Stand the Storm (30 page)

With Gabriel gone at war and heartily missed, there was competition to sit latest in the kitchen—nursing loneliness and the fire. Ellen left the warm first. It was a tumbledown habit for Ellen to put the younger babes on their pallets while their mother worked on. Mary allowed Ellen to fuss with them to assuage her longing for Delia, but this comfort did not distract Ellen from worrying that the girl was safe. It lightened Ellen’s heart to know—from the letters she received through Reverend Higgins—that Delia thrived in Philadelphia.

Mary soothed her longing for Gabriel with working late—pressing on to bone tiredness so that sleep would come easily. At very last Annie would send Mary ahead of her to bed with the admonition that she needed the rest to care for her babes. Mary must not, her mother-in-law insisted, fatigue herself with worry. It was a small tug between them that gave Sewing Annie the upper hand. She would be the captain of worry over Gabriel. As well, there were no private missives between husband and wife. All of the letters received from Gabriel were read out by Daniel to be heard by all. Mary keenly suffered the loss of marital intimacy with her Gabriel and was frightened for it—anxious lest it be gone forever. She became covetous of her babes’ kisses and huggings at night when they were settled to sleep in their upstairs room. These were Gabriel’s and hers!

Twenty-nine

Dear Ones,

You must laugh at this, dear ones. As we colored troops are given little provision, most of the men are without any supplies for mending clothing. These men have recently left off the places they were held and so they have little or nothing belonging to them. It is only himself that each has carried off from one of the places around here—no pocketknife, no scissors, no tin cup.

I am, as you know, well supplied. Also, I have the skill for mending. I have very little skill for such other as shooting and hunting and marching. So I have taken on the job of mending in spare moments. For this I am heartily appreciated and am called “Housewife” with affection. It is a joke doubly because the sewing kits given to the white soldiers are called “housewife.” We colored troops are given none of these. I am kept very warm as I have so many socks and shirts. I have given one pair of socks to each of the barefoot. When a coin circulates, they buy another pair. I am satisfied with this system, loved ones.

Your devoted,
Pvt. Gabriel Coats

Dear Ones,

Mr. Millrace and I are the subject of a good deal of fun. Many of the other soldiers are lately off their masters’ places and have seen little of a city. They have only the few clothes upon their persons. They think Mr. Millrace and I are popinjays, for our underclothes are clean and show little wear. We have great trouble to keep them so. Mr. Millrace is a rough and hardy fellow to be sure. He is used to the hard tasks of training and handling his dogs and is an expert at hunting and tracking. He is proficient with knives, rifles, and pistols. The fellows are impressed with him and are fond of his skill for snaring small game. Our regiment has had rabbits when others were eating only beans.

I have run afoul of the regimental sutler in our camp. This is the fellow who sells us our goods. He has approached me regarding my socks and other items. He does not like my selling wares. He has the permit to sell exclusively in the camp. I must be wary.

Pvt. Gabriel Coats

Dear Ones,

Oh, how high our spirits were when we left our base camp and boarded transport! At last, we felt ourselves being made good use of. A battle is coming! We have been here in Virginia for some weeks and we chafe at the inactivity. Well, we are not inactive at all. We are only kept from the fighting. And grousing does set in as we are used as mules by the army—and not as soldiers.

We are mostly put to fatigue duty in the camp. That is, we are made to do the heavy labor that white soldiers are not pressed to do. We are put upon the level of the army’s animals. We are daily, nay hourly, submitted to insults by white soldiers in other regiments. They taunt us as cowards, saying we will not fight. They curse us as the cause of the fighting and accuse us of responsibility for the bad odors about the camp. At this last we are amused, for none of us—black or white—have had a good washing head to toe, and our clothes are so dirty and inhabited with lice that they would walk away if we dared take them off. We keep still in the face of insults, for our minds are on the battle. Mr. Millrace and I have become good companions. He wishes that I give greetings from him to you all. Mary, on your circuit of the town, please look in on Miss Essie Millrace and assure her that her father is well. Mr. Millrace has letters from her but is eager to know the temper of her countenance. Is she bright and cheerful or sorrowful?

