Andersonville (74 page)

The riot continued. Lightning snapped at gradually decreasing intervals, but the flashes were quaking longer as the storm moved on. Wide-spread electricity revealed every filament of the scene with clear exactness: there was the stockade towering with the nearest sentry shack cut sharp on an impressive green-lilac sky—you could even see the shakes of the sentry-shack roof which had curled like leaves in a summer sun—you could see the guard and count his whiskers and see him spit. Then blackness ruled, hurting the eyes; groans and yells and admiration of the miracle continued; then another extensive glaring quivering, and closer at hand you witnessed the tufted heads, the bald heads, the tangle of ragged shapes bending, squirming, elbowing, beating about, making a herding as beasts should never herd—bound to drink, bound to drink the good water for which Providence exacted not one red cent; and no one else could put a price upon it, for it issued from beyond the deadline.

Wirz was gone, Wirz was sick abed. But the next day Lieutenant Davis looked down from the parapet and ordered a sluice to be built, conducting the flow past the deadline into camp. Make it long enough, he ordered. I don’t want that gang busting them posts and scantlings down. Davis knew that if there was too much shooting by the guards at this particular point there would be some sort of investigation; Davis hated investigations chiefly because of the paper work entailed. It was no skin off his behind: there were plenty of springs outside the stockade to supply the Confederates amply, and so no need to conduct the new little stream in a westerly direction, through the fence itself. Davis would never have spent the effort or the attention necessary to drill a deep well for the prisoners; but since the storm had dug one the prisoners could have the use of it. Furthermore, there would now be less incentive for people to sink deep wells; thus opportunities for tunneling would be decreased.

A. R. Hill and his police brought about a form of discipline that day; the discipline continued tolerably. At any hour you could look that way and see two extensive lines of prisoners shambling along, moving by degrees toward the sluice and filling their cups, their cans, their broken canteens, their leaky kettles. Some who owned no such equipment merely stood in line, waiting for the treat of drinking from their dirty hands; and then they returned to the end of the line and gradually progressed springwards again for another drink; it was something to do.

Providence Spring, they called it universally. Many were the sermons recited by worshipping lay parsons who spoke their pieces throughout the stockade whenever and wherever a congregation might be assembled. They ascribed the phenomenon to direct interference by Celestial engineers, and more than one man swore that he had seen angels at the spot. Only the most hard-bitten heretics stood on the outskirts, heckling and desiring to know why God hadn’t acted sooner, before their comrades died from drinking the maggoty reek of the marsh. By and large the flow was accepted as evidence that the One Above had not forgotten the stockade and the people in it, no matter how many generals and exchange commissioners had chosen apparently to forget.

Willie Mann read his soiled Bible with new energy, and was very near to becoming one of those same lay preachers. But he did not sermonize, he only read aloud from the Book to any friends who would listen. He thrilled at each reference to springs or brooks or just plain water which he might find, and he found them in the Psalms, but of course the seventeenth chapter of Exodus was his favorite text at the time, along with Numbers, Twenty. Sometimes Revelations. A mean scarecrow sauntered past and halted to jibe at him. Willie glowered in a rush of returning strength. It seemed that his bones jangled together when he moved, that his young muscles had shriveled from ropes to threads; but he rushed upon the profane scoffing heathen and hurled him flat in the mud. His congregation cheered him derisively. Willie went on reading aloud.

They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat.

For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters; and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.

More sharply, more eagerly distinct than in weeks, Katty moved through the Biblical incidents which came to his attention in reading. She wore Hebraic robes and trod the wilderness. Willie regarded Providence Spring as a portent . . . had he suffered doubts before, had he doubted when he watched Titus Cherry die? Now he knew. He would return to Missouri, he would walk once more in the timber, he would wed Katty, they would have flocks of children. They would have a deep well, clear and pure; and on August days the children would petition him for cool drinks, and so as soon as they were big enough he would train them to operate the well-sweep or maybe the windlass—he didn’t know just what sort of machinery he would have. But he heard the water trickling . . . it was there for him to drink, for all men to drink.

Guards talked about it outside, and so Ira Claffey came to hear of the spring. He listened with wonder, he heard his sons chatting and drinking there, he heard the voice of small Lucy, heard his own voice. . . . Here, child, I’ll make a cup of my hand. Beneath this rock, so. Now you bend down—take care, don’t wet your boots and skirts— That’s the way.

 XLII 

C
ato Dillard searched his conscience and found himself remiss. In first years of the war he had made a kind of game out of discovering Biblical support for the Secessionist cause. When Prophets discussed people of the North he knew of course that they referred to historic or fabled Hebraic wars. The Prophets were not cognizant of Abolitionists, or of greasy mechanics from urban New York and Pennsylvania who must now be considered as supporting the Republicans and Abolitionists, no matter how much they might differ in private theory. Cato Dillard was far too intelligent to believe so.

But still it was a game and titillating; it taxed his powers of research and application. Always he shone before a challenge.

