took nearly a quarter of an hour to drive less than three blocks to Broad Street. It seemed that every man and boy in Richmond had crowded into the streets, trying to join up with the city’s militia. Most of the men still wore their Sunday finery, and nearly everyone bore arms. I saw all manner of guns, from dueling pistols to Revolutionary War relics. The volunteers appeared pitifully inadequate and disorganized, certainly no match for a U.S. warship.

Mr. St. John pointed to the capitol roof as we passed the square. “See there? Those are lookouts watching for the Pawnee. I’ve heard you can see as far as the first bend in the river from up there. We’ll have a few minutes’ warning, at least.”

As we made our way east toward Church Hill, we were forced to stop again as a troop of soldiers crossed the street, marching in somewhat of a military fashion, their bayonets fixed. I searched the rows of faces for Charles’ but didn’t see him.

“Where are you headed?” Mr. St. John called from the open carriage window.

“Rocketts Wharf,” someone replied, “in case they send a landing force.” As if facing an armed warship wasn’t bad enough, now I had to face the possibility of marauding enemy soldiers overpowering our haphazard forces and invading the city.

The traffic thinned once we started up Church Hill, and a few minutes later we passed St. John’s Church. All my life I had heard the story of how Patrick Henry had spoken his famous words, “Give me liberty or give me death!” in that church just a few blocks from my home, but I had never before thought about what they meant. Charles had quoted them to me only a few nights earlier, saying he would willingly fight to keep his freedom. But freedom to do what? I still didn’t understand what Charles would be willing to die for.

When I reached home, Daddy thanked Mr. St. John for escorting me and invited him inside. I left the two of them in the library, discussing the impending invasion, and fled upstairs to the safety of Tessie’s arms. She tried her best to calm me, but every time I looked at the engagement ring on my finger and thought of Charles facing a warship, I was forced to battle waves of nervous hysteria. I knew the afternoon would stretch ahead of me endlessly as I waited, facing the terror of the unknown.

“How about we do something?” Tessie finally said. “Take your mind off your troubles instead of sitting here fretting.”

“I . . . I wouldn’t be able to do anything. My hands are shaking too badly to do any needlework or—”

“Not that kind of something. How about I practice my reading? I ain’t never gonna get any better if I don’t practice.”

Her offer surprised me. It was the first time she had ever asked for a lesson. Even though she was making wonderful progress with her reading and writing skills, her reluctance and fear had remained very strong, her written work invariably thrown into the flames at the end of each session. But this time Tessie had taken the initiative, and before I could respond to her offer, she had already fetched her latest textbook, the Bible, and was opening it to where we had left off in the Book of Psalms.

“ ‘Unto thee lift I up mine eyes,’ ” Tessie read, “ ‘O thou that dwellest in the heavens. Behold, as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress; so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God, until that he have mercy upon us. Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us . . .’ ”

At dusk, Tessie went down to the kitchen to fetch me a tray of food. A few minutes later, someone knocked on my door.

“Missy Caroline?”

“Come in, Ruby.”

“Tessie tell me you upset on account of Massa Charles going off to fight that big ship.” She stood close to the door, shuffling nervously from one foot to the other.

“Yes . . . What is it, Ruby?”

She held out her hand, offering me something. “These here laudanum pills always help you mama when she upset.”

They were also what had killed her. Tears filled my eyes at this reminder of my own weakness. I recalled my last night at Hilltop and my aunt and uncle’s worried whispers that I would turn out to be just like my mother.

Ruby set the container of pills down on my dresser, then hurried away. As I stared at the medicine in the gathering twilight, a faint booming sounded in the distance. I recognized the sound. I’d heard it during two nights of celebration. Cannon fire.

The Pawnee.

Terror rose up inside me until I thought I might suffocate. The war was only beginning, but I knew that I couldn’t live with such overwhelming fear every day until it ended. I saw only two choices. I could turn to the pills as my mother had, or I could turn to God, as Eli did. “As the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters . . .” The laudanum was certainly a quicker solution, but Eli’s peace was genuine, enduring. I picked up the tin of pills and hurled it across the room into the darkness, unwilling to end up like my mother. Then I fell to my knees beside my bed.

