Call Each River Jordan Read online

  Although I felt that I must be superfluous now, I had to report my presence to headquarters. I had been sent to General Grant himself, although I doubted he would have leisure to see me. Doubtless, he had plenty on his hands, for the wake of a battle requires severe accounting. Even Washington’s interests must have changed, given the carnage. What crime could matter after such a battle? Still, I would pay a visit to the general’s staff and report my coming, for duty is duty. And the truth is that I wanted busy employment. Still dazzled I was by the ease with which I had abandoned my resolve and gone back to killing. Too, there was my longing after justice. For all my sins, I do believe in that. Mayhaps it would not signify to a general, but each small bit of justice counts to me. Even in a war.

  We must each do the little bit we can.

  I squeezed aboard a dispatch boat headed downriver to Savannah, the little headquarters town with the high, white house. Thrice I had been told that Grant had gone back to put things in order. High generals must write to explain the blood.

  Filthy as a beggar boy I was. Still hatless, too, with a stick to serve as a cane. Left behind, my bag was surely lost, while the uniform I wore was ruined and wretched. Besides my Colt, I had my pocket Testament. Otherwise, I was desolate as a grub.

  Still, my condition was come to honorably, and that was more than many men could say after Shiloh.

  We moored below the headquarters, beside a groaning hospital boat, and I limped up the bluff, annoyed by flies. The comings and goings were constant: enlisted men all sweat and officers tired of returning salutes, with Negroes buckled under heavy loads. Even here, your nose filled with men’s wounds, and burial parties marched the dusty streets. A detail raised a telegraphic wire.

  As I climbed the road, a red-haired general descended, heading for the river with an aide. He had a just-familiar face set bitter and fury trailed him. His aide said something I could not catch. The general coughed and gestured, disdainfully, with a bandaged hand. A zealot that one looked. You saw the skull beneath the layers of skin. I saluted, but the fellow just ignored me.

  Now that the scrap was over, the headquarters guards were alert. They did not like the look of Abel Jones, for I am not a man grand in appearance at the best of times and I was slopped then shriveled by the sun. I presented my orders. Pages smeared by sweat and blood and rain.

  Discomfited, a private called his sergeant, who rose and stepped reluctant from the shade. The sergeant looked at the paper, considered me, then scratched his Kerry bottom. He was unshaven. A proper army would have had his stripes.

  Wary and unsure, he fetched a captain, a thing no honest sergeant would have done. The captain squinted as he tried to read. Young, he looked me up and down, from hatless head to shoes cleaned off with grass. My trousers were torn and the stick that served as my cane had begun to split. Finally, his gaze settled upon my remaining shoulder board. The other badge of rank had been sliced away and left back in the brambles.

  I will admit I did not look much of an officer. And the captain was a clean fellow, as those set near a staff are like to be.

  “Major . . . this . . . these papers aren’t in order. I can’t let you pass.” He glanced around, uncertain of the world. “You’d best move on now.”

  Twas cool in the river morning, although the sun had floated up the sky. But I was hot in temper, for the battle had left my spirits in disorder.

  “How ‘not in order’?” I asked, as calmly as I could manage.

  He twisted up his mouth, then loosened it again. “Well, I can’t even read ’em. Looks like you went swimming in the mud with ’em. I can’t properly—”

  “I have not been swimming, Captain. Not in the mud nor elsewhere. And I only wish to report, see. For there is my duty, just as your duty is here.”

  “Well, I can’t let you pass. Not if I can’t read your papers. Anyhow, you shouldn’t come around headquarters all dirty like that.”

  I struggled to hold my voice steady. For I knew the lad was not a proper captain. Most like he was a politician’s son, playing dress-up on the edge of war. Nor did he seem a vicious sort. He did as he was told by stronger men—at times a little less, but never more.

  “Look you, Captain. I have come from Washington. It is a long way. And I am sent to report to General Grant. I believe I am expected. Or was expected. Only call a member of the staff, if you please, and we will see the matter through together.”

