Varina(74)

—Soon. An hour of sleep and we’ll ride the rest of the night and all day tomorrow.

He fell asleep almost immediately, and V lay awake trying to remember the details of her dream, trying to recall bits that didn’t correspond—maybe the creek had been more like a river or the trees were oaks instead of pines or the swale had been deeper—hoping to convince herself this was not the place.

Sometime in the night she walked across the road to the men’s fire and pulled Burton aside. She said, When they leave, you decide whether you go with them and travel fast or stay with us and go slow. Do what’s best for you. I won’t think less of you for going on.

—I’m seeing you all the way through, Burton said. No arguments on that point. Go sleep.


BEFORE DAWN, unaware of each other, two separate Federal cavalry units converged from north and south. Daybreak May 10, in a light rain, they burst upon the fugitives yelling and firing. Ellen had started cooking breakfast, and the first she knew of the attack was a ringing spang as a rifle ball struck the skillet from her hand. The confused Federals fired their weapons with such degree of enthusiasm and inaccuracy that the only casualties were self-inflicted—killing two of their own before they stopped firing at each other.

The next few minutes became a matter of contention and pride argued over in print for decades to follow. Jefferson’s horse was down near the creek, and to escape capture he either disguised himself in articles of V’s wardrobe, or else she tossed a waterproof raglan over his shoulders and a shawl over his hatless head as he left the tent. Ellen went along with him, carrying a bucket so they might be mistaken as two women going to fetch water. Northern newspaper cartoonists delighted in depicting the scene with Jeff in hoopskirt, ruffled pantaloon, and bonnet.

When a Federal officer held a gun on V and asked who that was walking toward the creek in the gray dawn, V said it was her mother. Then after they discovered it was the president and seemed eager to shoot him, V stood between them and said they would have to shoot her first, and the young officer said he’d be happy to oblige. Another soldier said that if there was any resistance, they had orders to fire into the tents with the children and make a bloody massacre of it.


AFTER JEFFERSON SURRENDERED, wild looting. In a frenzy all their baggage was broken open. One trunk had a fat padlock, and a soldier pulled his pistol and fired at it, and the bullet ricocheted off the lock and ripped through his boot and tore his foot apart. Soldiers cut V’s dresses and undergarments into scraps for souvenirs, like knucklebones and hair of saints, and one man showed her his long knife and told her to hold real still as he cut a piece from the hem of the dress she wore. They stole or destroyed most of the children’s clothes except what they had on, and the last few thousand dollars in hard money that V still had from selling their possessions in Richmond disappeared like smoke in the wind. Ellen held Winnie, and Maggie stood crying silently. A soldier had told the stunned boys to climb in the wagon and not come out.

In the confusion, John Wood eased into the trees and took a Federal horse and rode south toward the scent of salt air. From Terra Florida he went to Cuba and then to Nova Scotia, where he lived out his life. Bristol might have escaped similarly, though V never saw him or heard from him again. She still wonders whether he was killed in the attack and left dead in the woods or if he found his way home and shaped a life in the ruins and forgot all about her. She doesn’t even know whether Bristol was his first, middle, or last name.


A YOUNG YANKEE SOLDIER drove the ambulance with V and Ellen and the children in the back, while Burton, Jeff, and Delrey were under guard farther to the front of the wagon train. When they reached Augusta, the Federals paraded Jeff and V through town to a dock at the Savannah River in an open barouche, ancient with the wheels wobbling. The crowds jeered and hooted. A Federal soldier shouted, We’ve got your president.

A hard-shell Rebel yelled back, The devil’s got yours.

In the confusion of loading onto the shabby little river tug, all eyes fixed on the famous prisoners, Delrey slipped away. V saw him pretending to be working—hauling stuff, lifting and setting down, fooling with ropes—until he melted into the crowd, but she believed at the last moment he caught her eye and touched the brim of his hat with two fingers and then pressed his open hand to the center of his chest.

Late that first night on the river, Jimmie Limber waited until all the other children were asleep. He sat close against V and said, I don’t know what’s happening.

—You just rest, Jimmie.

—I can’t sleep. I don’t know what’s going to be of me.

V hugged him tight. Said, Nobody knows that anymore. But remember how you and Delrey said you could keep going one more day and then one more day after that?

—Yes.

—That’s what we’ve got in front of us. I’ll take care of you the best I can tonight and tomorrow and as long as I can.

*

V pauses and says, A few weeks ago you asked why I picked you up off the street. Why I took you into the Gray House.

—Yes, but you didn’t really answer.

—Because I didn’t know the answer. But I’ve been thinking and remembering, and I’ve come up with a theory. It involves a story I’ve never told anyone. This happened very early in the war. My father had gone broke again, and I’d arranged a job for him in a government commissary in Alabama, and he died there.