“Oh, God, I can’t live like this,” I prayed. “The city is defenseless. I’m helpless. I can’t protect the people I love. Help me trust you, God. Help me believe that you love Charles as much as I do, that you’ll always do what’s best for him. I want to trust you, Lord, but it’s so hard. So very hard. Please help me. Please help me pray ‘Thy will be done.’ Help me to really mean it, Lord.”

Eli was right; God didn’t instantly reward me with a bushel basket of faith. But by the time I whispered “Amen,” I felt strong enough to get through this night without my mother’s laudanum. I would probably have to pray this way every day, perhaps several times each day, but that was the only way to face this war—one day at a time. “. . . as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress . . .” I would have to look to God to teach me daily lessons of faith, just as Tessie had trusted me to teach her.

By the time Tessie returned with a bowl of Esther’s chicken soup and some hot biscuits, the cannon had stopped sounding in the distance. My knees were no longer trembling.

“What you doing sitting here in the dark?” Tessie scolded. She set down the tray to light a lamp. “You come on and sit down over here, honey. Try and eat a little something.” It surprised me to discover that I could do it, that the spoon didn’t shake in my hand.

I prayed for a long time before I fell asleep that night, and as I did, I realized that I had always been utterly dependent on God for every breath I took, every breath Charles took. Why had it taken a crisis like the Pawnee to make me see it, to drive me to my knees?

I fell asleep reciting a verse from the psalms that Eli had made Grady and me learn years ago to ward off our nightmares: “ ‘I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety.’ ”

———

Charles arrived the next morning just as Tessie finished helping me dress. I ran down the stairs and into his arms. “Charles! You’re safe!”

He surprised me by lifting me up and whirling me around two times before setting my feet on the floor again. It was something Jonathan might have done. Charles’ fine Sunday clothes looked disheveled and stained, but he was smiling.

“Yes, aside from spending a cold night on the hard ground, I’m safe.”

“I heard cannon fire last night, just as it was growing dark.Was it the Pawnee?”

Charles laughed out loud. “No, that was our own artillery.We were testing it. There never was any warship steaming up the James River.”

“What?”

“It was all just a wild rumor. The Pawnee left Norfolk, but it’s probably halfway to Washington by now.”

“Oh, Charles. All that fuss and worry for nothing?”

He laughed again. “I guess so.”

Esther walked into the foyer with my breakfast tray just then, on her way upstairs to bring it to me. She halted when she saw Charles, and her face broke into a wide grin.

“Why, Massa Charles. If you ain’t a sight for sore eyes. Our Missy awful worried about you. But you get on in that dining room and sit yourself down now, you hear? You gonna let me feed you this morning, and you ain’t gonna argue, because I can hear the gears in your belly grinding clear across this hallway.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He smiled and gave a mock salute as he agreed to stay for breakfast. Daddy joined us at the dining room table. As Esther piled food in front of us, Charles told his story.

“After we all arrived at the armory and they distributed the weapons, we headed down to Rocketts Wharf to engage any enemy landing forces. Later, they decided to station part of us downriver a few miles, below the city. We were all so tense and edgy it’s a wonder someone didn’t shoot off his own foot. At least those of us who’ve trained with the state militia knew how to handle a weapon—although I’m not sure bayonets and musket balls would have done much good against a warship.

“We spent the night camped on the river, waiting, only to learn early this morning that it was all a false alarm. The Pawnee did leave Norfolk Harbor yesterday, but it headed out into Chesapeake Bay and, presumably, up the Potomac.”

“More ham and biscuits?” Esther asked as she bustled into the room with another tray.

Charles held up both hands. “You’re only feeding one soldier, Esther, not the entire army. Although that’s not such a bad idea. Would you like to come along and be our commissary cook?”

“If I do that, Missy Caroline never would eat nothing,” she said, setting the platter in front of me. “Then she just might blow away one of these days.” Esther disappeared through the door again.

“So all that fretting was for nothing,” I said with a sigh.

“No, it did accomplish one important thing,” Charles said, cutting into another slice of ham. “It showed us how ill-prepared we are to defend ourselves and this city.”

“Well, we only voted to secede a few days ago,” Daddy said. “We can hardly expect to be prepared so soon.”

“If the enemy’s military leadership had been on their toes,” Charles replied, “they would have sent the Pawnee upriver and blasted the Tredegar Iron Works into oblivion before we had a chance to build a single cannon. You can bet we’ll start constructing shore batteries now and mining the James with torpedoes.”