Effie Dillard labeled the Southern cause as Right, and the Northern cause as Wrong. She prayed nightly that Lincoln would be packed out of his White House, and that Washington City, New York City, Philadelphia and Chicago might know the triumphant tread of gray columns. She let it go at that, she was too busy in the application of her flouncing ardent Christianity to waste hours in poking after a reassuring Text.

Both the old people suffered anguish as their grandsons were destroyed (five were gone by this August of 1864—and all in the past eight months: two dead of disease, two of wounds, one killed in a Hood’s cavalry skirmish) and then they found comfort in the stout draught of Faith. They believed that a general family pic-nic of Dillards and their descendants would ensue during that sunny afternoon following Resurrection Morn.

In early months Cato had thought of conflict within Andersonville just as he’d typified it in speech: brawling. His witnessing of the raiders’ execution, and subsequent examination of the motives involved, shattered this opinion. The men had died attended by an officer of the Catholic church; they were Catholics; surely the priest would have refused his services in the mere conclusion of a brawl. Ira assured the Reverend Mr. Dillard that those hanged had been sentenced by a Yankee court, defended by Yankee lawyers, prosecuted by Yankee lawyers or men serving as such. So Redeemed Yankees had sentenced Unredeemed Yankees to the worst penalty on earth . . . naturally there were worse penalties in the Hereafter . . . it was disquieting to think that, by law of averages, there must be many elect Presbyterians milling within the stockade . . . religionists conducted services, Cato himself had heard their songs arise.

He besought the Scriptures again to relieve his confusion
.

Now, thou son of man, wilt thou judge, wilt thou judge the bloody city? . . .
Cato read Ezekiel, on through all the talk of whoredoms and abominations which never ceased to offend him; because he was pure, had remained pure through his life, taught purity to his children, trusted in turn that they had passed this limpid inheritance on to the next generation.
And Aholah played the harlot . . . and she doted on her lovers, on the Assyrians her neighbors . . . which were clothed with blue, captains and rulers, all of them desirable young men, horsemen riding upon horses.
Yankee cavalry, beyond a doubt
.

Mr. Dillard sighed, thudded his Bible shut, opened it again on the Gospels instead of the Prophets. Always he had imagined St. Mark as owning a voice firm but gentle, and especially gentle as he recounted the exploits and recited the words of the Gentlest Man. Cato Dillard’s own father had possessed such a voice, such a spirit.

...So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast

seed into the ground;

And should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed

should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how.

Cato Dillard lifted his gaze from the fine-lettered page, and snuffed his candle, and sat pillowed up in darkness beside his slumbering wife. He looked across sharp patches of moonlight on the old carpet, and through the window into moonlight washing warmly his own garden.

For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the

blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear.

This is a desert place,
came the words of that later Chapter,
and now the time is far passed.
Andersonville? It could be, could be.
They have nothing to eat.
And what had the Master said to that?
He answered and said unto them, Give ye them to eat.

Effie, said Cato in the dawn, what of our green corn?

Yon patch is past roasting, dry in the husk. We’ve a bit left in rows past the woodshed.

Where might we get green corn in any quantity, roasting ears still soft and green?

Effie ceased her tinkling into the slop-jar, slid the cover into place (the knitted cap over the pottery cover prevented any clanking, there was only the dull
koom
of the jar’s closing) and adjusted her skirts carefully before she stepped from behind a little screen of woven bull-grass which modesty dictated should be placed in its three unsteady sections to shield the commode.

From Brother Ira Claffey, man! He plants long, he plants late as well as early; his maize will no be dried to crispness yet—not all, to be sure. But what want you with green corn?

Roasting ears, said Cato. He slid his spotted old legs out of bed and removed his nightcap.

For whom?

Yankee prisoners.

Cate, you’re daft.

He replied with that geniality coming easily to those who feel that they have arrived at righteous decision, Were I daft as often you’ve described me to be, woman, I’d have populated a dozen crazy-houses e’er now.

But what want yon Yankees with green corn?

They’d wish to eat it, don’t you believe?

But— Cate— Would it be fair to our own grandchildren? Our brave boys in the field—?

Have you never become acquainted with the Sixth Chapter of the Gospel According To St. Mark?

Away with you. Those were—Disciples—

Five thousand Disciples? he asked archly.

Twas a congregation of The Just.

He mused pleasantly as he pulled on his stockings. Not only corn in roasting. But also root vegetables: we’ve turnips in plenty, carrots, beets—

Yon cabbages are rising into seed and waste, cried Effie in spite of herself.

