Somerset (32 page)
Authors: Leila Meacham
S
EPTEMBER
5, 1863
I
see that my last entries were written in July of 1861. Has it been over two years since I have recorded my thoughts and feelings and the events of these heart-sickening, blood curdling times that have fallen on America. As a mother of a son, I cannot think of the land of my birth as two nations. The tragedies of war combine us as one.
The glaring blank space between years is no reflection of the lack of occurrences around here, simply the lack of heart and scarcity of paper and ink on which to record them for posterity. I laugh, though only in derision, when I remember Lorimer Davis's boast that the Confederates would have the Yankees on the run by May Day of 1862, a little over a year after war was declared. Well, May first came, but there was no cause for ribbons and flowers and ring-around-the-flagpole. No one was in the mood for a festival.
My God, I should say not. By April of that year, the Confederates had suffered untold casualties at Shiloh in Tennessee, and New Orleans had fallen to the North. In July, the Union fleet occupied Galveston, and in September, General Lee's army lost a major battle to overwhelming federal forces at Antietam in Maryland. The wounded are trickling home, some minus limbs, hearing, sight. The butcher's son had his nose shot off. Oh, the stories these young men tell returning from the battlefields, they who had departed to a send-off of bands playing and flags waving, their stomachs full of barbeque and fried chicken from picnics and parties, their makeshift uniforms un-bloodiedâthose who will speak of the killing grounds, that is. Most do not talk at all. Their silence is like a tomb that enshrouds them.
Newspaper accounts strike like a fist to the heart. Most of the soldiers on both sides are barely out of their adolescence with no experience of warfare, weaponry, or knowledge of why they're fighting. Engagements with the enemy are fought Napoleonic style. The young men are lined up to march in ranks toward entrenched opponents. Those in the line still standing then engage those in the trenches in hand-to-hand combat. The bloody aftermath must be the most appalling, ungodly sight on earth, next only to the filthy army camps and the shocking conditions that breed disease of every contagious variety. One reporter wrote that if a bullet did not kill you, disease would. Walter Bates, the barber, lost his son in an epidemic of typhoid fever, and Billy Costner died from bowels destroyed by dysentery. Untreated measles, chickenpox, mumps, and whooping cough are just a few of the outbreaks that can threaten the lives of soldiers confined to camps littered with refuse, food wastes, heaps of manure and offal. Consumption of contaminated food and water are other hazards against the chance of survival.
I listen to the stories and read the newspaper articles without taking a breath, for of course I'm thinking of Thomas and the boys and the conditions under which they're living, the dangers they face. He is in a specialized unit that makes daring strikes into Louisiana to cripple the enemy's ability to cross the Sabine into Texas. By necessity, their camps are without shelter and most often near stagnant swamps teeming with snakes, crocodiles, and malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Our son has given us few details about the deadly nature of his missions on the few occasions he's been home, but his father and I can guess from his hollow eyes and cheeks, his thinner frame, the state of his clothes. On his last visit, Thomas asked for my remaining ink and notepad, for he'd been assigned the task of writing the parents and spouses of the men in his unit who had died in a brush fire ignited during heavy fighting in a dry field.
“You need all my paper?” I asked him.
He replied with a grim mouth, “I need it all.”
I find it bitterly amusing that Henri, bless his Frenchman's heart, insisted the boys be outfitted in custom-tailored uniforms, such as their specifications were in the Confederate army at the time. Those uniforms have long seen the dust of the road.
Henri supplied me with more ink and paper, and today I write with the blood of every one of us in the region running cold. Occupation of East Texas will come within weeks unless our troopsâamong them Thomas, Jeremy Jr., Armand, Jake, and Priscilla's two brothersâcan hold off the Union forces at Sabine Pass, a waterway off the Gulf Coast leading into the Sabine River. It is there the Federals hope to push into the interior of the state with the primary intent of plundering everything they can get their hands on to fuel their war machines and confiscate cotton for northern textile mills. Terrifying news has arrived that gunboats and transport ships loaded with thousands of Union soldiers have entered the pass, defended only by an undermanned fort to which the boys have been sent as reinforcements.
If my son should perish, this will be my last entry in my diary. Someone elseâa DuMont or Warwick, even Priscilla if she's still in the moodâwill have to take up the chronicling of the founding families of Howbutker. There will be no following generation of Tolivers to read it.
At least it looks that way now. Each morning I rise under the weight of a mother's worry for the happiness of her only child and for Priscilla's, too. It was obvious from their first night together that things had not gone well in the bedroom, and after mornings of the children coming down to breakfast with drawn, disappointed faces, Silas and I suspect that Priscilla is afraid of marital intimacy. Never would Silas blame Thomas. “Look at him!” his father will storm. “Can you imagine any young woman not wanting our son. My God, every female he meets practically drops her drawers for him!”
