A Passionate Girl (40 page)

Looking up, I almost said a prayer of thanks. There was a window open, just above my head. I sprang up and flung the white sheet out it. “They're ready to surrender!” I shouted. The gunfire ceased almost instantly.

I went downstairs. The Canadian who had bayoneted the Fenian clutched his empty gun. “They'll kill us,” he said. “Colonel Dennis said you were giving no quarter.”

“Haven't you learned by now that Colonel Dennis is a fool as well as a coward?” I said. “You'll be treated as a prisoner of war. Like your friends captured in the street just now and at Ridgeway.”

Walking to the door, I called to the Fenians to parade their prisoners. They shoved them into the street in front of the post office. The Canadians were convinced. They walked out with their hands up. The deadly marksman was the last to leave.

“What's your name?” I asked.

“Daniel Sullivan,” he said.

I didn't bother to ask him why he was fighting for the queen. He had stupidity writ large on his slack mouth and in his glazed eyes. Perhaps that explained why he was such a deadly shot. No brain, no nerves.

Outside, the once peaceful village of Fort Erie was a charnel house. There were dead and wounded Canadians and Fenians lying in the street. The post office was a shattered wreck. Many other houses had their windows smashed by bullets. For the next few hours, I worked with the doctors on the wounded while the officers conferred. Lieutenant Colonel Bailey was our most serious case. He had been shot through the lungs. A bloody froth rose to his mouth with every breath. I thought of his pretty, laughing wife showing me Niagara Falls and fought back tears.

It was almost dark when John O'Neil, Dan, and the colonels came into our little hospital. “We've been in touch with the other shore. There's no hope of reinforcements. We're going to set up a defense line around the railroad car ferry dock. If by some miracle they can get men and guns to us, this would be the best place to land. The enemy column from Chippewa is only three miles away. They'll almost certainly attack us in the morning.”

“Do you mean to fight to the last man?” Dr. Donnelly asked.

“Yes,” John O'Neil said. “There will be no surrender.”

Dan caught me by the arm. “We've got some rowboats. We'll take you back tonight, as soon as it's dark.”

“I'm staying here,” I said. “The wounded need care.”

“They'll hang you for what we did in Ireland,” Dan said. “Do you think that will make me feel any better when I get my bullet—knowin' they've got you, too?”

I bent to wipe the bloody froth from Michael Bailey's lips. “Is there no hope?”

“We're thinkin' of a night attack, but the men are beat. They only got about three hours' sleep last night. Not much food today. This stupid fight here in the village was sort of the last straw. And they know we're cut off. No reinforcements.”

“Maybe you can surrender. If you get decent terms.”

“I surrendered once,” Dan said. “I ain't never gonna do it again. Besides, you can't trust an Englishman. You should know that. An Irish deserter from their 47th Regiment came in about a half hour ago. He says the officers are talkin' about givin' us no quarter.”

“I'm sick from seeing men die to no purpose,” I said.

“We all got to die sometime,” Dan said.

There it was, the code of the soldier. Even so, in his bitter twisted heart, he found room to love me in his way. Again he insisted that I go back by small boat. Again I refused.

“You're my fate,” I said. “I chose you. I'm with you to the end. Remember the poem I spoke to you on our first night together?

He left me there with the hurt and dying men. It was glorious and tragic. For a long time I thought it would have been better if it had ended that way, in a crash of gunfire and an eruption of battle smoke. They would never have captured me for hanging. I would have joined Dan in the ranks when the battle began and died beside him. But it was not to be. I spent the evening with the wounded, especially Michael Bailey. He drifted in and out of consciousness. Three or four times he told me to be sure to give the letter to his wife.

“I had a feeling my luck was out,” he said.

Other men needed comforting, too. Doctors can do little with wounded men, but a woman has a power I do not completely understand. When a man is wounded, he often becomes a little boy again. He finds comfort, hope, memories of love in a woman's touch, in the sound of her voice. I prayed with many of them. Without faith myself, I recited the words of our ancient litany.
Holy Mary mother of God pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death Amen
. We had no priest with us, which was hard for many of them.

I can still remember the silence of that night, broken only by an occasional groan of pain, and the crunch of shattered glass as I or the doctors walked from man to man, giving opium pills, changing blood-soaked ban d-ages. Once, there was a single gunshot. We all tensed, thinking the night attack had begun, but it must have been a sentry firing at a shadow. About midnight, Tom Gallaher persuaded me to lie down on a spare mattress and get some rest. The moment my head touched the pillow, I fell into exhausted slumber, like a stone dropped into a well.

The crash of a door and the stamp of booted feet awoke me. I sat up, dazed. Dan McCaffrey towered over me. “We're gettin' out,” he said in a low voice. “There'll be a tug at the dock in fifteen minutes. Come on.”