Enthusiastically Cato wrote to Ira Claffey, telling him of his plan and inviting Ira’s assistance and generosity. The minister had not been informed of Lucy’s little march with wenches and baskets, and her inability to reach the stockade. He thought, as many well-intentioned people have often thought, that he had conceived of a particularly glossy charity—a bounteous impulse instigated by God, no doubt, but still a personal mercy. He wrote:
If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food
— The General Epistle of James eludes me for the moment, Brother Ira. Puss is asleep upon my Bible, and I shall not disturb her, since she may be dropping kits before nightfall. Last time she had them in the drawer containing my
drawers
and stockings! But what think you of the proposal? Neighbor Stancil has promised the lend of his big wagon, with a four-mule team; and he a Methodist! The Dennards, Lindsays and Nunns all express themselves as willing to give; and I should think a few bushels might also be got from the Lockridges and others, perhaps more than a mere few bushels; they might donate plenteously. Have you green corn enough and to spare? What of your cabbages and the general collard situation? I have set Buff to pulling turnips that they may be scrubbed. A further suggestion comes from Mrs. McCrary: her own dear child languished last year on an isle at the North, without sufficient coverings for his poor body; and she has sat with me, and we have explored God’s opinion, or have attempted. Since the lad is now among The Blest (but they did have shelter; he died in a barracks, twas said) the lady has possessed an overpowering intent to find favor Aloft by exhibiting true Christian mercy to his enemies. She is assembling his entire stock of shirts, jackets, pantaloons and the like, to be offered to destitute Northrons. As we have observed, there is prevailing raggedness at Anderson, in some cases amounting to nakedness and resulting indecency. Poor as we have become in this struggle for Independence, and to repel invading hordes, I should think a goodly supply of serviceable clothing might be gotten together if each gave his mite. I myself am contributing boots—which pinch me, I admit, but might not pinch some shoe-less Yankee.
But
the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.
Mrs. Dillard goes flying about, attempting to collect medicines; and such a small stock can be assembled; and she dare not rob her own closet too grievously, since her attention is demanded by many ailing persons now and again. But boots, potions, turnips, green corn, undershirts or melons: all seem of value, all I should believe would be received thankfully by the lads there, misguided into cruelty though they have been. Now, dear Brother, what of the military who are in command? Will they see fit to admit of our charity? I grow alarmed at considering what has come to me of the superintendent and the general commanding: both obstreperously and insistently profane, tis said. I have not heard that either is addicted to The Bottle, but that they take a particular delight in cursing; and also this is reported of the troops under them. However, I should think that if we were to seek
not permission in advance,
but were to appear bag and baggage and basket, they would be bound to accept our small offering for the unfortunates
perforce.
Since many of the items are spoilable. Ah, also: Mr. Marshall has promised a pig. Though I had to fling Testament at him for an hour to get it! The pig must be butchered promptly before our departure. One cannot speculate as to the weather; but I should hazard an opinion that, all things being equal, and you receiving no advices to the contrary, our little caravan might arrive by Friday midday. If not on Friday, look to see us on Saturday. Mrs. Dillard is bound to come on for the distribution, and shall be accompanied by a few other ladies, I make little doubt. Do not feel that you must
feed
them, Brother, or the rest of us; but we shall pay our respects, and hope to gather up your own donation. Word has reached us of the miraculous spring bursting forth there. Could it be the same spring where you were wont to wander, and where we have sat many times; and where I told you of the Highland Presbyterians at Darien; and where in turn you told me of the so-called Dorchester Puritans, your own kinfolk in Liberty County, of more than a century since?
Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink.
Puss is still upon the Bible, but I need no reference. As a mere child I was enamored of Exodus, and all the dramatic events therein, and the building of the tabernacle, and what was a cubit? Theology should be awarded early to a youth, that he remember; but often I was naughty and put aside my Catechism, and loved to watch the Hebrews at their fights. Ah, me. My pen has been trailing about; but should that not be the privilege of an old man’s pen? I wish it were yam time. Then we might assemble a quantity. Perhaps we can perform further philanthropy in the autumn. I have neglected to tell you that Neighbor Pace (Baptist) is giving carrots; and little Neddy Hinchley has just made an errand to inform me that his mother will contribute what fruit is left to her in all this hotness. Sakes, as your Lucy would say, what a scorcher is today! Heaven be praised that our dear Sister Veronica is no longer called upon to endure Earthly miseries; but sleeps, knowing no misfortune, and in fully justified hope, I am convinced, of a Glorious Resurrection. I pray for you daily, Brother, and please to include me in your prayers. Until the oncoming of our charitable migration, then. In Brotherly Faith & Hope, Yrs, C. Dillard.

Post Script.
Will wonders never cease? I must have been inspired, truly, in getting my plot a-going. This missive was folded, I was seeking for wax to seal it, when appeared Mrs. Banister from across the way. You know her: an Episcopalian. She’d come for a Seidlitz powder, if Mrs. Dillard possessed any. (She did not.) Am informed by Mrs. Banister that General J. Winder is a
Communicant.
Their church here in Americus is new in organization; and the rector observed that he had seen General Winder, when in Richmond, partaking of the Holy Eucharist. They have been busy recently selecting their vestrymen and church wardens; and
Gen. Winder was named to be a warden.
Now certainly we have nothing to fear. A church warden could never refuse us permission. The tales borne to me of his profane utterances must have been made up out of whole cloth. Or were in error, since both names begin with a W; and only the Switzer must have been the sinner. C.P.D.