Silas blames Priscilla's motherâ“that dried prune of a woman with as much sexuality about her as a wooden spoon!”âas responsible for putting ridiculous fears about men into her daughter's head. But I, too, must shoulder some responsibility for Thomas's befuddlement with Priscilla and therefore his ineptitude in understanding her. He grew up with no sisters and a mother who requires no coddling or celebrating, who does not need love expressed in words or pampering. It would never occur to him that such manifestations of devotion are what Priscilla craves.
But if Thomas loved the girl, understanding of her needs would come naturally. He would have the desire to please her. I do not point out to Silas that by now Priscilla may have realized Thomas only married her to beget an heir and that her disinclination for sex may have something to do with the girl's wish not to be used. As much as she loves Thomas, she has her pride after all. At the very least, if the girl does suffer from an arousal disorder, knowledge of his lack of feelings for her would certainly not help.
I see them moving beyond the other's reach, and I am sad. Distance allowed to grow too long between people can make it impossible to meet again. This I fear for Thomas and Priscilla.
A
fter their sons left for war, Silas, Henri, and Jeremy expanded their “Men's Day at Somerset” to include the fourth Saturday of every month rather than limit their meetings to those only in winter. Tomahawk's death had put an end to the point of the gathering, but by then, fresh meat from the scout's kills had long ceased to be the motivation for the men to collect around the campfire in front of Silas's one-room plantation office. After their sons' departure, the three longtime friends had discussed a change of venue, but nothing had ever come of it. They still hauled food baskets and a keg of beer to be set up under the pecan tree that shaded the hard-packed ground in front of Silas's cabin.
For the last four years, talk around the campfire had been grim for the fathers, whose sons had been involved in nearly every battle and border skirmish to repulse invaders since the capture of Galveston in 1861. Captain Burleson's home guard unit had been engaged in defending internal trade routes, railroads, bridges, telegraph lines, and making sorties into hostile territory with the objective of destroying the same. Thomas and Philippe had almost been captured in Shreveport when they rendezvoused with a resistance group bent on blowing up Union gunboats moored in the Sabine.
Today's meeting was the grimmest yet. It was May 1864. A vicious battle newspapers were calling the Red River Campaign had ensued between rebel and federal troops on the banks of the river that formed the border between Texas and Oklahoma. It was another attempt by Union forces to invade Texas, and the boys' unit was in the black heart of it. One of the Union's aims was to capture Marshall, a town twenty miles from Howbutker, and destroy its factories that supplied crucial munitions and goods to the Confederacy. Occupation of Marshall would open the door to East Texas and the rest of the state and give the invaders access to its cotton, horses, livestock, and food. They would leave a path of pillage and wreckage in their wake, the destruction setting back the state's infrastructure and economic development twenty years. The Confederates meant to hold the border at all costs, and once again local residents were hunkering in their houses, weapons ready for defense if the Yankees broke through.
The three old friends had been reluctant to leave their womenfolk, but their wives had insisted. Invasion would not come for days if it came, and they knew how much their husbands enjoyed and needed the all-male get-togethers to let off steam, talk business, and damn every politician that ever made war and every general that ever sent men into battle.
The day was too warm for a fire. Petunia had sent the last jar of pickled pigs' feet, a cold corn custard, a salad of cucumbers and onions, deviled eggs, and wedges of her “Petunia bread,” made from flour ground from oats and pecans. Henri had contributed a canned plum pudding imported from England smuggled past the Union blockade.
“A feast!” Henri declared, unpacking the basket. “How I wish the boys could share some of this bounty.”
“Maybe soon,” Silas said. “I don't see how the war can go on much longer.”
“By next spring is my guess,” Jeremy said.
The men could hear the wistfulness in their voices. Hanging over them like the smoke from their cigars was the unspoken terror that the miracle of their sons still being alive after four years of combat could not last.
Henri and Jeremy heaped their plates. Silas declined, preferring another glass of beer.
“Aren't you going to eat something, Silas?” Henri asked.
“I'm not hungry. I'll try something later.”
Silas noticed a look exchanged between his old friends. “All right, what is it?” he demanded. “I sense collusion.”
Henri said, “You do not look well,
mon ami
. You've lost weight and your ruddy glow is gone.”
“We've all lost our ruddy glow,” Silas said. “What father with a son in the war hasn't?”
“We think you need to see a doctor,” Jeremy said.
“Woodward is a quack, and I'd cause a family rift if I visited his competitor. I feel fine. It's just that I haveâ¦other worries.”
“I thought the plantation was managing splendidly under the circumstances,” Henri said.
“It's not that.”
Jeremy asked quietly, “What is it then, Silas?”