Still half asleep, I stumbled to the door. Dr. Tom Gallaher was on the steps outside, holding Dan's horse. “Go with him,” he said. “I'll stay with the men.”

Before I could think, much less protest, Dan all but threw me into the saddle, sprang up behind me, and galloped for the car ferry dock. We passed Dr. Donnelly running in the same direction and arrived just as the bulky shape of a tug loomed out of the night. Behind it was an even larger vessel. What was left of the Fenian army of liberation crowded down the dock to the second craft, a garbage scow. John O'Neil walked up to us. It was too dark to see his face, but his voice was forlorn. “There was no hope of an attack. The enemy outnumbered us three to one. They had sentries every ten feet.”

“Where did the ships come from?” I asked.

“From Buffalo harbor. Where they least expected us. Did you warn our sentries, Dan boy?”

“As many as I could reach, General.”

“Good. Maybe we'll have better luck another time, Dan.”

“Sure, General. You better get aboard.”

O'Neil moved away, toward the tug. It was strange to hear Dan giving him orders.

“I didn't warn no sentries,” Dan said. “I went and got you.”

“You mean we're leaving men out there in the dark, not knowing—with no way to get back—”

“That's war, honey. They don't have a goddamn price on their heads, like you. Let's get on this tug before it goes.”

He led me to the edge of the wharf and lifted me onto the tug's deck. A moment later the engine pounded. We surged away from the dock onto the dark river. I clung to the rail with Dan silent beside me. A cold night wind beat in my face. I welcomed its punishment. The betrayed become betrayers, I thought, envisioning the shock and horror when those lonely men on sentry duty discovered in the dawn that we had abandoned them to the enemy.

“Did you know this was gonna happen?” Dan asked.

“I had been warned in Washington, but they wouldn't listen. Roberts and the others in the cabinet wouldn't listen.”

“But you wouldn't tell me? You'd let me go over there and get myself killed? Go make another martyr for Ireland?”

“No. Nothing was that clear or certain. It never is, in politics.”

“Politics.”

He spat past me into the river.

I said nothing. He was too bitter. His ruthless distinction between himself and the cause disheartened me. Why had he bothered to save me? So he could abuse me? I let the night wind tear at my dress. I thought of consoling things to say to him. At least it had not ended in slaughter or humiliation. We had won two victories. We could offer some pride to Ireland's despairing poor. We might even be able to use our victories as political arguments to cow Stanton and Seward and return to Canada. We had proven beyond question that it was in our power to conquer the country, if the Americans let us.

Before I could say any of this, I was all but deafened by the blast of a steam whistle, dead astern. A moment later a tug, its engines running full, appeared alongside us. A voice bellowed, “Heave to.”

We kept running straight ahead. “Heave to or I'll fire into you,” roared the voice.

Our tug's engine died away, and we drifted with the current. “Now follow these instructions,” the voice bellowed. “Run beside us at a speed of three knots. If you try to escape or resist in any way, you will be treated as outlaws.”

In the darkness we could not tell whether he was British or American. There was no flag visible. “If he's a Brit, let's fight it out,” I heard Dan growl. “One volley will wipe every man off those decks.”

“Under whose orders are you acting?” John O'Neil called.

“The president of the United States.”

Our humiliation had begun.

Dawn found us four miles down the river on the American side, tied up beside the U.S.S.
Michigan
at Pratt's Wharf. Reporters swarmed on the dock. Several came out in rowboats to shout questions, which we ignored. About 6:00
A.M.
a ladder was lowered to the deck of the tug. We mounted it to the deck of the
Michigan
. A short, arrogant-looking man in a blue naval officer's uniform regarded us with evident distaste as we came aboard. We were surely a dirty, rumpled lot after two days and two nights of marching and fighting and sleeping in the same clothes. Dan, John O'Neil, and many others had dark growths of beard on their faces. I realized I was still wearing my bloodstained white apron. I hastily removed it as the officer began a speech.

“I am Captain Bryson, commander of this ship. You are under arrest for violating the neutrality laws of the United States. Until I receive further orders from Washington, you will remain aboard. Your men will also remain in custody. You will be allowed the freedom of this ship if you give your promise as gentlemen not to attempt to escape or communicate with anyone ashore.”

“Just a moment, Captain,” John O'Neil said. “Has the president issued a proclamation?”

“I'm not a lawyer. I'm acting under orders from Mr. Dart, the federal district attorney.”

“We demand an interview with Mr. Dart,” O'Neil said.

“I hardly think that's necessary,” Bryson said. There was a distinct echo of an English accent in his voice. “Here's a copy of a telegram he received last night from the attorney general.”

He handed us the piece of paper.

We were utterly stunned by the obnoxious, hostile wording. By order of the president! By order of the man who had cheered us on and told us we were the hope of his administration! John O'Neil was especially devastated. The president was his personal friend.

