Candle in the Darkness (26 page)

“ ‘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.