Daddy sipped his coffee, then leaned back in his chair. “Have you made any immediate plans, Charles?”

Charles’ eyes met mine for a moment before he answered, as if giving me time to prepare myself for his response. “I plan to enlist right away in the Richmond Light Infantry Blues.”

“Ah, yes. That’s an old, highly regarded unit,” Daddy said. “A very distinguished outfit.”

Charles nodded. “I’m continuing a family tradition. Some of my ancestors fought with the ‘Blues’ during the first revolution.” He sighed and removed his napkin from his lap, folding it carefully and placing it beside his empty plate. “I have a feeling that yesterday was only a taste of what’s to come. Virginia is likely to become a principal battleground during this war, not only because we’re so close to Washington, but because Richmond is one of the South’s few industrial centers.”

“I think you’re right,” Daddy said. “In light of all this, may I ask . . . what have you two decided about your wedding?”

Charles looked at me again. “We haven’t decided anything, sir. I still want very much to marry Caroline. But I think, unless the war ends before July . . . I think we will be forced to postpone it for a while.”

In the weeks that followed, Charles became part of a stampede of volunteers who lined up to enlist in the Confederate Army. Jonathan joined him in filling the ranks of Richmond’s Light Infantry Blues. I drew a small measure of comfort from the fact that the two of them were together, watching out for each other. Jennings Wise, editor of the Enquirer and son of our former governor, was named the Blues’ captain. Jonathan’s older brother, William, joined an artillery unit.

Even as I watched my loved ones put on uniforms, take up arms, and train for battle, I clung to the irrational hope that it would all prove to be another false alarm like the Pawnee incident. As the spring days quickly passed, that hope grew more futile.

With the declaration of war, I could no longer receive letters from my cousins up north. I often thought about the two years I’d spent with them, and I couldn’t help imagining all the young men I’d danced with in Philadelphia lining up to kill all the young men I knew in Richmond. Cousin Robert Hoffman would soon have his wish to fight in a war fulfilled. What disturbed me was that he might be fighting against Charles. I only wished I knew how— and when—this ugly conflict would end.

The Richmond I once knew changed rapidly during those early months of war, doubling in size within a matter of weeks. Refugees from Baltimore who were loyal to the South streamed into Virginia after Federal troops occupied their city. Hundreds of unfamiliar faces filled the streets as young men raced to the city to enlist. Colleges and schools were forced to close for lack of pupils and teachers. Young boys, turned away from the army because of their age, complained that the war would be over before they had a chance to fight. Every passenger train that pulled into one of Richmond’s depots brought more soldiers, all of them eager for war. When a trainload of troops from South Carolina arrived, people from all over the city flocked to the station, cheering wildly for the heroes of Fort Sumter.

The young men who arrived to enlist came from all walks of life—laborers and lawyers, farmers and factory workers, miners and merchants. Sally would call out to them from her carriage window, asking where they were from. Their varied answers amazed me. “Mississippi, ma’am . . . Texas . . . Florida . . . Missouri.” Seeing their enthusiasm, one might have guessed they were going to a picnic, not a war.

Army encampments soon sprawled in all directions around the city, with men bivouacked in places like Monroe Park and the fairgrounds where Charles and I had our disastrous first date. From the top of every hill, white tents were visible in the distance, dotting the landscape like mushrooms.

As the spring evenings warmed and lengthened, many of Richmond’s ladies made it their habit to ride out to the fairgrounds after dinner to watch the evening dress parades. Sally was one of them. She coaxed me into coming with her to watch Charles and Jonathan drill. The central fairgrounds above the city had been transformed into a vast instruction camp where Colonel Smith and his young cadets from the Virginia Military Institute drilled the new recruits. We saw gentlemen in top hats and frock coats drilling side by side with barefooted sharecroppers in muslin shirts. Suppliers simply couldn’t keep up with the demand for uniforms and boots.

Those early days of parade drill often resembled a comedy routine. Inexperienced soldiers would mix up the commands, causing them to pivot in the wrong direction, march straight into each other, and even accidentally whack each other in the head with their rifles as they turned. Eventually everyone learned to form a column for long marches, to dress the line, and to form a line of battle in any direction. Once they’d mastered those commands, they were ready to be trained for larger tactical maneuvers. The men also had to learn the nine steps required to load and fire their weapons, although ammunition was too precious to waste on practice.