  “Sure, and I wouldn’t do that, sir,” the sergeant put in. “For don’t he have the black look of a newspaper fellow? There’s not one of them’s a gentleman, the way they go sneaking about. Worse than priests, they are. You bother the high folk with them likes and out we’ll all go on the pickets. Sure as there’s hoors in the laundries.”

  “That’s right, Cap’n,” a private added, with a great spit of tobacco juice. “That runt ain’t no major. Just you look at him. He can’t even walk right. He like to took that uniform off some dead fella.”

  “Maybe he’s a Confederate assassin,” another offered idly.

  Now I know that each man is a thinking creature, and the intellect is not the least of our gifts from the Lord. But private soldiers must not think too much. You see what happens. And officers must draw their proper boundaries. Rarely had I seen such a lack of discipline. Or encountered such a want of respect.

  I fear I grew intemperate.

  “Captain, I have been sent here at the behest of none other than—”

  An officer with a Presbyterian face and the devil’s eyes paused in his passing. “What’s all this damned fuss, Morton? You’re supposed to keep things quiet.”

  “Sorry, sir,” the captain said, jumping to attention. His posture took on a child’s exaggeration. The sergeant drifted back into the shade and the soldiers found interests elsewhere. “This fella claims he’s come to see General Grant himself. All he’s got are these smeared-up papers. If you look—”

  The staff man ripped them from the captain’s hands. As if he barely had the time to blink. Lean as a famine year, that one. And short of humor he looked, to put it kindly.

  The fellow could not read my papers, either. I fear the fight was hard on the written word. He tossed the ruined sheets toward my chest.

  “Who the hell do you think you are?” He judged me by my size and ruined uniform. And, doubtless, by the uncleanliness of my person. I must have shed an odor of some potency, for I wore a battle and the hospital yard. I had tried to wash, but the wells and streams were corrupted. And few men like to bathe beside a corpse.

  Oh, what can shame a Methodist like dirt?

  “I am Major Abel Jones, officer of U.S. Volunteers and—”

  His face changed and the devil plunged toward me. “Jones? You’re Jones? Good God, man, where have you been? We thought you were killed . . . captured . . .”

  “Things wanted doing, see. I did not think—”

  He thrust out his hand. “Rawlins. John Rawlins. Christ almighty, you’re a sorry sight. Come in, man, come in.” Then he bethought himself and turned to the captain. “Morton! Run down to the landing. Catch General Sherman. Swim after him, if you have to. Tell him the man from Washington’s here. Don’t just stand there, you ass. Run.”

  As we approached the clean and lovely house, Rawlins said, “We’ve got an ugly business on our hands.”

  HE DID NOT LOOK a proper general. You might have thought him master of a freight yard, and not of a grand one, either. You never would have picked him from a crowd. He had an artless beard and weathered skin. His hair was neither brown nor red, but ginger, reminding me of undernourished Scotsmen. Average in form, he seemed at first a small man, with no least hint of pride upon his face.

  He met me in his shirtsleeves and his waistcoat, plain blue frock behind him on a chair. Limping himself he come, and his collar points were frayed above his necktie. The battle’s strain lay on him like a veil. When he shook my hand, I felt old calluses.

  Now, you will say, “A general must be fine for inspira
tion.” But I will tell you: There is more to leading men than splendid show. I will admit that I was disappointed, though only at first sight and not for long. For I still tended to a British measure and had expected someone grand myself. But if Grant wore no braid, he wore no bluster. He was a calm and steady man, and quiet.

  Now “Grant” is Scots, of course. But hold your judgement. That simple uniform of his was not a miser’s. No, he proved to be a generous man. Too generous to some in later years. But let that bide. The only stinginess he showed me lay in words. The man could not use two when one sufficed. Now we Welsh are a high and noble people, but I will give you that we like to talk. Grant thought first, then said what needed saying. And then he said no more but let things rest.

  The first thing that he told me was:

  “You stink.”

  I began to tumble apologies, but he pointed me to a chair.

  “Battle smell, if I’m a judge.”

  “Some help seemed wanted, sir. I did pitch in.”

  He nodded, face gone heavy.

  “The Rebels were properly beaten,” I continued. “In the end.”

