JUDITH GREENE: The Old Port Chronicles, Part 1 Read online

  “What about Mrs. Greene and the baby?”

  “With all due respect to Mrs. Greene – I love her like a sister, you know it is the truth - it seems pure foolishness for her to stay in that place, Lord knows, she up and decided to take care of this baby! That is of course her business. However, I gave Doctor Greene my solemn pledge she would be taken care of while he was away, and I don’t mean to go back on it now! We’ll send for her in a day or two. The postmaster at Oak Crossroads has a right big old-stylized house on the edge of town. You should know since you spent a little time there at that fancy Female Seminary. No matter the postmaster has a girl about your age, sort of tall with a high soft voice – funny as anything to hear – but she is a sweet girl.”

  The Colonel turned and spoke to Laura directly,

  “And there’s another thing on my mind. I don’t want you getting your little head turned by the boys particularly the roughnecks! You are going to be a lady of quality someday.”

  Laura interjected somewhat grimly, “Boys don’t like me, father.” Tersely the Colonel replied,

  “Well, it’s your own fault! You confound them with all this talk about nothing. But don’t fret about such things until you’re ready. I have plans for you, and you will behave yourself until the time comes when we can match you up with the right sort of fellow – if there is one than can abide a wife that talks to herself. When he comes along he’ll look into those big brown eyes and tell you that you are something special. You know that, don’t you? But you’re not going to worry about it now.”

  “Why do you talk to yourself?”

  Laura timidly replied, “I don’t mean to do that father. Sometimes pages from books appear before my eyes and I read them aloud without knowing that I’m doing it.” Placing his hand on her head, Wyche said,

  “We’ll have none of that. Not around here! You just remember that you are my pride and joy, and everything is going to be alright… that is if you set your mind to keeping yourself busy with useful things. The same holds true for Mrs. Greene. What's this you’re telling me about her tinkering?”

  Laura’s mood turned to muted delight,

  “She takes things apart and puts them back together like they were before, and she can fix everything around the house that gets broken – imagine that! She fixes clocks and watches, too.”

  Wyche laughed, “It figures. They use to call her “chief tomboy of the town.”

  After pondering this for a moment, considering the utility of his question, he asked,

  “Is that something you like Laura?”

  “Let me see the shops father! I want to know how everything works… After all, I am your daughter.”

  Colonel Wyche smiled, “You can’t help that; but I can see nothing wrong in teaching you a little something about railroads. The more you know about them the more you can make yourself useful around here. You know I have faith in you silly girl!”

  Colonel Wyche was not the wealthiest man in Old Port, but he was the most brilliant and powerful. After an outstanding military career that reached its spectacular climax with his heroic actions during the Storming of Chapultepec, he had settled into the career of a civil engineer. Wyche was appointed superintendent and chief engineer of the Central Railroad in 1854. He transformed the primitive, poorly functioning railroad into one of the most modern and well-managed lines in the South. Through the war years he kept the trains running, and sometimes placed himself in danger. Overseeing rebuilding the worn out railroad after the war, the Colonel forged the wreckage of this once great work of internal improvements into a great corporate railroad, a model for others to copy. He had succeeded beyond anything he could have imagined in his youth, at least professionally. In 1863 however, he sensed the world about him was falling to pieces; and he was fearful for his daughter’s future.

  ****

  A strange event happened on April 30, 1863. As the train to Orchard Junction was pulling out of Wayne City, the midway stop on the Central Railroad, Colonel Wyche had an unexpected meeting with an agent of the Confederate Government. He wanted a ride to the terminus of the line. Wyche was riding in the locomotive of a freight train inspecting the defensive works being built on the major bridges on the line. He allowed the agent to join him in the cab of the locomotive with the engineer and fireman, named Johnston and Dobbs respectively. Also on the train was Wyche’s assistant, Fred McAdams, a young man of great promise that the colonel had advanced in the company over more experienced candidates. After the war, he encouraged his protégé to propose to young Laura. They would marry in 1873.

  The agent carried with him a leather portfolio intended for Richmond. Wyche gave little thought to the man or his possessions since individuals of his sort had become a commonplace irritation. As the train advanced ponderously through the desolate pines, the agent began a rambling conversation on poisonous vapors in the Southern lowlands, and details about some village in England. McAdams asked him about the portfolio. The agent told him he had received it before his ship left England. It was sealed with a broad ribbon impregnated with glue and an embossed card stitched to the ribbon. The agent admitted to not knowing its contents. Still, the portfolio had to make it to Richmond immediately. At least, he was confident enough to say it contained important communications. He was eager to be rid of it. Wyche had little faith in European intervention at this point. He believed agents could serve the cause better with a rifle, or a shovel.