Mary’s blood throbbed at the sound of her own name singled out in her husband’s letter. “Yes, yes, dear one. I will do as you ask,” she murmured, and sealed it on herself as a pledge and a duty.

Daniel read on with no pause.

Mr. Millrace is often melancholy about his dogs. He worries that they are well and have something to eat. I tell him that dogs such as his are well able to look out for themselves. He worries that the old man he put in charge of the animals may have lost courage and abandoned them. He agitates over their care, for they are his livelihood and are like his own children.

We are moving at last! We are transporting via railcars to the fighting!

Your Gabriel

The foot-weary men were forced aboard a train car. There was disgruntled display on the part of the trainmen and the conductor. The commanding officer attempted to quash the discontent by encouraging the colored men to sing as they sat in the train car. The officer thought this singing to be an effective way of calming the men. At first, some were reluctant and were themselves disgruntled at their treatment. Were they not soldiers fighting? But these softened and soon were singing. They began with spirituals. The voices of the troops rose and they sang with vigor. The conductor came into the car—the one who’d taken pleasure in forcing the colored troops to a separate car —and barked.

“Shat up that racket!” he exclaimed, snuff juice trailing down his chin. “Stop that caterwauling! Hear me, Naygurs!”

A quiet did descend on the car in response to the conductor. But he and the uniformed and armed men knew that it was not fear or respect that silenced them. They sat silently, ominously, in their Union blues. All of the troops turned eyes on the blushing conductor, then upon their pale commanding officer. They would not lower their eyes and the two white men realized themselves outnumbered. Raw feelings mounted in the car as the men tensed muscles and girded for conflict. A man called Matthew, one who styled himself a preacher, rose and commenced, in midst of the turmoil, to sing.

Hush, hush, somebody’s callin’ my name

Soon one mornin’

Death come a-creepin’

The men joined in. All had cut their teeth upon this song and knew it well. They sang verse after verse. The men of the First United States Colored Troops proudly kept to their seats and sang absolutely all of that song. They proceeded through many another piece until they reached the military rail depot south of Petersburg.

Gabriel’s letter home after the siege of Petersburg was as usual cheerful. It consisted mostly of an account of the company’s preparations, their monotonous marching, and the many small things they did to assuage boredom. Gabriel dared not write of the artilleryman whose headless body was dragged from his guns and replaced by another. He did not speak of the wounded men crawling on hands and knees—in circles, in confusion—until their bloodless bodies collapsed still. He did not speak of the fingers, arms, legs lacerated by whizzing minnie balls. Dead and wounded bodies leaked blood into the ground and it became soaked and spongy. What they did not know about would not touch them, he thought.

Guiltily, Gabriel realized after the most grueling part of the battle that the only person whose life meant something to him had likewise survived. Jacob Millrace had not died! Gabriel had been so fearful that he’d been copiously ill in his guts. He’d recognized many of the varied pieces of his comrades—this man’s arm that bore the patch he’d sewn or that man’s hat or that man’s face that still bore a blank, unquestioning expression—but it was only Jacob Millrace that he’d looked about the battlefield for. As he had perused each corpse on the ground before him, he looked feverishly for only that one. For he’d wanted to hear Jacob Millrace speak again—to reiterate the last words they’d shared before the battle.

“We know well who we are if this war be a game—a game of dominoes, let us say. We are the slack black pieces with the spots upon us, my friend. They will aim for us. We are certain . . . we will fall. But we will fall in the service of securing freedom!”

Gabriel had been puzzled as to what to make of Jacob’s words. He was scared—nearly as terrified as he had ever been. His thoughts were thick and husky and he yearned to be back with the group around the kitchen stove. He was here on this battlefield for them—he’d not needed Jacob Millrace to tell him. He had come because he’d felt it was his place to fight this fight. But now he was simply sick to his soul for wanting to be with them. For himself he could dash full-chest into the enemy lines. But he was sick with longing for Mary and the babes and Nanny and Ellen, and yearned to look upon Daniel Joshua. These specters called him. On account of these he wanted to come home—not be left in pieces upon the field. And what of Miss Essie Millrace, the phantom of Jacob’s late-night musings? It was for her, too, that Gabriel had searched for Jacob.