“I have something for you,” Sally said on one of our first trips to the fairgrounds. She leaned close to pin a rosette of palmetto leaves onto my lapel.

“What is that?”

“It’s a secession badge. Everyone’s wearing one. It’s a symbol of patriotism for the Confederacy.”

The thought of it made me uneasy. I still considered myself an American, so it seemed disloyal to support the Confederacy. Yet when I thought of Charles going off to fight the enemy, American soldiers would be trying to kill him, American warships would be bombarding my home.

Sally didn’t seem as bothered by divided loyalties as I was, nor did she notice my unease. As we sat on our folding stools near the edge of the field that evening, watching the maneuvers, she kept up a steady, patriotic monologue.

“Just look at all those wonderful, brave men. Aren’t they courageous souls? When I see their bravery and determination it makes me so proud to be a Virginian. I want our men to know I’m behind them all the way. No sacrifice we’re asked to make is too great for the cause. I’m willing to do whatever I can here on the home front to support them, aren’t you, Caroline?”

She turned to me for my assent, but I didn’t know what to say. Instead, I pointed vaguely toward the ranks of men and said, “Are they the ‘Blues’? Do you see Charles and Jonathan anywhere?”

“No, I don’t think that’s their unit.” Then she returned to her speech. “The North will back down and leave us alone, you’ll see. They’re all cowards, afraid of a fight. Why, I read in the Richmond papers that they can hardly get anyone up there to volunteer—and even then it’s only for ninety days. If they ever do attack us, we’ll lick them in no time. Everybody knows Billy Yank won’t fight. Besides, our cause is just.”

Sally talked very bravely, but I wondered how she—how I— would react if faced with another scare like Pawnee Sunday. What would we do if the next threat was genuine?

One evening when Sally and I were at the parade grounds, she grew especially excited as she pointed to a tall, distinguishedlooking man with graying hair and beard watching from the sidelines. “Look! That’s Colonel Lee . . . I mean General Lee! He’s in command of all the Confederate forces in Virginia. Isn’t he a good-looking man?”

Robert E. Lee was indeed a striking man. Tall and broad shouldered, probably in his mid-fifties, he had a handsome, wellproportioned face with calm, composed features. His military bearing was commanding and dignified, yet not cold or stern as many career military men sometimes were.

“I read in the news that Mr. Lincoln offered him the command of all the Union armies,” Sally said, “but he refused.”

I had read that, too. Lee, the hero of Harper’s Ferry, said he couldn’t fight against his birthplace, his home, his family. Since he had graduated from West Point—had been the academy’s superintendent, in fact—he would now be fighting against many of his former colleagues, friends, teachers, and even students like Robert. I sympathized with Colonel Lee’s dilemma. People I loved lived in the North, too. But like Charles, Lee was determined to fight for the South. At least I could be thankful that Charles and Jonathan would be under Lee’s capable leadership.

By late spring, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Arkansas had joined Virginia and the other secessionists, bringing a total of eleven states into the Confederacy. The new government voted to move its capital from Montgomery, Alabama, to Richmond. We would be the “Washington, D.C.” of the South. I thought our city was already filled to capacity after the earlier influx of soldiers and refugees, but now it nearly burst its seams as politicians and government officials, along with their families, arrived from all the other Southern states. I couldn’t imagine where we would put them all.

President Jefferson Davis arrived on May 29, moving into the Spotswood Hotel until his new executive mansion, not far from Charles’ home, was ready for occupancy. The city celebrated his arrival in grand style, decorating the hotel and nearly every house in Court End with the Stars and Bars in his honor. They held a reception for him at the governor’s mansion the following day. I accompanied Sally, her mother, and the rest of Richmond’s fashionable ladies in greeting President Davis in the forenoon; the men’s reception was in the afternoon.

“Wasn’t that exciting?” Sally said as we made our way back to her house afterward. “Think of it! We’ve met the president!”

“He isn’t much to look at,” Mrs. St. John said with a sniff.

“Well, neither is Mr. Lincoln, Mother,” Sally said. “The point is, none of us except Charles has ever met a president before, and now here we are, living in the nation’s capital!”