  “Tell General Halleck that when he gets here.” Casualty lists ghosted through his eyes. “What’s wrong with your leg?”

  “A minor matter,” I told him. “And an old one. It does not interfere with my duties. And your leg, sir?”

  He grunted. “Horse fell. With me on him. Some weeks back.” He tasted the memory and grimaced. “It’s fixing up. Smoke?” He offered up a pouch of black cigars.

  “I do not take tobacco, sir. But thank you.”

  He lit his weed and took a seat behind a littered desk. A staff fellow knocked and piled another sheaf of papers in front of the general, then left without a word. Grant gave the reports a glance and dismissed them for the moment. Examining his cigar with a jeweler’s attention, he said, “Folks send me these by the case since we took Donelson. Craziest thing. Like to be the death of a fellow.”

  I watched his hands. He was no man of leisure, and he and I both seemed out of our element, for our interview took place in a gentleman’s study. It was the sort of room I admit I covet, for books are lovely things to have and hold. And who would not wish himself a room for quiet reflection? Yet I was not born to such grand possessions and neither, it appeared, was Grant. We come rough-carved, the two of us.

  Though colorful as a ball gown, the house kept a deathly quiet. As if it could not wait for us to leave, so that the maid might sweep away our traces. The staff work was conducted in the tents in the yard, I soon learned, but still this was a headquarters after a great battle. A veteran expects a certain fuss. I did not know two generals were dying up the stairs.

  “Do me a kindness, Jones?”

  “Sir?”

  “Take off that coat. Mr. Cherry’s a Union man, but the ladies of the house have other sympathies. No need to offend them, should they appear. They’re good people. Hospitable, if a little wrongheaded.”

  I took my tunic off, but most reluctant. My shirt was beastly foul.

  Grant stood up and opened a window wide. Puffing till he smoked just like a dragon.

  “How much they tell you in Washington?”

  Before I could begin the door swung wide. The red-haired general with the bandaged hand swept in. Without ceremony, he tossed his hat upon a polished table.

  “Grant,” he said, by way of greeting his superior. He covered a cough with his bad paw.

  “Cump. This is Major Jones. From Washington. Major . . . General Sherman.” I had risen out of respect, but Grant said, “Sit down. Both of you.”

  Sherman hardly acknowledged me. Dropping into a chair, he stretched out his legs. Impatiently, his spurs scratched at the floor. With his fiery hair, he put me in mind of a gamecock.

  He looked me over, with pink-veined eyes. And set a skeptic’s mask upon his face. Sherman was a neater man than Grant, though no parader, and I felt his scrutiny harden into disdain.

  Grant seemed not to notice, though I sensed he saw full well, and Sherman took his cue. He lit up a cheroot from his own pocket, awkward with the bad hand and the match. The tobacco only made him cough the worse. I began to fear consumption, lean as he was.

  Grant sat back down and fixed me with a stare. The sun poured through the window thick as honey.

  We sat in silence, but for a fly that found me. And Sherman’s occasional cough. It grew so quiet I could hear their lips pucker on their cigars.

  I understood that I was being judged. On deeper matters now than my appearance.

  After a stale of moments, Sherman’s restlessness sparked again. “Well, tell him, Grant.”

  Grant nodded, but could not be made to go at another’s pace. He looked at me doubly hard then. Now something had been chewing Abel Jones, an odd resemblance that I could not place. Suddenly, I had it. Twas in Grant’s eyes. All sorrowful they were. As though he saw things he wished he might not. Though colored elsewise, I had seen those eyes before. On Mr. Lincoln.

  “First things first,” Grant said at last, leaning on his elbows like a schoolboy. “Jones, what do you think of the Negro?”

  “I THINK he is a man, like other men.”

  Grant cupped his chin and his beard crisped under his fingers. Sherman leaned forward.

  “What about slavery?” Grant asked, shifting again and fitting his cigar back to his mouth.

  “I would see no man a slave,” I said. “It isn’t Christian.”

  Sherman seemed about to leave his seat. “You think a nigger’s equal to a white man?”