  Only a mile beyond Spring Garden Depot, they heard rifle fire from the direction of the Panther Creek Bridge. Wyche ordered the engineer to stop the train. Within seconds of bringing the train to a stop, the sound of artillery fire joined the rifles. The agent clamored off the locomotive, bolting into the woods. Wyche did not bother trying to call him back, but ordered the engineer to set the train in reverse, and return to Spring Garden. There, they stopped briefly to send a telegram about the raid back to Wayne City, and continued backwards another few miles to the turnout at a place called Elbert's Crossroad, a fuel and water station. There they waited until the train with reinforcements had passed. The suspense dragged out. Wyche and the crew of the freight train waited, straining their ears for the sound of gunfire. They were too far from the action. Then the stationmaster from Spring Garden arrived on a hand car. The raid ended before the troops had arrived. The bridge was undamaged. The commanding officer had asked the Colonel to bring his train forward to the station.

  At Spring Garden, Wyche found the troop train had continued to Orchard after the men had joined those guarding the bridge. Seeing company equipment sent here and there by the army without telling management annoyed him. Yet, his attention soon turned to the agent that had fled into the woods. Where did he go? The commanding officer had not seen him. He expected the agent to come out of hiding when he was sure it was safe. The soldiers milling about the station made a feeble search of the woods. Wyche was concerned the raid had come without warning. Though the defenses at the bridge proved sufficient to hold off the attack, the enemy had surprised them. He left young McAdams at Spring Garden in case the train was caught in another raid further up the line. Indeed, another raid followed! After reaching Orchard, Yankee cavalry attacked a section of track to the south of the town at a place called Daniel’s Turnout. They pulled up the rails and set fire to three empty boxcars on the sidetrack. It took a day and a half before Wyche could return to Spring Garden to pick up Fred. This brings the story around to Mrs. Greene.

  Judith Greene would have taken up arms sooner than her husband could pack up his bone saw. She wanted to join the fight! She found a more subtle way to show her devotion to the cause: Aiding several of friends from her childhood in their clandestine adventures behind enemy lines. Captain William Grundy, Maxton Pugh, the captain of police for Old Port, and a young sergeant named Marcus Cassidy spied for the Confederacy. Fred McAdams, assistant superintendent of the Central Railroad, led them. Colonel Wyche was neither aware of his assistant’s secondary wartime career nor that of the woman to
whom he had entrusted his beloved daughter. This changed after the death of Sarah Porter. Motherly duties consumed Mrs. Greene.

  ****

  On June 3, 1863, Judith was living at the home of Postmaster Rhodes on the outskirts of Oak Crossroads. There, Mrs. Greene, Laura, and Lydia, the daughter of the postmaster, fawned over darling Little Jack with every ounce of love in their hearts. Briefly, the cares of wartime seemed as remote as the distant past in the safe confines of the large whitewashed house on the edge of town. That is, until Fred McAdams came calling with an urgent request while the postmaster and his family were off visiting neighbors. Mrs. Greene was sitting on the porch watching Little Jack sleeping in a baby basket. On seeing Fred McAdams, she rose from her chair and pulled him aside so as not to wake the baby.

  Judith, with some consternation, said,

  “Mr. McAdams, I believe you have little concern about what happens to me. I am responsible for a child! My willingness to risk life and limb for you has diminished considerably. Also, I am regretful, and ashamed of having encouraged young Laura to involve herself all be she willing in our work. It appears that you have taken a liking to her, I can see there is a slight ever so slight measure of concern for her well-being on your part. For me nothing changes! You must think that I crave stealing myself from a hungry tomb! I warn you, sir! If my husband or Colonel Wyche catches wind of our adventures, they will skin you alive. One or both will call you to the field of honor! Pray tell, how will you explain yourself – in particular, to the Colonel?” Fred replies graciously,

  “My dear Mrs. Greene there will be no need to employ your unique and unquestionably marvelous talents. Though might I say, there cannot be another like you! Not once, but on three occasions you have outwitted the Yankees when they were certain they had their prize.”

  Judith clinched her fist, and said,

  “You are a silver tongued flatterer sir! Hush! I cannot tell you Fred McAdams how much I am fed up with you, but I’ll save the worst for Billy Grundy and Maxton Pugh! I will never understand why my mother thought it a good idea for her daughter to grow up with such devilish boys as you three! The lot of you made it your special mission to teach me all your meanness and trickery. Not once were any of you ever sweet to me! While we are at it, I would like to clear up one thing: I did not push Billy out of that tree! He lost his balance and fell flat on his back. It knocked the wind out of him so badly that I thought he was dead!”

  Fred handed her the leather pouch that the Confederate agent had given him, and said,

  “Judith do you have to bring up these things again? We were just children!”

  Judith clutched the leather pouch close to her, saying

  “Yes we were! All buried in the past as it should be until this war brought you three devilish boys a knocking on my door looking for “that mischievous girl!”

  Fred, frustrated, implored, “Come now, let us speak frankly. If we didn’t call on you, you would have come looking for us! Lord knows would you just do me one thing? Would you take that pouch and, what is this I see?”

  At that instance, he caught sight of Laura peeking out the porch window. Fred called out

  “Laura Wyche would you stop looking out the window like you think nobody knows you are there, come on out here!”