The men who’d made their way with pulling and hauling and moving around chafed at waiting and lying about in trenches. Gabriel found it easier to bear the inactivity. He kept his fingers busy with maintaining his weapons and he occupied his mind with counting and figuring as he had kept the habit of. As well to while the time, Gabriel stitched his name inside of his clothes. He stitched in Millrace’s uniform, too, and in many of the other men’s clothes. It was a hope. The men hoped thus to be identified upon the battlefield should they fall. Some men who could not write asked for help and some others said it was foolish to bother. The men had heard that colored soldiers were not even buried in some campaigns, only plowed under the ground.

They could no longer even raise their heads above the trenches. Confederates were as near as a hairbreadth. The closeness put an especial shiver in the colored troops, for often they could hear the white Union soldiers trading pleasantries with the rebs and they worried about their safety in the precinct. They did not doubt their fellow soldiers. The outcome of any battle, though, held consequences for the colored. Any man would quake to recall what had happened before. The air was rent with the smell of nervous bowels. All the men, regardless of color, were afraid.

“Those that call me say ‘Carbon.’ That’s my name, I ’spect—as much as any other. I don’t know how that’d be in letters, but I like to have my name,” the young soldier pronounced shyly. This Carbon was one of those who had never spoken to Gabriel or Jacob. Some of the men who had just left their bond and joined up and knew little of going about in a town were in awe of Gabriel Coats and Jacob Millrace. They called them “genelmen” and generally deferred to them.

“I can work your name up and put it in your clothes,” Gabriel assured him.

“Just so’s the Lord will know to hollar me out. I don’t want to miss nothin’,” Carbon said, leaning on his weapon. “I’ll catch up with my mam there,” he added, smiling. “I don’t want to miss nothin’ that the Lord got in store.” There was a look of youth, innocence, and bland bravery that was mitigated only by his resignation to his fate. This boy had come up a soldier in the few months they’d trained and marched and slogged together.

Gabriel sewed dutifully and quickly. He embroidered each of the soldiers’ names in their uniform coats. Afraid to omit anyone, he worked furiously and took it as a salvation to complete this token for each man.

In the most recent days, Jacob had begun questioning the usefulness of their efforts. Mired in these siege trenches, were they carrying the day for freedom as they’d hoped—as they’d convinced themselves at the outset? Were their chickens going to see the promised land? It rocked Gabriel to hear his staunch friend speak this way. He was afraid that Jacob was losing his bearings. Jacob insisted upon a pact: that whosoever survived the upcoming battle would be responsible for the care and stability of the other’s family. It was a pact from the heart, as each man would have done so in any event.

“Take care of my Essie, Gabriel, and I will care for your mam and your wife and all of the others,” Jacob whispered into Gabriel’s ear as he brought him close and put a kiss upon his cheek to seal their agreement.

Gabriel said, “Yes, Jacob.” But a pall fell upon him. He felt keenly that he was losing the optimism that had supported him thus far. Longing and fear had taken him, and he and Jacob were losing their starch. Gabriel feared that, despite their virtuous pact, neither would survive and all of the chickens would be lost—and maybe the freedom, too.

“Liberty is better than life, Jacob,” Gabriel said to his friend, pulled from his embrace, and clasped his hand.

As Gabriel had solemnly promised, he removed the contents of his friend’s pockets and held the watch, the pipe, a small book of writing, and a monogrammed handkerchief next to his chest, breathing their aroma. Placed in a pouch, they became Jacob. And these things lay a poultice on Gabriel’s chest. They were Jacob journeying home.

When Gabriel reached in to clear Jacob’s pocket, he choked on his own spittle to see the embroidered handkerchief that he himself had worked. He had made the handkerchief hastily, more to set off the breast pocket of the suit coat than as a gentleman’s accessory. It could not favorably compare to the meticulously executed handkerchiefs done by Ellen. It bore Jacob’s monogram and had a border of simple tatting. The handkerchief was but a fillip to flatter a good customer, as Jacob had been. But it was now a souvenir of their friendship—a talisman that Gabriel must surrender to Essie along with the watch that it was wrapped snug around.