Candle in the Darkness - Lynn N. Austin [106]
“Leave the city . . . why?” I backed into the chair Gilbert had offered Mr. St. John as my knees suddenly went weak. “What’s going on?”
“The evacuation of Norfolk means that the mouth of the James River is now wide open to the enemy’s fleet. There is the very real possibility that Federal gunboats are going to sail up the river to bombard Richmond into surrendering. We’ve planted torpedoes and obstructions in the channel, but our last river defense at Drewry’s Bluff is only half-finished. No one knows if her guns can stop the ironclad Monitor. And the Monitor will likely come with an escort of gunboats. You must evacuate.”
I couldn’t grasp what he was saying. Thousands of displaced persons had crowded into Richmond from the surrounding countryside, seeking refuge. I had always pitied these homeless souls, alone in a strange city. Was I now to become one of them, looking for shelter in an alien city?
“But . . . where would I go? This is my home . . . I have no place to go.”
“President Davis already sent his family south to Raleigh, North Carolina, by train. I managed to purchase three of the very last tickets on a train that’s headed there tomorrow morning.”
“What about all of our servants?”
He shook his head. He was going to leave them all here to die.
“I can’t run away and leave Tessie and Eli.”
“They will be fine, Caroline. The Union army won’t hurt them. But there’s no telling what the Yankees will do to you and the other women if you stay. Besides, if the warships do get through, the state legislature plans to reduce this city to ashes rather than let it fall into enemy hands. Congress has adjourned, and most of its members are fleeing. Don’t you see? You must evacuate. Charles would never forgive me if I let anything happen to you.”
I felt too numb with fear to argue with him. I agreed to meet Sally and Mrs. St. John at the depot early tomorrow morning. Then I ran upstairs to ask Tessie to help me pack.
“You doing the right thing,” she assured me as she calmly filled a trunk with all the belongings I would need. On my own, I wouldn’t have known what to bring and what to leave behind. I couldn’t think past my panic. “Them St. Johns will take good care you—almost as good as I would,” she soothed. “Most important thing, you be safe.”
“What about you and Eli and the others? If it isn’t safe for me to stay here, how in the world can I leave all of you? They plan to burn the city down—if the Federals don’t blast it to smithereens first.”
Tessie paused to look up at me, and her beautiful face showed no trace of fear or worry. “We be safe, baby. Don’t you know Eli will be praying up a storm? Massa Jesus gonna take care us.”
“I just wish there was someplace safe where you could go, too.”
She took my hands in hers and gave them a gentle squeeze. “Honey, I wouldn’t leave here if you had a hundred train tickets. Someday, after the Yankees win, my boy, Grady, gonna come home looking for me, and I plan on being here when he do.”
It was the first time Tessie had mentioned Grady since they’d taken him away nine years ago, the first hint she’d ever given of the hope she’d nurtured all those years. I fell into her arms, grieving for her, with her.
“Oh, Tessie, if there was anything I could do to bring Grady home again, I would gladly do it. When this war is over, I promise I’ll move heaven and earth to find him for you.”
We held each other for a few more moments. Then, as if sorry she had allowed me to glimpse her hope, Tessie freed herself from my arms and resolutely resumed her packing. “I want you to go see Ruby, now,” she said. “Ask her which of your mama’s necklaces and things was special to her, so you can take them with you for keepsakes.”
I wrote a long letter to Charles by candlelight, then spent a sleepless night waiting for dawn. It was very early when Gilbert loaded my trunk onto the buggy and drove me to the depot, but even at that early hour, traffic jammed the roads. Columns of soldiers marched about while people fled Richmond in droves, scattering in all directions and by every conceivable