Darkest Journey (Krewe of Hunters #20)(66)

“When will that be?”

“Later today. Jackson located her in Baton Rouge and put a call through to her. I was going to have Jude or Thor go and speak with her, but she said she’d drive down. Once she arrives, I’ll go ashore to meet with her as soon as I know Thor or Jude is here to...”

“To watch over the Southern Belles?”

“I’m sorry, but I think it’s important.”

“I have no argument with that!” Charlie assured him. “I’m rather fond of living.” She smiled. “More so now than ever,” she added softly, then kissed him.

He groaned and jumped out of bed. “Shower. Cold,” he said huskily.

*

“At the time that Oak Alley was built, the sugar industry was booming. All along the Mississippi River, plantations were being carved out along the shore. Some of these were relatively small, and many have been lost to the ravages of time. Oak Alley was left to the Oak Alley Foundation by Mrs. Josephine Stewart, who bought the place with her husband, Andrew, in 1925. They were among the first people to realize the importance of the past, to restore such a historic home, and to preserve her for generations to come. She is a living, breathing piece of the past. Today she hosts weddings, photo shoots, even concerts. She is as much a part of today as she is a memory of days long gone. When you’re not cruising aboard the Journey, you can rent a cottage and stay on the property.” Jonathan smiled. “Since this is our first full day out of New Orleans, I’m going to try to give you a picture of what the area was like from the end of the 1850s through the tragedy of the Civil War, at the end of which we became—though not without difficulties—what we are today, one country, united and proud.”

“The South shall rise again!” a teenager shouted.

“Son, whatever you may think, today’s South is united with the whole of our great country in a battle against terrorism—domestic and foreign—no matter how crazy some of our politicians seem to be.”

His remark brought laughter from the crowd.

“Trust me,” Jonathan continued. “I’m from this great state of Louisiana, and I love her with all my heart, but here’s what’s important—the political situation at the beginning of the Civil War. So thank you, because you’ve led me right to the topic I have planned for this lecture, before we head out on today’s ‘journey’ of discovery to Oak Alley.”

Hovering in the background, Charlie smiled. Damn, her father was good. He could turn any heckler around.

“To understand that time, the men leading our states and our country, to understand why the South seceded and why so many men fought and died, we have to go back not only over a hundred and fifty years to the start of the Civil War but to 1776 and the birth of this country. Thomas Jefferson, in writing the Declaration of Independence, though a slave owner himself, wanted to see slavery abolished and wanted those words in his document. But he was also desperately trying to make thirteen separate colonies—thirteen separate entities—agree on one document. The country was designed to be a loose union of states. A man’s loyalty was to his state before it was to the union.

“So to understand, you have to put yourself in the frame of mind that existed as 1861 rolled around. As I said, a man’s loyalty was to his state, but what many people don’t know is that not every Southerner was pro-slavery. In fact, one of the greatest generals our country ever produced, Robert E. Lee, was very vocally against secession. The man who would become the first and only president of the Confederate States of America, Jefferson Davis, served as Secretary of War for Franklin Pierce and gave speeches against secession in both the North and in the South.”

“I heard that many of the most powerful politicians and generals of the day were best friends, that they’d served together in the White House and fought side by side in the Mexican-American War,” a man offered.

“Very true. Many of them had gone to West Point together. I think one of the most heartbreaking details of the war has to be Robert E. Lee’s decision to say no when he was asked by Lincoln to lead the Northern armies. Had he accepted that assignment, the war might have been much shorter, though we’ll never know for sure, of course. But Lee was a passionate Virginian, Davis a passionate Mississippian, and in keeping with the mind-set of their day, they cast their lot with their states. Once you understand this, you can see why so many of the men fighting on opposite sides were good friends.

“In some cases even family members fought against each other, if some lived in one state and some in another. Mary Todd Lincoln’s people were from Kentucky, a border state, so not only did she live with the heartache of being on the opposite side from much of her family, but she had gossips and journalists accusing her of being a traitor.

“And, yes, slavery and its importance to the Southern economy was key among the rights the South was defending. But let’s move on to Louisiana and The Day the War Stopped, the day when the Journey was handed over to the Union, along with the ill and injured Union men who were aboard her. Around 620,000 men died in the Civil War, but, it should be noted, two-thirds of them were lost to disease rather than directly in battle.”

“Was this where they gave the ship over to the Union?” someone asked.

“No, the ship was farther north that day. From the beginning of the war, commanders on both sides knew that controlling the Mississippi was paramount to winning the war. But all along, the fight really was for control of the river, not to decimate the area, and it’s to that strategy that we owe the fact that Oak Alley still stands, that and the later efforts of the Stewart family, who, as I said, were among the first to see the value in restoring our historic homes and plantations.”