Raiding With Morgan (21 page)

Shawn Shannon kept him from becoming a beggar. When he asked Ty with a devilish glint in his eye if there wasn't someone, anyone he wanted to write to—and learned of Ty's impoverished state—postage, paper, and pencil were quickly in Ty's hands at the cost of a conspiratorial wink from the lieutenant.

Ty seated himself at one of the long wooden dining tables, laid a sheath of blank business forms looted from the various blue-belly towns the raiders had visited to use for stationery, wet the tip of his pencil, and discovered he didn't have the foggiest notion how best to write to Dana Bainbridge.

Every opening line he pondered sounded immature or presumptive. He sat thinking far too long. His courage deserted him and he decided to contact Boone Jordan, instead. Maybe she had written a note or letter to Mr. Jordan in the meantime that showed a desire on her part to stay in touch and perhaps help him determine his status with her. Was he a wounded veteran deserving of her friendship and kindness, or was he a potential lover and husband?

He felt like a coward as he wrote:

Cautioned by Sam Bryant that Yankee clerks censored every word of outgoing letters, Ty avoided any mention of the progress of the war in the South or the miserable conditions at Camp Douglas. Prisoners could ask relatives and friends to ship them clothing, food items, and monies, with no guarantee against the guards stealing a portion for themselves. Some prisoners complained that jealous and nosy clerks kept their sweetheart's love letters from them. Ebb White summed up the mail situation in his succinct fashion, “Put stamps on your letter and hope for the best. How else can we reach beyond the stockade?”

Then the waiting had started for Ty. He hated standing in long lines during mail call, but it did give purpose to his countless, idle hours, since he was not good at chess, hated checkers, and quickly read what few books his fellow prisoners had received from home. Daily Chicago newspapers purchased from the civilian sutlers by Cally Smith and Sam Bryant augmented the holdings of a barrack library with but two short shelves. The marble and candy enterprises of the Smith and Bryant families had continued to be profitable, despite the war, and their parents and numerous relatives became a steady source for hard candy, dried fruit, tobacco, cigars, and other treats. With delivery from Lexington and Georgetown, Kentucky, requiring only three days, packages arrived at Camp Douglas for Cally and Sam at regular intervals.

As the weeks slid by, the short mail delivery time between Kentucky and Chicago nibbled at Ty's patience more each day. Had something happened to Boone Jordan? Not being a young man, had he perhaps passed away? Or had he fallen ill and become bedridden? Mr. Boone was a bachelor, with no siblings, and his last blood relatives, his aunt and uncle, were deceased. That left Old Joe, who was illiterate and would not think of checking for mail at the post office without instructions.

Ty stewed and fretted morning, noon, and night. Still hesitant to write directly to Dana Bainbridge, he duplicated his letter to Mr. Jordan from memory, again cursing his lack of intestinal fortitude with each scratch of his pencil, and sent it off. If Mr. Jordan failed to respond by Thanksgiving, he vowed to bite the bullet, fire off a short note to Dana—for a long letter was too frightening to undertake—and learn the truth of his situation with her. He was teetering on the brink of a sheer cliff.

It was all in or nothing before he lost his mind.

A
few days later, Shawn Shannon had pulled Ty tight against the rear wall of the barrack, where the other prisoners milling about couldn't overhear them. “Lad, I'm not faulting you for being moonstruck over that Bainbridge gal. You walking about with your head down and chin dragging the ground snapping at anyone that comes near you, I won't tolerate. You get real love foggy and speak to a guard that way, you'll end up riding the ‘Mule' or worse. Are you listening to me?”

The bluntness of Shawn Shannon's query straightened Ty's backbone. He avoided Shawn's probing gaze, shamed by how far into the doldrums he'd fallen. Without appearing like a whining weakling, he wasn't quite sure how to tell the lieutenant that it wasn't just his unfulfilled infatuation with Dana that had squashed his spirits.

The monotony of prison life was almost unbearable. Every day was the same. Roll call was one hour after the sunrise bugle blew. Providing no prisoner was late or failed to respond to the calling of his name, prisoners were dismissed for breakfast. With the slightest infraction, the entire prisoner population stood in line without moving in fair weather, rain, and snow for as long as their captors saw fit—sometimes for up to three hours.