“We'll give our paroles as you request, Captain,” he said in a pale, spiritless voice. “I'll vouch for every man here. As for this young woman, she served with us as a nurse. I'm sure you have no facilities aboard this ship for her.”

“If she participated in your expedition, she's as guilty as the rest of you,” Bryson said. “She'll stay.”

Dr. Donnelly stepped forward and introduced himself. I was glad to see that he had reached the tug last night. Tom Gallaher had decided to stay with the wounded because he had no official connection with the Fenian army. Dr. Donnelly was on the rolls as the chief physician.

“I'm concerned about the men in the scow, Captain,” he said. “Surely they can be allowed onto the dock or taken to an armory or ware house ashore.”

“I think not,” Bryson said. “You have too many friends in Buffalo, and we have too few men to guard them.”

For the next two days, we wandered the decks of the cutter
Michigan
or slumped in berths belowdecks and ate disgusting cold pork and ship's bread. Behind us, over five hundred men were crammed into the garbage scow. It had been the only craft the desperate Fenians in Buffalo could commandeer. The floor of the hold was covered with slime, and the deck around it could not hold more than thirty men. There were no facilities for relieving calls of nature and no roof or awning to protect the men from sun or rain. On Monday and Tuesday it was brutally hot, and on both days afternoon thunderstorms soaked the huddled, bedraggled men. Fevers began breaking out, and diarrhea became rampant. The odors that rose from the scow caused anyone who came close to it to choke. In desperation, Dr. Donnelly wrote a letter to William Roberts and smuggled it off the ship with the help of a cooperative Irish sailor. He said that conditions on the scow were worse than he had seen in the notorious Libby Prison in Richmond. He could not believe that brave men, most of whom had fought and bled “beneath the starry banner of freedom” in the late war, could be treated this way by the government of the United States.

Finally, on the third day, Captain Bryson, who remained coldly aloof from us (except for condescending to allow me the use of his private toilet) announced we should prepare to depart. The men were ordered out of the scow, and we joined them on the dock. Reporters stood about laughing at our filthy, stinking condition. The men, of course, were far worse. I heard one reporter ask a particularly dirty man, “Have you seen enough of the Canadian volunteers, Pat?”

“Sure we haven't seen anything of them but their backs,” the man answered angrily.

The reporter laughed in his face. “Are you sure you didn't go poop in your pants, Pat, and start running before you got a good look at them?”

“We beat them,” the man cried. “We beat them fair and square.”

His friends hurried him away. The reporter shook his head, still laughing. We were dirty comical Irishmen and had to play our part for them, no matter what we said. My heart began turning to stone within me as I saw the impression we were making. How could the reporters believe this smelly rabble from the bottom of a garbage scow had defeated the Queen's Own and other crack units of the Canadian volunteers?

We trudged to the Erie County courthouse, where a nervous judge set bail of six thousand dollars each for John O'Neil and the regimental commanders. The rest, including me, were released on our own recognizance, simply by promising to appear for trial when called. The courtroom was packed with Buffalo Irish, and we were well represented by skillful attorneys, who assured the judge that the bail for the officers would be paid within the hour. Someone among the spectators called out, “Three cheers for General O'Neil.” Instantly there were three tremendous shouts, which fairly rocked the courthouse to its foundation. The judge, who looked like he feared a lynching, hastily rapped for order and informed all the prisoners that they were discharged and free to go wherever they pleased.

The crowd within joined an even larger crowd of Irish outside the courthouse to escort John O'Neil and the other colonels to the Mansion House, the city's best hotel. I could no longer bear to see or hear any more wasted fervor. I trudged forlornly back to my own more modest hotel, the Continental. I was almost there when an agitated Mike Hanrahan overtook me in a hack.

“I was lookin' high and low for you in that mob,” he said.

“Where are they now? In front of the Mansion House, still cheering the O'Neil?” I said.

“Yes.”

“They're fools, Mike. We're all fools. Stupid Irish fools.”

“If you think you feel bad now, wait till you see the papers.”

He was right. I had only begun to drink the bitter brew of our humiliation. Mike had all the New York and Washington papers in the press room. There was scarcely one that had a line of truth in it. The
Tribune
was typical. It described the battle at Ridgeway in the lead paragraph as follows:

“Did that bastard Pickens write that?” I cried.

Mike shook his head and pointed to a paragraph deep in the column, where few would notice it.

“The paper preferred to copy the lead elsewhere and ignored its own reporter,” he said. “Look at this summary on the editorial page.”

