Candle in the Darkness - Lynn N. Austin [105]
We read about the battle in Shiloh, Tennessee, and the incomprehensible loss of eleven thousand soldiers. Four days later, Fort Pulaski surrendered, leaving the Savannah harbor undefended. A week later, Fort Macon in Beaufort, North Carolina, was lost. Then, at the end of the month, came the staggering loss of New Orleans and the lower Mississippi River.
“I want this awful war to end, Tessie.” Dear God, when will it end?
I had little time to worry about those faraway places as the enemy pressed closer and closer to Richmond. While McClellan’s army prepared to move up the Peninsula, two other Union forces inched closer to Richmond, one moving south along the Rappahannock River, the other approaching in the Shenandoah Valley. During the first week of May, rumors spread throughout the city that our troops had evacuated Yorktown and had moved to defend the entrenchments around Richmond. I didn’t learn about the fierce fighting that had taken place in Williamsburg, or the danger Charles had been in, until I received his letter a few days after the battle.
We knew the Federal guns were in place, ready to bombard Yorktown, and that it was useless to stay and defend the city any longer.On the night we evacuated, our batteries rained fire on the enemy throughout the night to cover our retreat. My company was part of the rear guard and among the last to leave. The next day when the Federals discovered that we were gone, they pursued us, catching up with us at Williamsburg and attacking my division.
We battled them from sunrise until sundown—outnumbered and outgunned—but we drove them back. When the enemy finally withdrew, we waited until dark, then marched all night toward Richmond.I have never been so weary in all my life, nor have I ever fought so hard and marched so long without food. You can see by my shaky handwriting that I am still weak with exhaustion. But the thought of what we are fighting for keeps me going—the knowledge of the freedoms we stand to lose . . .
Charles’ letters were precious to me, but this time his words made me so angry that I crumpled up his letter and threw it across the bedroom. Then I pulled out a sheet of stationery and composed an angry letter to him in return.
I told him how furious I was with him for risking his life for such a hopeless cause. The South was wrong, the “freedom” he was fighting for—the “freedom” to hold people as slaves—was a moral outrage. Couldn’t he see the terrible devastation he was bringing upon our land, the tragic waste of life? I told him to read his Bible, the book of Exodus, and see how Pharaoh had hardened his heart against freeing his slaves until even his own officials begged him to let them go, saying, “Do you not yet realize that Egypt is ruined?” The South was slowly being ruined, and I was so afraid that Charles would die, just as all of Egypt’s firstborn sons had died. I didn’t want to go on living without Charles.
In the end, I carefully straightened all the wrinkles out of Charles’ letter and threw my own letter into the fire instead.
A week after Yorktown, the Confederates evacuated our naval base at Norfolk, withdrawing more of our forces up the Peninsula to defend Richmond. When I read that the Rebels had destroyed their most powerful warship, the ironclad Virginia, rather than see her fall into enemy hands, I thought of how devastated my father would be by this news. The Virginia couldn’t navigate the shallow waters of the James River, nor could it get past the Union blockade into the open sea, so the decision had been made to destroy her.
Now Richmond faced a new threat. I learned of it when Mr. St. John drove up Church Hill late one afternoon to warn me.
“Caroline, you must pack your things and get ready to leave the city,” he said. Gilbert had shown him into Daddy’s library, but Mr. St. John was too agitated to sit down, too distraught to accept even a glass of brandy or one of Daddy’s last few cigars.
“I’m sending Sally and my wife to safety outside Richmond tomorrow,” he said. “You must get packed and go with