  “No, sir,” I said. “Not as a rule. Though some may be as good as any other.”

  “Count yourself an abolitionist?” Grant asked.

  I did not understand this string of questions. Surely I had not come all this way to talk about the worthiness of Negroes. Yet, these men were superior in rank, and might put any queries that they would. I tried to answer honestly. But thoughts and words are not a perfect fit.

  “I have never viewed myself as such, sir. Though my dear wife has leanings in that way. And . . . and I will tell you, the more I see into the matter, the more I think such people have a point.” I thought of my troubles in the New York snows, and of those who had stood by me. “I have known black fellows as proper as anyone. Good and brave and decent.” I looked at Sherman, for he seemed the harder nut to me. “Look you. If you please, sir. Even if the African is born with lesser faculties . . . still, he is a man, like you and me. But let that bide, sir. It is only that I would not have a man in chains. Not any man, see. Were it my choice to make.”

  “But it’s not your choice. Is it, Jones?” Sherman asked. His voice had something of the naked blade.

  “No, sir. That it is not. But—”

  “Good.” He looked at Grant. “At least he understands that much.”

  But Grant had not yet finished.

  “Jones . . . if it were up to you. Would you fight a war . . . a war like this . . . to free the Negro?”

  “No,” I said. It was a ready answer. For I would not choose any war at all. I soldiered from a sense of obligation, to neighbor boys then to a country. I wished the black man free and left to himself, but not at such an awful price in slaughter.

  Sherman met Grant’s eyes and said:

  “He’ll do.”

  “FIFTEEN GROWN MEN, hanging from the trees,” Grant said, with those remorseful eyes upon me full. “Hands and ankles bound. Eleven women slaughtered in the bushes—eleven, wasn’t it, Cump?”

  Sherman nodded. “And fourteen children. Total of forty.”

  “Runaway slaves,” Grant continued. “Murdered not half a dozen miles from our lines.”

  “Thought it was a nigger orchard, with all of them hanging there,” Sherman said with another cough. “Irregulars found them. Scouts who do some work for my division. Since the cavalry isn’t worth a damn.” He threw a teasing look at Grant. “When I can even scare up any of those dog-robbers. Anyway, they found them the day after my boys s
et up camp above the landing. Rode out to have a look myself. Weren’t fresh, I’ll tell you that. Three, four days dead. Animals had been at them.”

  “The men were hung, the women and children butchered,” Grant repeated. And he was a man who did not say things twice. “Just a cold-blooded massacre, and a disgrace.”

  Sherman, whose anger seemed as close a companion as his cough, straightened his back and squared his narrow shoulders. It was a gesture more daunting than a fist. “Most pitiful damned thing I ever saw. Just pitiful. Wouldn’t take a nigger-lover to vomit over a sight like that.” He stiffened even more as he remembered. “Their brats were chopped up. Like a drunken butcher had been at them.” Most men reveal their anger on their lips, but his shone through bloodshot eyes. “And one of the women, a young one . . . high yellow, they call them in Louisiana . . . had been disrobed. Disrobed and disfigured.” His voice became a growl. “Disfigured in hideous ways . . .” Suddenly, he turned those eyes on me. “But I leave that to your imagination, Major.”

  And yet, he could not live up to his promise. The memory of what he had seen pressed more words from him. As if he hoped to spit out what he had witnessed and be done with it.

  “The girl was a bloody mess,” Sherman went on. “Lot of blood in a human carcass. And the African has more blood in him than a white man. Regulates his temperature in the heat, that’s why you can work him in the cotton.” He shook his head, slow as a funeral march. “God, I still see that girl.”

  The light had crawled the floor to the day’s meridian. Beyond the window, down the hill, a steamboat scuffed the dock. Its whistle shook the glass. Out in the warm, soldiers spiced the day’s routine with laughter.

  The generals before me sat in silence. Pondering. Grant followed one cigar with another, but Sherman had settled. Like a storm rained out.

  I cleared my throat, for I must put my questions. Before the little time allowed me fled. Once a staff man’s head pokes in with a “pressing matter,” all your remaining business goes undone, for generals are prisoners of the clock.