He pointed to a column that began: “The Fenians have not only been defeated in their attempted invasion, but the force that was recently engaged has fallen into the custody of the United States.” From the next day's paper, Mike showed me a column that told some of the inner truth. With the aid of “sundry leakages,” it reported on a presidential cabinet session on the Fenian question. Seward was described as desiring the president to sign a proclamation, but others argued against “drawing the Fenian fire” in the president's direction. The Fenian was “an ugly animal to seize by the horns.” Instead it was decided to send a circular order to federal district attorneys and marshals to suppress the Fenians. But the attorney general, who worded the “delicate circular” with Mr. Seward's help, “inadvertently” added “by direction of the president” to the order.

A clearer statement of Seward's policy could not have been made, for those who knew the inner story. Not only had he destroyed us, he had alienated the Irish from Johnson, making a mockery of any hope of the president's reelection on either the Democratic or National Union ticket.

Nearby, in the same edition, was a report of our forlorn hope in Congress. A representative named Clarke from Ohio had risen to ask for belligerent rights for the Fenians. Congressman Rogers of New Jersey had supported him. The majority dismissed it without even voting on it.

“Fools, we look like fools,” I said, crumpling the papers to a ball and flinging them to the floor. “The whole country's laughing at us.”

“When they should be crying. Or roaring with rage,” said a voice from the door of the press room.

It was Dr. Tom Gallaher. He looked almost as bedraggled as the Fenians from the garbage scow. There was a great black-and-blue bruise on his cheek. The British had held him in jail for two days trying to disprove his story that he had come to Canada as a tourist and had been forced into doctoring the Fenians. He had gotten the bruise in the post office when he tried to stop a British officer from kicking one of our wounded men and a regular had clubbed him with the stock of his musket. The rest of his story was a continuation of this initial horror. The British had treated the wounded men abominably, forcing them to stagger out to wagons and climb into them. The officers kept telling them they had their choice of dying quietly or hanging.

“Even Michael Bailey?” I asked, remembering the letter he had given me for his wife.

“No, he died before morning.”

Tom was also privy to the fate of the sentries that Dan had abandoned. Most had fled up the river, found boats, and gotten safely across to the American shore, but a half dozen had thrown away their guns and retreated into the woods in back of Fort Erie. The British and Canadians had hunted them down.

“They made a sport out of it,” Tom said. They sent men into the woods to flush them out like deer, then shot them while they were trying to surrender. I saw one man, his arms up, yelling for mercy. They riddled him.”

He slumped in a chair. “Give me a drink of whiskey,” he said.

Mike poured him a hefty glass. “By this cup,” Tom said, raising it in both hands the way a priest lifts a chalice at mass, “I swear revenge. I didn't hate them before. Not personally. Now I swear revenge.”

“No, Tom,” I said, remembering what hatred does to the mind and heart. He silenced me with a wave. In his strange scientific soul I think he welcomed hatred as an elixir.

If the British were talking of hanging the wounded, they would almost certainly accord the same treatment to the sixty prisoners they carried away from Fort Erie in the tug that had fled the town during the skirmish with Colonel Dennis and his men. “Roberts and all the Fenians in New York must raise a storm of protest,” I said.

“We can't get a word to them,” Mike Hanrahan said. “The army's taken over the telegraph and banned Fenianism from the wires.”

I got rid of Tom Gallaher by asking him to deliver Michael Bailey's letter to his wife. I took a bath and put on a clean dress and went to the Mansion House to find John O'Neil. An enthusiastic Irish bellboy proudly led me to “d'general's” suite. I found the door barred by Margaret O'Neil. “He's exhausted and needs rest,” she said.

I knew this was nonsense. He had gotten two days' enforced rest on the U.S.S.
Michigan.
“Is Dan with him?” I asked.

Her nun's conscience would not permit her to tell a lie. “Yes,” she said.

“They're both drunk,” I said.

“Yes,” she said, letting me in. She sat down and picked up a scarf she was knitting. “Maybe when he sobers up he'll realize how wrong, how foolish, this whole thing was. He'll admit I was right all along.”

My pity for John O'Neil clashed with my dislike of his wife. “Is that all you have to say to a man with a broken heart?” I snapped.

“If you mean what I think you mean,” she replied, “John and I are not the slaves of our physical desires. We have agreed to restrain ourselves until he ends this Fenian business, one way or another, and we settle down to raise a family.”

“Where are they?” I said.

She pointed to a closed door. I threw it open and found my two heroes seated at a table, a bottle of Kentucky bourbon between them, getting drunk in the manner prescribed for disappointed Irishmen and gentlemen from Tennessee.

“What is the point of this?” I said.

Dan glared at me. “Go 'way,” he said. “I don' wanna look at you. For a' leas' a week.”

“I'll be surprised if I want to look at you in a month and maybe a year,” I said.

“What else c'n a man do, Bess?” O'Neil muttered. “Ruin by pres'dent, m'friend.”

“You can use his so-called friendship to save the lives of your captured men.”