Enemy Women (19 page)

During the spring and summer of 1863, various Federal commanders instituted a policy of arresting women and teenage girls (sisters and cousins of the men in Quantrill’s band) who were suspected of aiding guerillas. . . .They were confined . . .in Kansas City, Missouri. On August 13, the looming, three-story brick building at 1409 Grand Avenue in Kansas City that General Ewing was using as a prison for some of the southern girls who had been arrested as spies . . .collapsed. The females, none of whom was older than twenty, had been confined on the second floor and as the building began to shake and walls to split apart from one another, a guard scooped up two girls and carried them outside. Nannie McCorkle leaped out a window. Thirteen-year-old Martha Anderson tried to follow, but, according to accounts of survivors, she had annoyed the guards earlier that morning and to punish her they had shackled a twelve-pound ball to her ankle. She went down in the wreckage.

Soldiers and civilians rushed to the scene; however, a great cloud of dust prevented the immediate extrication of the victims from the rubble. . . .As soon as the dust dissipated sufficiently, the bystanders set to work digging through the ruins. Groans and screams could be heard and one girl—thought to be fifteen-year-old Josephine Anderson—kept begging for someone to take the bricks off her head. After a while she fell silent. A large crowd gathered and angrily listened to the shrieks and moans and watched the removal of the bodies. A messenger was sent for Major Preston B. Plumb, Ewing’s chief of staff, and by the time he arrived on the scene the crowd’s mood had become so
ugly he called out the headquarters’ guard and ordered them to fix bayonets to prevent a riot.

It is no longer possible to determine how many prisoners were being held on the second floor—contemporary estimates range between nine and twenty-seven—but . . .the toll among relatives of Quantrill’s raiders was high. Josephine Anderson (sister of “Bloody Bill”) died before being freed, and another Anderson sister, Mary, eighteen, was, in a phrase common in that era, “crippled for life.” The third Anderson sister, Martha, suffered two broken legs, injured her back, and her face was severely lacerated. Charity McCorkle Kerr, John McCorkle’s sister and Cole Younger’s cousin, died. Also killed were twin sisters of another member of the band, Mrs. Armenia Crawford Selvey and Mrs. Susan Crawford Vandevere. Nothing is known about the other girl who was fatally injured and who is identified only as Mrs. Wilson. Nearly all the survivors were badly hurt.

—
FROM
The Devil Knows How to Ride: The True Story of William Clarke Quantrill and His Confederate Raiders,
BY
E
DWARD
E. L
ESLIE,
R
ANDOM
H
OUSE,
N
EW
Y
ORK,
1996

Mary Hall wrote to her sister, Venetia Colcord Page, who had been imprisoned in Kansas City along with the sisters of Bill Anderson as an active guerilla supporter, “Don’t say one word before any. That will only make your case worse. Remember you are a lady and act accordingly. The guards say they like you and Miss Parrish. They say very hard things of the others. The officers told me this.”

—J
ACOB
H
ALL
F
AMILY
P
APERS,
J
ACKSON
C
OUNTY
H
ISTORICAL
S
OCIETY,
I
NDEPENDENCE,
M
ISSOURI, QUOTED IN
Inside War

T
HERE WERE TWO
courtyards to the prison and the one on the south side of the building was for the private use of the matron and other prisoners who were favored. Prisoners who had perhaps betrayed others. There in the windowless courtyard was silence and privacy for a few hours.

She was sent there to fold the matron’s sheets in the sunlight. She sat
on a cast-iron bench and turned her face up to the blue sky overhead. The clear air would be good for her cough. She stood a moment and then shook out the bright white linens and snapped them and folded them into squares. They were in a fresh, light stack beside her. She stood up and between her hands sent a buoyant lawn sheet flying into the winter wind, billowing in ice white loops, and so frail was the material that the sunlight poured through it onto her pale face. She felt warmed. She sang,
Will they miss me at home, will they miss me?

She turned in the wind and saw the major standing in the doorway.

You have a lovely voice, he said. He walked over to her and took the other end of the sheet.

Adair said, I could never get my brother to do this.

