Carried Forward By Hope (19 page)

“When the war
started
?” Matthew exclaimed. “You would only have been…”

“Yes,” Joseph responded with a smile. “I was only fifteen. Course, the army boys didn’t know that. I told them I was eighteen. All three of my brothers signed up right away. I wasn’t about to get left behind.” Dark shadows flitted through his eyes as the cheerfulness ebbed away to be replaced by deep sorrow. “I’m the only one left. Jake got killed at Bull Run.” He managed a weak smile. “At least he didn’t have to fight for long. He’s probably mad he got killed in the first real battle of the war, but I reckon he was the lucky one.”

Matthew waited quietly.

Joseph took a deep breath. “Charles was killed the next year at Seven Pines when we were trying to take Richmond. I saw him fall. I got to him to pull him back behind the lines for the medics, but he was already gone — shot right through the head.” He shrugged his thin shoulders. “At least he didn’t suffer like some of those I heard moaning out on the field for hours.”

A long moment of silence passed while Joseph stared off into space. When he began to speak again, his voice was low and hoarse. “Adam made it until December of that year. The Rebels got him at the Battle of Fredericksburg.”

Matthew grimaced as he remembered.

“You were there?”

“I was there,” he admitted. “It was terrible.”

“Yes,” Joseph agreed. “That’s where my fighting days ended too. I’ve been a guest of Rebel prisons since then,” he added darkly.

“Andersonville has only been open since February of last year,” Matthew observed. “Where were you held?”

“Richmond.”

Matthew took a deep breath. “Libby Prison?”

“No,” Joseph said quietly. “That was too good for the likes of me and my buddies. They took us out to Belle Isle.”

Matthew managed to stifle his groan as sympathy flowed through him. Libby had been horrible, but Belle Isle was even worse. He could only imagine how Joseph had suffered through the brutal winter of 1863 with virtually no shelter and hardly any food. “I’m sorry,” he said simply.

Joseph looked at him more closely. “You know something about that place.”

Matthew nodded. He was not interviewing these men to tell his own story, and he had not shared it with anyone else, but he felt Joseph needed to know how completely he understood. “Are you familiar with Rat Dungeon in Libby Prison?”

Joseph nodded. “It’s a hell hole,” he muttered. “I’ve talked to some of the men who made it out of there.”

“I was there for several months,” Matthew admitted.

“When?” Joseph demanded.

“The winter of 1863.” He wondered if Joseph would make the connection.

Joseph nodded and his eyes grew wide. “I heard about a journalist fellow who broke out of Libby Prison with some of his buddies, digging a tunnel and making sure lots of the other prisoners knew about it so they could escape too. You wouldn’t be…?”

Matthew nodded.

Joseph stared at him. “Well, if that doesn’t beat all! Tell me how you got out of there.”

Matthew shook his head. “It’s not important now. I’m here to tell
your
story, not mine,” he insisted. “I escaped, but you somehow managed to survive two and a half years in conditions that would have killed most men. I want to hear how you did it.”

Joseph stared at him for a long moment. “It was something my grandfather used to tell me,” he said softly.

Matthew was silent as Joseph closed his eyes.

“My grandfather used to tell me never to say that I couldn’t do something or that something seemed impossible or couldn’t be done, no matter how discouraged I got. He told me I’m only limited by what I allow myself to be limited by — my own mind.” Joseph smiled. “He told me I am the master of my own reality, and that when I understood that, absolutely anything in the world was possible.”

“Your grandfather was a wise man.”

“The wisest,” Joseph agreed. “Every time I thought I couldn’t keep going, I would see my grandfather saying those words. He used to tell me so many times I got sick of it, but I reckon he somehow knew I would need it.” He paused again. “I owe my life to my grandfather,” he said quietly. “I just hope he’s still alive so I can tell him when I get home.”

“Does your family know you’re still alive?” Matthew asked.

Joseph’s grin bloomed again. “They do now! I got a letter off to them about a week ago from Camp Fisk. I haven’t heard anything back, but I’ll bet big money they’ll all be waiting for me when I get off this boat in a few days.” His grin widened. “I reckon that is going to be the best day of my life,” he said softly.

Matthew smiled and laid his hand on his arm. “I reckon it will be,” he agreed. “Give me your parents’ address,” he added. “I’ll make sure you get a copy of the paper when your story comes out.”

Joseph scribbled down his address and lay back on the deck against a column. His face was tight with exhaustion. “I think I’ll just rest a little while,” he murmured, before he closed his eyes.

Matthew stared into his young, sunken face, heartbroken that a nineteen-year-old could have such deep wrinkles and pain etched into his face. He hoped his family was ready for his condition when he stepped off the boat, but surely Joseph must know how bad he looked. He had been staring at the mirror images of fellow prisoners for over two years. He shuddered as he imagined what this boy had experienced. He also prayed the rest of his young life would be full of easier times.

******

Peter strode from the gangplank and took what felt like his first easy breath in two days. Even though the decks of the
Sultana
were open-air, the crush of twenty-five hundred people — many of them ill — created a stench that permeated every pore in his body. He smiled as he watched hundreds of prisoners pour from the boat to head up the cobblestone wharf to the closest saloon so they could celebrate their freedom. He was sure alcohol was the last thing any of them needed right now, but he couldn’t begrudge their desire to escape the boat for a while.

The
Sultana
was being emptied of her hogsheads of sugar and cases of wine. He was glad some of the strain on the engines and boilers was being reduced.

A glance at his watch told him it was 6:30 pm. If he hurried, he should be able to get a telegraph off to his office. He strode through the crowded streets of Memphis, climbing the hills that took him high above the Mississippi River. He knew the city was situated on the Fourth Chickasaw Bluff, the highest elevation on the east bank of the Mississippi. Protected from the regular floods and raging torrents, by the 1850s it had outlasted all other competition from other river ports and claimed its title as the “capital” of the mid-south.