I had endured the reception as if it was just another dreary party, but as I listened to the two women talking, reality began to set in. Not only was I being forced to face a war I dreaded, but I also lived in the capital city of a new nation. Overnight, Richmond had become a symbol of the rebellion, and for the enemy, the ultimate prize of war. The familiar Stars and Stripes no longer flew from every flagpole. In fact, I no longer lived in the United States of America. The city around me might look familiar, but I now resided in a foreign land.

What worried me most was the fact that nobody I knew seemed to grieve over this loss the way I did. The man I loved was even willing to die for the right to create a new nation, fly a new flag. What was wrong with me that made me so different?

I continued my prayers each morning and night—or whenever fear began to strangle me—asking God to help me through whatever the day might bring. And as summer neared, routine life in Richmond quickly adopted a new rhythm. Our days began with the distant sounds of reveille and the rattle of drums, calling soldiers to duty; they ended with evening taps. Throughout the day, the sound of martial music and the tramp of marching feet served as background accompaniments to everything we did.

As soon as a company of soldiers was sufficiently drilled in military exercises, they would be transferred wherever the Confederacy needed them, defending one of the enemy’s three possible invasion routes to Richmond. General Joseph Johnston and his forces were positioned in the Shenandoah Valley, guarding against a western attack. General Beauregard, hero of Fort Sumter, patrolled the northern approach and the rail route from Washington, D.C. to Richmond. Colonel Magruder was in charge of the peninsula, keeping an eye on the Union troops who still held Fortress Monroe, less than seventy-five miles southeast of Richmond.

As the newly mobilized troops marched through the city toward their assignments, the ladies of Richmond would send them on their way with cheers and blown kisses and fluttering handkerchiefs. Sally believed that it was our patriotic duty to support our men by joining in as many of these farewell marches as possible. She somehow found out where and when the men would be departing and made a determined effort to show up along the parade route, plowing forward in rain or shine, towing me in her wake as if she was a mule and I was a barge on the Kanawha Canal.

I found it difficult not to weep as I watched young men, family men with small children, saying farewell to the people they loved, reluctantly releasing them from their arms after a final, lingering embrace, then marching from sight, full of resolve and determination. We all knew that many of the waving, cheering women would never see their departing soldiers again, and behind our smiles our hearts were as heavy as cannonballs.

Inevitably the day came when Charles and Jonathan completed their training. The Richmond Blues entered into Confederate service as part of the First Virginia Infantry. On the day before they departed, Captain Wise granted Jonathan a short leave to visit Hilltop. Jonathan stopped by my house on his way there, so excited, so full of life and the lust for adventure, that it was hard to imagine that anything terrible could happen to him. Wouldn’t he always be this vibrantly alive?

“I’ve come to dance with you one last time before I go,” he announced, then he swept me into his arms and waltzed me around the foyer, singing “I Dream of Jeannie With the Light Brown Hair.”

“See, my dear?” he said when he had whirled me into a state of dizzy laughter. “We’ve always made great dancing partners, haven’t we? Promise you’ll write to me, Caroline. Promise me you won’t waste all your ink on Private Charles St. John.”

“Of course I’ll write to you. And I’ll pester Sally every day to make sure she writes to you, too.”

“You are a sweetheart. Listen, I have to go—”

“Already? You just got here.”

“Sorry, but would you do me one more favor? Would you tell Josiah to be ready to leave by the time I get back from Hilltop tonight? He’s coming with me.”

“Wait a minute. Coming with you . . . where?” I was confused. Josiah had been living here in town with us while Jonathan trained. Tessie had been dreading the day when the training ended and Josiah would be sent back to Hilltop. “Isn’t Josiah going home to the plantation with you?”

“No, I’ve decided to take him off to war with me. My unit is going north to establish defensive positions along the Washington rail routes. We could use a good, strong set of muscles to dig entrenchments.”

The absurdity of his plan infuriated me. “You’re fighting for the right to keep Josiah a slave—and you have the nerve to ask him to help you?”

“Calm down, my dear little abolitionist,” he said, taking my hands. “Yes, I finally read your pamphlet, so I know you’re one of those.” He grinned, as if it were all a merry joke. “Josiah won’t be fighting in any battles. He’ll be quite safe behind our lines—which is more than I can say for yours truly. Besides, I’m certainly not the only soldier who’s bringing his boy along.”

“Boy? Josiah is a man, not a boy!”