Yes, he said. They walked toward each other to put the corners together and their hands touched. He took her hands and the sheet corners in his own. She stood looking up at him with the flying whiteness between them. He bent down and kissed her. Adair felt as if she had been plunged into some sultry summer air. His mouth on hers was the most intimate contact she had ever felt. He kissed her on both cheeks and on the neck. He took her hands, held her head close to his chest.

Major, she said. She started to back away, but he held her tightly.

This is fraternizing with the prisoners, he said into her ear. I could be court-martialed for this.

She said nothing but stood close, in the heat of his body, looking up at him.

He said, If you were released, where would you go?

Home, she said. At first. Then I’d be looking to go west.

There is nothing at home, Adair, he said. In the southeast counties. Are you going to live in a cave? He looked into her eyes. I want you to stay here in St. Louis. I can arrange something. He clasped both her hands and the sheet corners in them.

Write up a release for me, she said. Sign that magic paper.

He dropped the sheet, and slid his hands under her shawl, feeling every bone in her spine and her ribs. He bent to kiss her softly on the neck again and again.

He said, You could remain at the home of an officer I know. An officer and his wife. I could arrange this. Until the war is over. He let go one hand and lifted his own to her cheek, his fingertips at her ear. Then we could go west. If you would consent to marry me. You would only be here in the city a year, maybe less. And I would give you all the horses in the world. Copperbottom horses, Virginia horses.

I won’t live in this city.

You must give them something. Any kind of information. Anything. Then I could arrange a parole to Captain Gromann and his family.

All right, said Adair. Her black eyebrows were like two wings and her hair shone in the sunlight. He held her close, sheet and all. His hands moved up her back, into her hair. His mouth against her hair. He kissed her temple, her shut eyes. It was worth anything to hold her like this, anything, his career and even his freedom.

And so they stood in the winter air, and he pressed her head to his collarbones, and closed his eyes. And after a while he stood back and held her hands. Then he turned and left without saying anything and Adair still stood with the billowing sheet in her hands.

THAT EVENING SHE
began to write down a long story concerning a secret organization called the Knights of the Golden Whiskey Jug.

It is well known that the Knights of the Golden Whiskey Jug foregather in the basement of the white-lead factory at night and get to plotting how to take over the St. Louis Army Command. They give one another names out of law journals. The main man is Tort, and then there is Derivative Suit, which is a man with a gotch eye, there is Subdivision A (1) with a thumb bit off, and Admissibility Jones, who can’t keep his hands off a jug, a big man with huge feet named Prior Inconsistent Statement and old Burden of Proof, who is not much good in the organization because of his inability to keep his mouth shut and so if you all could get
hold of him you wouldn’t even have to force him to confess anything, he would talk your ear off about the Knights of the Golden Whiskey Jug and then go on to tell you in detail about his hernia, his twin stepdaughters, how much money he owes at Hyssop’s Rest in Wilderness, and would offer opinions on electricity, the Campbellites and Mesmerism. When he gets to going don’t look him in the eye or he’ll back you to the wall with his theories on paper money. They have a flag painted with one of those big fat Greek women in bedsheets who is holding out a hand toward something like a Lamp of Learning or a Tree of Liberty or a Barrel of Shoes. The meetings are chaired by Subdivision A (1) but he don’t know Robert’s Rules of Order from Deuteronomy and so their meetings fall to plain argying. Admissibility says anybody who can’t make money out of a good conspiracy is either drunk or crippled. Their real names are Bluford Nighswonger, Epsy Bazer, Miles Long, Eppaphronious Smitters, and Fenwicke C. Butterfield.

She touched her cracked lips and then blew on her fingertips. A slow rain watered the world outside, and from time to time, far over on the Illinois side of the Mississippi, long wires of lightning unreeled through the sky with blazing, remote flashes.

MAJOR NEUMANN TURNED
as she was shown into the orderly room.

Adair. This isn’t going to get anybody anywhere. Knights of the Golden Whiskey Jug? How did you invent this?

Adair said, Well, I thought it was pretty good. She pressed her hand to her cheek to feel if she was still hot and she was. I’m tired of trying, Major.

I am tired of your not trying.

Well, we are both just wore out then, aren’t we?