Silas drew in a deep breath and held it. Men were not confiders like women. They managed their affairs without the need for advice or guidance from even the closest of friends, dealt with their problems, kept their secrets. If a man needed a listening post, he usually turned to his wife. But sometimes he could not share his concerns with his wife. He needed another man's earâa trusted friend'sâand Silas had the benefit of the most trusted in Jeremy and Henri. But he could not unburden the grief eating at his heart like hungry fire ants. What comfort could his friends give him? What advice to correct the problem? Silas did not think he could describe even to Jessica the misery of the guilt he felt in encouraging Thomas to marry Priscilla, and all for the sake of an heir for Somerset. Would the Tolivers ever learn?
Silas let out his breath. “Iâit's my son and daughter-in-law,” he said. He could divulge that. “They're not happy.”
“A pity,” Henri murmured.
“I'm sorry,” Jeremy said. “What seems to be the trouble?”
“They'reâ¦not compatible.” Silas took a long swallow of beer to chase the sour taste prevalent in his mouth these days. His stomach felt empty. He had no appetite lately, and he could feel the alcohol soar straight to his head. “I once believed Thomas and Priscilla were a well-matched couple,” he said.
“Perhaps they've not had the opportunity to be a couple, what with the boys darting home for only weeks at a time on and off these past years,” Jeremy offered.
Silas attempted a grin. “Armand and Jeremy Jr. have been married for less than a year and already their wives are pregnant.”
“So it's a grandchild you're wanting?” Henri said.
“Yes, but more than thatâ” Silas stood and jammed his hands into his pockets. Oh, damnation! He must pour out his feelings to someone or burst. He began. “I knew Thomas did not love Priscilla when he married her, but I thought she loved him, and her affection would bridge the gap. Thomas would grow to reciprocate her feelings asâ¦I grew to love his mother. I wanted him to experience the thrill of discovering small, delightful things about the girl he did not know, her mind, her heart, her body, the kinds of things that made me crazy about Jessica when I married her, that I took pride and joy in, that made her become indispensable to my life, but⦔
“But Priscilla is not Jessica,” Jeremy said.
“No, she most certainly is not.” Silas sat down again, the strength gone from his legs. “There are no sweet surprises or secret desires or hidden passions tucked behind the closed door of Thomas's wife. In my opinion, Priscilla Woodward is an empty room.”
“Merciful saints!” Henri said.
Silas was appalled at himself, feeling a traitor to his son's wife, his daughter-in-law, a member of the family. He blushed. “Forgive me for talking so frankly of my feelings. I'm ashamed of myself,” he said.
Henri threw up his hands. “
Mon ami
, there is nothing to forgive and no reason to feel ashamed. Feelings are neither right nor wrong. They just are.”
Jeremy cleared his throat. “And you feel responsible for Thomas's marriage?”
“I encouraged it.”
“But it was Thomas's decision to marry her, Silas, not yours,” Jeremy said.
“But it was a decision I prompted because of myâ¦obsessive love of the plantation. Thomas, to please me, wanted to leave an heir for Somerset in case⦔ Silas could not bear to say it. He scraped a hand over his face, feeling it bony, and went on desperately. “I can't sleep at night for worry that because of me, Thomas is condemned to a loveless, perhaps childless marriage. Now that the war is almost over and there's a good chance he'll make it home in one piece⦔ Silas left unsaid the obvious implication that if his son had only waited, he might have met and married a woman he loved. “I am haunted by the wasted sacrifice he made on behalf of Somerset,” he added dully.
“Again, Thomas's decision, not yours,” Jeremy said.
“I concur,” Henri said, turning up his palms in the French manner. “The sins of the fathersâ¦the children do not have to bear them. They can make their own sins.”
Silas threw them a small smile. “You're trying to absolve me of my guilt.”
“No absolution is necessary when no guilt is involved,” Jeremy said.
“I just want Thomas to be happy. I want that above all else, heir or no.”
“We know,” Jeremy said, “and if God is listening, He knows it, too. That's why no curse is involved here. You're thinking of Thomas, not Somerset.”
“And we must not give up hope that once the war is over and Thomas and Priscilla are together, time and peace and privacy will solve their problems,” Henri said. He held up his glass, and Silas and Jeremy raised theirs. “My friends, a toast to our boys' safe return and their future happiness.”
“Here! Here!” the men chorused, and as Silas drank, he thought he must ask Jeremy to explain his comment. What made him refer to a
curse
? But his intent was lost in a flush of gratitude for the loyalty and understanding of his friends and the awareness of a recurring fullness beneath his ribs and a pain in his groin.
Jeremy, as usual, read his mind. “Silas, my boy,” he said, “you need to see a doctor.”
“I believe I will,” Silas said.