“It’s only a figure of speech. . . . Come on, Caroline, don’t be mad at me. Who knows when we’ll see each other again?”

Once again, his charm won me over, just as it always had in the past. I reached up to touch his cheek. “I could never stay mad at you.”

“Then how about one last hug good-bye?”

I held him fondly in my arms—and in my heart. “Be safe, Jonathan,” I whispered. “Please. Please. Be safe.”

Charles came later that evening to eat dinner with us. Esther vowed to fill him with enough food to last until the war ended, then she made a valiant attempt to do just that.

“Please, no more,” Charles finally begged. “My uniform buttons are about to pop off, and I haven’t a clue how to sew them back on.”

“I’m sorry, Massa Charles, but I do love to see you eat. You a man with an appetite, just like my Josiah. Little Missy here don’t eat enough to keep a bird alive. Ain’t no fun feeding her at all.”

After dinner, Charles and I walked outside through the drawing room doors and into the balmy evening. Tomorrow was the last day of June. If it weren’t for the war, we would have been married in three more weeks. I was sickened at the thought that this was our last evening together, that neither of us knew when— or if—we would ever see each other again. We walked wordlessly through Eli’s garden, never noticing the carefully tended boxwood or lacy crepe myrtle, oblivious to the scent and beauty of the flowers we passed. Charles didn’t stop until we reached the shelter of the magnolia tree near the rear of our yard, the tree I’d climbed so often with my friend Grady. We ducked beneath its low-hanging branches, then stood once again beside the trunk. There, hidden behind a curtain of thick, glossy leaves, Charles bent to kiss me.

“You have no idea how much I want to make you my wife,” he murmured as we clung to each other afterward. “It should be our life together that’s just beginning, not a war.”

“Then let’s get married, Charles—now, tonight. I don’t care about a big wedding, I want to be your wife, if only for one night.”

He pulled back to look into my eyes. “I can’t do that to you. I won’t. If anything should happen to me—”

“Don’t say it!”

“Listen now. If anything should happen, I don’t want to leave you a widow.”

“I want to be your wife.”

“I know. But let’s get this war behind us first. Let’s begin our marriage in happier, more hopeful times.”

Our final moment together had come. I tried to study every detail of his face in the moonlight, memorizing it. We had exchanged photographs, but a picture wouldn’t help me recall the exact shade of his eyes or the texture of his hair. It couldn’t offer me the same assurance of love that I felt every time he looked at me.

He gave me one last kiss, one final embrace. “I love you,” he whispered.

“Please don’t go,” I begged as I held him for the last time.

“Caroline . . . please don’t ask me to stay.”

He tore himself from my arms, tearing my heart from its place, as well. I watched him hurry away.

He looked back once when he reached the garden gate—the same gate they’d dragged Grady through—but the night was too dark for me to see Charles’ face.

Jonathan returned for Josiah later that night. When all three men were gone, Tessie and I wept in each other’s arms. We didn’t speak. There were no words to say. We both knew the thoughts and emotions that filled the other’s mind and heart. The color of our skin didn’t matter, nor did the fact that she was my slave and I was her mistress. We each loved a man, and now we each felt the same pain, knew the same fear at his leaving.

The day after Charles left, I began practicing the piano again, using music as an outlet for my hoarded emotions. Concentrating on the notes took my mind off the war, if only for a few hours each day. I was in the parlor one afternoon, so intent on learning Mozart’s “Turkish March” that I didn’t hear my father return home early from work. I don’t know how long he stood listening in the doorway, but when I finished the piece, he applauded softly.

“That was excellent, Caroline.”

“Is there a reason why you’re home early?” My heart had changed tempo the moment I saw him there. It accelerated when Daddy moved a small parlor chair next to the piano and sat down beside me.

“May I talk with you, Sugar?”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong. But I’ve reached an important decision today, and I’d like to share it with you.”

“You aren’t going away to war, too, are you?”

He smiled, and for a moment I saw my childhood daddy again, the man with the familiar, cockeyed smile and uplifted brow. “No . . . no, I’m not going to fight. This war came ten years too late for me. But there is a way I’d like to help the Confederate effort.” I stared down at my hands as I waited, my heart beating a quickstep.

“You’ve read in the papers about ‘Operation Anaconda,’ haven’t you, Sugar? How the U.S. Navy intends to close all our Southern ports?”