Once the roll call was completed to Yankee satisfaction, the prisoners cleaned the camp barracks and policed the grounds. They then had one hour for breakfast. The first fatigue of the day commenced at eight o'clock when assignments ranging from the digging of ditches for new waterlines, extending the height of the stockade, or emptying the soil boxes of the sinks were given to the prisoners. Recall at twelve o'clock preceded dinner by thirty minutes. The afternoon fatigue reported at one o'clock and lasted until the five o'clock recall for supper. Lights went out with the seven o'clock bugle.

The unvarying daily routine, coupled with constant confinement in an enclosed area under guard around the clock, bored and unnerved Ty to where he had to fight the urge to scream aloud and take his frustration out on the smirking guards, no matter the consequences. Before Camp Douglas, he would have scoffed at the suggestion a man could feel lonely and isolated if like-minded peers surrounded him. One glance at the seventeen-foot-high stockade, with its guard towers, dispelled that notion double-quick.

Nattily dressed male and female Chicago citizens gawking and pointing at Rebel prisoners on weekends from a high platform built for them outside the stockade wall reinforced Ty's gloom. Hearing their tinny laughter made him feel like a striped monkey in a cage wearing a dunce cap.

Shawn Shannon clasped Ty's shoulder. “Lad, are you listening to me?” he repeated.

Ty blinked and nodded. “I am now, sir.”

“Then get your head up and keep it up. You may have forgotten you're an officer. Well, I haven't, and I expect you to conduct yourself accordingly. Wherever we are, we set the example for others to follow. We don't mope about like tarred and feathered dogs. Not a single Morgan man is ready to admit he's been defeated in spirit or the flesh. We'll either escape or walk out of here with our heads held high when the fighting stops. I don't know which way it will be, or when it will happen, but it will. That's what I want you thinking about every waking minute. That's what will see you through, not your pining away in a stupor while you wait for a letter that may never come. Put this thought under your hat for safekeeping—You have no chance with her at all if you finish the war in a pine box. Are we on the same page now, Corporal?”

Shawn Shannon's lecture jerked Ty from his doldrums and changed his demeanor and behavior in a hurry. It was as if his dead father had spoken to him. During the day, he hid his innermost feelings behind a smile and make-do attitude, showed due respect to the guards, and volunteered to help Private Pursley in the kitchen. He enjoyed that chore, though his ears did suffer for a fortnight when the white-goateed cook exploded in a fit of profanity after a rumor floated through the barrack that come winter the boilers would be used for cooking instead of stoves to save on firewood.

The red of E.J.'s cheeks matched that of a male cardinal. Without his cursing missing a beat, he slung cookware about in frenzies that endangered the unwary. Shawn Shannon took mercy on the entire barrack by dousing E.J.'s ire with a promise that greasing the palms of the guards could keep his stove burning indefinitely. No one was certain Shawn's promise would hold water, but in the humble opinion of all who dined at Private Pursley's table, the ensuing peace and quiet qualified Lieutenant Shawn Shannon for sainthood in a faith of his choice. If there was an upside to E.J.'s carrying on so, he had given everyone within earshot a new definition of the word “pride.”

At night, Ty stayed as still as possible between Shawn Shannon and Ebb White. It was then he let his longings off their daytime leash and prayed without uttering a sound. He prayed Dana would write soon. He prayed Boone Jordan was in good health and had received his letters. And Ty prayed that the livery owner would decide on his own to inform his grandfather that he was alive. The guilt Ty felt for abandoning Enoch Mattson in the cold-blooded way he had was growing in his gut faster than spring mushrooms.

Ty's self-imposed deadline of Thanksgiving descended upon him quickly. Thanksgiving was a Federal holiday the Confederacy did not officially observe. Nonetheless, it proved an exciting week for Ty. The day before the holiday, Wednesday, 25 November 1863, a date he never forgot, he at last heard his name during mail call. A quick glance at the return address told him the letter was from Mr. Boone. He distanced himself from those remaining in line, in order to claim a little privacy, and, with pulse thumping, opened the envelope. Did it contain a letter from Dana Bainbridge?

The envelope held only a note from Boone Jordan. Ty's keen disappointment was offset by the knowledge that he had successfully contacted the forwarding point for mail he had given Dana. Half the line of communication between Portland, Ohio, and Chicago was open.