She stood up and he did too, and they were at odds with each other, as if a door had slammed between them.

He turned to her. It was a cold look. Are you well?

Yes! she said. I am very well.

Major Neumann thought for a moment. How long have you been in this dismal place?

Let’s see. . . .Adair tipped her head back to gaze at the ceiling. November twenty-third, December, January . . .She put her fingertip to her lips. Then she said, Two and a half months. Still she felt the cold air between them and said, Well, I didn’t put myself here.

Do you not want out of here? He said. He seized up the papers. You think perhaps you care for me. Would you care for me if you were not here? And dependent on my good will?

Of course! Adair said. She was confused and shocked at this notion. She walked to him and took his hand. I could ask you about the same thing.

The major drew his hand away. He said, I have been thinking that if you were to merely come upon me, at a social gathering, you would possibly not even speak to me.

She started to deny it but then paused to think.

Because I am with the Yankee army.

Oh hush, she said. Because she couldn’t think if this were true or not. I have met you. I do care for you.

He led her to sit in the chair and looked directly into her eyes. You have to write a genuine confession to something to get out of here. I have asked for another review board, again, to look at your case. But without a genuine confession I can only move people so far.

Adair regarded him with some caution.

Think of what you’re asking, she said. Think, Major.

He ran the tips of his fingers across his forehead, tucking back short strands of hair.

He said, In early November, before you came, I applied for a transfer to a fighting unit. I decided I would rather be shelled than sit through this kind of thing anymore. He paused. I am subject to intense pressure from my superior officer. Today I had to endure a lecture that
I can’t bear to sit through again. Mrs. Buckley has complained about us. You must give me names. Dates. Mail routes.

I can’t, she said. And I won’t. Mail routes! I can’t even remember what day it is in this place. The noise is like somebody hitting me in the head all day long.

He gave her a narrow and searching look. Very well. He paused. I have asked for a search of our prison records for your father’s name. They can’t find anyone of that name.

But he could still be alive. He could have gone back home already.

I don’t think so.

He could have got away to Texas.

Adair. He turned to take her shawl from the back of the chair and handed it to her. He put on his bang-up overcoat in Federal blue and walked to the door.

You and I will go across the street and have a small collation, he said.

Adair took the shawl. Is that a dance?

He smiled. No, that’s a cotillion.

He put his head out the door and looked down the hall.

Here I am fraternizing with a lady prisoner, he said. I don’t see Mrs. Buckley.

Fraternize away, said Adair. She was delighted and, despite her small persistent cough and now the fever, felt suddenly possessed of energy and a kind of brightness. Don’t let me stop you.

Sergeant, said Major Neumann.

I can guess, said the sergeant. And finally he smiled. He shifted his wad of tobacco. Go on. The Ironclad ain’t around.

They walked quickly out into the hall and then through the doors. Adair discovered she was walking out the prison door with her hand clasped in the major’s elbow. They were actually walking down the street. Adair tilted her head and closed her eyes as the light of heaven poured down on her. She held out her hand to it, the palm upward.

Hold tight, he said. He put his hand over hers and they went at a fast walk across the street. Slush flew up from the wheels of a wagon. A mail
deliveryman strode past with a leather sack over his shoulders, glancing at the addresses on a sheaf of letters in his hand. Chimney pipes thrust out of windows high overhead, but a bright prairie wind from Illinois scoured away the smoke. In the door of a barbershop Adair saw a black man in a fine gray coat putting his barber scissors into a jar of alcohol. There were many mirrors. A giant hat stood high up on a pole on top of a building. The hat was two stories tall.

She held his hand and stopped in the middle of the sidewalk on the other side. A boy came running down the street in a set of knickers and a hank of hempen rope around his neck, he had no hat nor shoes. Down a block, under a half-finished building, two men were alternating strokes with eight-pound hammers, pecking at a square of stone, above them a block-and-tackle rigging. In a glass-fronted store with large panes, Adair saw ladies’ shoes all in a row and herself wavering past. In the crowds of people she saw what must be wealthy women in hoops the size of hot-air balloons holding them down desperately as little urchins jammed up against them to see the hoops fly up behind.