  Laura came out on the front porch, and timidly asked in a hushed voice,

  “Don’t speak so loudly. You’ll wake the baby… What do you want us to do this time Mr. McAdams?” He replied

  “Nothing Laura! All I want you to do is take that pouch and hide it well-I tell you. Hide it in a place where nobody will come looking for it, or think to look for it. Wrap it so it will never get wet or bugs get to it or anything you might think of. For God’s sake, don’t go running your mouth about this to anybody – ever-ever-ever – and that goes especially for you Laura! Don’t go telling this Susan girl you always talk about where you ladies decide to hide it!” Judith asked,

  “What’s in it Mr. McAdams?” Fred threw up his hands and grumbled,

  “It’s something we will need down the road – particularly if we need to do some horse trading. I wouldn’t go worrying my head about it now Judith. But I will tell you this, somebody sooner or later will come looking for it and they’ll sure enough want it bad!”

  After looking inside the portfolio, the color drained from Mrs. Greene’s complexion. The pouch contained a fortune in English bearer bonds. Clearing her throat, she asked,

  “Where did you get this?”

  “I’ll tell you all about it when the time comes he said, but for now, the less you know the safer you are. Perhaps since you have taken up mothering, maybe Laura ought to do the hiding?”

  Judith responded to this remark angrily,

  “No, sir Mr. McAdams You leave that girl alone!”

  Judith bought at a great cost in hard coin a child’s coffin measuring three feet long by twenty inches wide. Made of beautifully oiled walnut with brass handles and a mother-of-pearl inlay of a cross on the lid, it looked like a piece of furniture. Fitted with three ornate brass coffin screws on the left and right sides, and brass coffin locks at the head and foot it could seal watertight. Beneath the cloth inner lining, zinc plate protected the interior. The lid’s inside face was also zinc plate. The coffin included a piece of hemp cord soaked with tar to serve as a gasket when the coffin lid was sealed. The intended occupant of this coffin was likely a little aristocrat. If this relic from antebellum times sold at full price, even Mrs. Greene would have found it too extravagant for its purpose. That week a barrel of flour was going for twice what the shopkeeper in Raleigh was asking for the coffin. She considered it a bargain.

  The sealed coffin promised protection from moisture and insects for a long time. Maybe, it could remain watertight for decades, she thought. Regardless, she wrapped the pouch of bonds in wax dipped cloth, newspaper, and a piece of tanned leather. Writing to the caretaker of the Old Port Cemetery, she asked that masons build a brick lined vault in the Greene family plot to house the coffin, an unusual request in those days. “I am prepared to pay whatever it costs to insure my Little Jack rests uncorrupted,” she wrote in her letter. The much alive Little Jack remained with the family of Postmaster Rhodes. Judith knew the bonds were safe in the cemetery. Fred intended to turn them over to the Confederate Government at the end of the war. Getting the coffin to Old Port would be the most difficult task. When there, she wanted the burial to take place with little attention. Fred boxed the coffin in an ordinary wooden crate, and sent it to Northeast Depot, about ten miles from Old Port. Stored in the depot warehouse, Judith waited for the right opportunity to take it to Old Port.

  ****

  September 27, 1864. The railroad bridge over the Northeast River near Northeast Depot approximately ten miles from Old Port was a heavy timber lattice truss bridge resting on massive stone piers. The length of the bridge is three hundred and sixty feet from the abutments on each side. The Yankees have overtaken Old Port the previous day. The Confederate rearguard is holding the defenses to the north and east of town, but will soon have to withdraw inland to reassemble at Oak Crossroads.

  Frantically, the rear guard of the evacuating Confederate troops of the Old Port garrison prepared to fire the railroad bridge before retreating up the line sixty miles to the heavily fortified stronghold at Oak Crossroads. From there, the general plan had been to reassemble the routed forces of the region and mount a counterattack before the Yankees advanced to Wayne City Junction. Colonel Wyche, barked out commands to his train crew, as soldiers filled three boxcars with scrub and branches,

  “Mr. Johnston Listen to me, when I give you the word back these cars out on the middle span and have your boys tighten down their brakes in good fashion. If they don’t and the cars go rolling off, it will not do us a lick of good.”

  “Yes, sir, Colonel, said Johnston, “I’ll see to it. It wouldn’t surprise me none if they’d roll all the way down to Old Port on their own. We better chock the wheels to be positive,
sir.” Colonel Wyche shouted above the unremitting din of men working at a feverish pitch,

  “Good thinking! Now, after you’re uncoupled I want you to hitch up those cars in the Northeast turnout and let’s make for Oak Crossroads under a full head of steam. Do you think you can do that for me Mr. Johnston?”

  Yes, I can, sir!

  A commotion on the other side of the bridge drew the Colonel’s attention. A group of soldiers gathered around a man on horseback. It was Fred McAdams, the superintendent’s assistant.

  “McAdams where in hell have you been,” shouted the Colonel, “I was ready to give up on you and let the Yankees have their way with your sorry hide! Now get over here and start this bonfire!” Fred cried out,

  “Sir, its Mrs. Green! She’s been captured!”

  “Get over here son, I can’t hear you!”

  McAdams made his way across the massive lattice truss bridge, occasionally having his shoes splashed with turpentine by soldiers racing to soak the bridge deck. Like a fire brigade, they passed buckets of the pungent liquid hand-to-hand along the length of the spans. On reaching the Colonel, Fred announced,