The delicate script of Boone Jordan's note puzzled Ty until he started reading:

Suppertime was near and he returned to his barrack as fast as the thick, shoe-clinging mud of White Oak Square allowed. He had serious thinking to do before lights-out. Though he had finally heard from Mr. Jordan, did he want to write to Dana, anyway?

He had learned Shawn Shannon and Given Campbell wouldn't hesitate. They lived by the creed that when the opportunity arose to make an attractive female aware of your interest, do so straight out. Fuss and fume like backward Ty and you chanced losing her to a bolder man. If a man's intentions were rebuffed, he need remember that maybe the next gal
would
be interested and perhaps
even
prettier.

What had initially appeared as selfish and ungentlemanly behavior on the part of Shawn and Given, which defied proper decorum and ignored female sensitivities, was appealing more to Ty every minute. Pining away through the night for a female who might well be glad she was free of the nursing demands his care had placed on her, and the disruption he had brought to her home, had him dreading lights-out.

A step from the door of his barrack, he decided to take the plunge. He was sick of being an embarrassment to himself. He would write to her yet today, if that were possible. But E.J. Pursley had another chore lined up for his assistant cook, and it precluded any letter writing on the eve of Thanksgiving.

A barrel of sugar had been delivered to the barracks, instead of a barrel of flour. Sugar being a scarce commodity, the resulting excitement had the entire barrack in an uproar. Ty was escorted to the kitchen. The door opened a crack. He was shoved inside and the door locked behind him.

Flour-smudged apron tied about his waist, Ebb White was rolling pie dough on the center table. E.J. was stirring a big pot on the six-oven stove. He beckoned to Ty and said, “Over here. Grab a pan and make a flour and water slurry like I taught you.”

“What are we making?”

“Vinegar pie, the delicacy those boys out there crave after their corn bread, and since there's no meal to be had for corn bread, they're a tad worked up.”

The vinegar pie recipe was quite simple. E.J. combined sugar, water, vinegar, and eggs and brought them to boil, added butter, and then folded in Ty's slurry, stirring slowly till the mixture thickened. From there, E.J.'s filling was poured into pans of every size and shape lined with Ebb White's dough.

The kitchen couldn't contain the aroma, once a smiling E.J. nodded for Ebb to open the door, resulting in a prolonged cheer, which rattled the rafters of the barrack. Loud as it sounded, Ty doubted a Rebel war-concluding victory could have been any louder.

The prodigious pie eating was one for the ages. Ty witnessed a classic example of how scarcity primed a prisoner's belly for sweets. The hungry camp guards went along and the feasting lasted well after the lights-out bugle. Ty was so tired and full that climbing into his bunk was akin to scaling a mountain.

On Federal Thanksgiving Day, deluging rainstorms canceled afternoon fatigue and enabled Ty to climb into his bunk with paper and pencil. The events of the previous evening had granted him plenty of time to reconsider his decision. His resolve didn't falter. After all, his father hadn't wasted any time pursuing his mother Keena, had he?

He wasted paper in the beginning, then he laid down his feelings straight from the heart:

He read the note through twice and determined that fooling with the wording would detract from its sincerity. He sealed it and attached the required Federal and Confederate stamps, which Cally Smith had loaned him.

He had enough loaned postage remaining to answer Boone Jordan's letter. He informed the livery owner that his health was the same as before; and while he had written directly to Dana Bainbridge, he still requested that Mr. Boone continue to check for mail addressed to him in his care. Lastly, Ty thanked Mr. Boone for the trouble he had taken to answer Ty's previous letters and wished him a speedy recovery from his black spell.

Ty made no mention as to whether or not Mr. Boone could forward clothing, monies, and other sundry items. Though he needed a good winter coat, like those that other affluent Kentucky Raiders besides just Cally Smith and Sam Bryant were receiving from their relatives and friends, he was acutely aware that Mr. Jordan was far from being a wealthy man. The single man of substantial means he knew was Grandfather Mattson, and Ty was a long way from daring to ask favors of him.

He carried his letters to the post office and slipped them into the mail slot that accessed the drop box inside the front door. He had taken the initiative and was certain the waiting would be easier for at least a little while.

Or so he would pray.