I could only nod and wait, fearing what he was about to say.

“Lincoln thinks he can strangle us to death by cutting off all our supplies. Frankly, I think it will be quite impossible for seventy-odd Union ships to patrol more than three thousand miles of Southern coastline. Still, it’s clear that Richmond has already begun to feel the effects of blockade.”

Anyone who had shopped downtown lately had noticed the blockade’s effects, not only in the higher prices but also in the growing scarcity of many consumer items. Richmond relied on imported goods. Everything came from outside the South, from tin pots to teacups, from our hairpins to our shoes. In the months ahead we would quickly learn to either make do, do without, or make it ourselves.

“Is the blockade interfering with your business, Daddy?”

“It is, but that’s not the point. I met with President Davis today. He said the government is having trouble importing the military equipment we so desperately need. England is willing to sell us their Enfield rifles, but we need ships to get them here.”

“Are you going to loan President Davis your ships?”

“Sugar . . . I’m going to sail to England with them myself.”

“He’s asking you to be a blockade-runner? Daddy, no! It’s too dangerous!”

“The president didn’t ask me to go—I volunteered.” I tried to protest, but Daddy wasn’t listening. “There’s nothing useful for an old man like me to do around here. Besides, importing things is my job, Caroline. I’m good at it. I’ve done it for nearly twenty years.”

“But not with the U.S. Navy trying to shoot you out of the water!”

He reached to take my hand in his. “It’s a very big ocean.We’ll be transporting the rifles from England to Bermuda, first. The odds are very good that we’ll never even encounter the Navy. The freight steamers that run from Bermuda to our Southern ports are small enough and swift enough to outmaneuver the Union ships.”

I felt too numb to absorb what Daddy was telling me. I only knew that I was about to suffer yet another loss. “How long will you be gone?” I finally asked.

“I’m not sure. I’ll probably return home from time to time, but I plan to make runs for the Confederacy for as long as I’m needed. It’s not just for arms. We also need tools, medicine, things like that. And if I can carry a load or two of cotton to England on my way over for the rifles . . . well, so much the better.”

I felt too overwhelmed to speak. Daddy was leaving. Like Charles and Jonathan, he was willing to risk death for the Confederacy. He rose from his chair and stood over me, resting his hands on my shoulders.

“You mustn’t worry, Sugar. I have a good man to manage my affairs here in Richmond. I’ve instructed him to give you whatever funds you need to live on.”

“I’m not worried about money.”

“Good. You shouldn’t be. I know I can rely on you to run the household and oversee the servants for me while I’m away.”

I looked up at him. “First Charles left me . . . and now you? I’ll be all alone.”

“You won’t be alone,” he said gently. “You’ll have Tessie and Eli.” I heard something sad and wistful in his tone, almost as if he was envious of the relationship I had with them. And he was right, of course. They wouldn’t think of leaving me alone and defenseless.

When the terrible day finally arrived and I had to say goodbye to Daddy, he called all of the servants into his library with us to give them their final instructions.

“You are all fine men and women,” he said as they stood in a line in front of him. “I’ve seen the kindness and . . . yes, the love you’ve shown my daughter. I’m leaving her in your hands, trusting you all to take good care of her. If anything should happen to me, you will become Caroline’s property according to my will. She’s free to do whatever she wishes with you.” As Daddy walked down the row of servants, saying a few words of farewell to each one, all six of them stared mutely at their own feet.

“Luella, I know you’ll do just as fine a job for Caroline as you’ve always done for me. Gilbert, thank you for your faithful service. Be strong. Ruby, take good care of Caroline, for her mother’s sake. Esther, you’ve been an excellent cook . . . and so much more. Eli, it’s easier for me to leave, knowing my daughter is in your very capable hands. Tessie . . .” He paused, and I was amazed to see that Daddy was battling his emotions. “Tessie, thank you . . . for everything.”

His farewell speech alarmed me. It sounded as though he was saying good-bye forever. “You’ll be back in a few months, won’t you, Daddy?” I asked when we were alone.

“Yes, Sugar. God willing, I’ll be back. Until then . . . may He keep you in His care.” Then Daddy left, just as Charles and Jonathan had. All I could do was watch helplessly as the war continued to swallow up everyone and everything I had ever loved.