Though Tennessee had joined the Confederacy and Memphis had been largely pro-Confederacy, they were also the home state of President Johnson. He was certain Tennessee would be the first to re-enter the Union.

Peter smiled as he strode past the old offices of the
Memphis Appeal
newspaper. In spite of being on a different side of the conflict, he had to admire their determination to exist during the war. During the first year of the war, they had declared they would rather sink their presses at the bottom of the Mississippi than surrender. They loaded their equipment on boxcars and continued to operate as a refugee newspaper. He knew they moved five times to escape capture before finally being seized just ten days earlier. He had heard the news from a colleague in Vicksburg. He celebrated another marker of the war being over, even while feeling sympathy for those who resisted for so long. He could only hope they would use that same energy and determination to rebuild the Union.

There was a long line out of the telegraph office when he arrived. He frowned but relaxed when he realized he had plenty of time. The
Sultana
was not due to leave again until 11:30.

“Did you hear the news?”

Peter turned to the man who had just joined him in line. “What news?”

“They’ve killed Booth!”

Peter whistled. The search for Lincoln’s killer had taken twelve days and hundreds of men scouring the countryside. “Where did they find him?”

“Hiding out in a tobacco barn on a farm just south of Port Royal, Virginia,” the man sneered.

“Did he surrender?” Peter asked eagerly, knowing just what a crazy search it had been through the Maryland countryside and across the Rappahannock River.

“Not Booth! The man with him surrendered, but he yelled out that he preferred to come out and fight. The soldiers set the barn on fire,” he continued.

“I thought they had orders to take Booth alive?” Peter commented.

“They did. They set the fire to flush him out. One of the soldiers shot him in the neck.”

“Why?”

“We don’t have those kinds of details yet.”

Peter nodded and looked at the man more closely. “What paper do you work for?”

“The
Illinois State Register
,” he said promptly. “One newspaperman can always tell another. My name is Crandall Masters. You?”

“Peter Wilcher. I work for the
Liberator
in Massachusetts,” Peter responded with a firm handshake. “Did the bullet kill Booth?”

“Eventually. They dragged him to the porch of the farmhouse. He died three hours later,” he said with satisfaction. “I heard that he requested his mother be told that he died for his country.”

Peter sighed. Booth’s passions had led him to be the one to actually assassinate Lincoln, but he knew there were many who sympathized with his feelings and applauded his actions. Booth had been captured and killed, but it would do nothing to alleviate the hard feelings on either side.

Crandall looked at him closely. “Is this really the first you’ve heard of this?”

Peter nodded. “I just came off the
Sultana
down on the waterfront. I’ve been on the steamer for the last two days with a load of Union prisoners who are returning home.”

“Then you don’t know that General Johnston surrendered the last of the Confederate troops today,” Crandall said.

That earned a genuine smile from Peter. “Finally! The war has been over since Appomattox, but this finalizes things now that the last standing army has surrendered.” He paused. “Did President Johnson honor Sherman’s armistice agreement with the Rebels?”

Crandall snorted. “Not a chance! He sent Grant down there to demand the same terms of surrender that Lee received. General Johnston really had no choice but to accept them.”

Peter nodded as he stepped up to the counter. It took him just a few moments to send a telegraph telling his editor he had collected many powerful stories from the Union prisoners. He had turned away when he heard his name called.

He turned back to the counter. “Yes?”

“You’ve got a telegraph here, Mr. Wilcher,” the agent said, handing him an envelope.

It took Peter just seconds to realize he would not be returning to the
Sultana
. His editor had directed him to travel to Springfield, Illinois to cover Lincoln’s final burial. The funeral train was winding its way through New York but would soon head across the Midwest, arriving in Illinois on May 3. Peter was to catch the train leaving Memphis the next morning.

He looked up and realized Crandall was just leaving the counter. “Looks like my plans have changed. I head for Springfield in the morning. Do you have a recommendation for a good hotel?”

“I’m staying at the Bell Tavern. It’s not fancy, but the food is good.”

“That works,” Peter replied. “Have you eaten yet? Food on board the
Sultana
is scarce. I’m starving!”

“Let’s go,” Crandall replied.

Peter gazed off toward the waterfront as they walked down the street toward the tavern. He would have told Matthew of the change in plans if he had any hope of finding him on the crowded steamer. As it was, he knew Matthew was in his element interviewing the soldiers. He would send him a telegraph in the morning that would be waiting for him when he arrived in Cairo with the prisoners. Both of them knew plans could change in a moment’s notice. Their paths would cross again.

******

Matthew was deep in conversation when he felt the engines start up again. The last five hours had flown by. He watched as the lights of Memphis receded, but all the steamer did was cross to the other side of the river and dock again.

“What’s going on?” one of the soldiers asked.

One of the crew was walking by at just that moment. “We’re taking on a load of coal,” he explained.

Matthew frowned. He had been relieved when the steamer had lost some of its freight in Memphis but now they were putting more on the overloaded vessel. His frown deepened as a cold drizzle began to fall. Many of the men crowding the boats had no blankets to use against the chill night air.

Flashes of lightning split the night air as the
Sultana
started back upriver at 1:00 am. Matthew stared down at the rapidly flowing water, his thoughts restless. Most of the men were sound asleep, but he just couldn’t relax. Strong spring storms had created flood conditions on the river. The Mississippi was always wide, but the floods had extended the river to more than four miles across. He could see nothing but dark, swirling water when the lightning flashed. Plowing upstream against the raging current had to put more of a strain on the engines and boilers.