Candle in the Darkness - Lynn N. Austin [118]
“I want to stay here with you, William,” Aunt Anne said when the funeral ended.
My uncle shook his head. “The fighting is going to start soon. And you still have Thomas to think about.” They were offered no privacy as they said good-bye.
Colonel Drake and three of his men escorted us as far as no-man’s-land, then turned back without another word. We were soon approaching the Confederate lines once more. The Rebel soldiers held us for more than an hour, asking us to recall everything we had observed of the Union forces and where they were deployed. When we finally reached home late that night, I felt numb.
“If I did the right thing, why do I feel like such a traitor?” I asked Eli.
I saw compassion in his eyes as he looked at me for a long moment. “I know what this cost you today,” he said. “Me and Esther and Tessie are grateful for what you trying to do for us. But now you best stop listening to your feelings, Missy Caroline. Can’t never go by your feelings. Got to go by the word of the Lord.”
Chapter Seventeen
I had no way of knowing if the information I’d smuggled to Colonel Drake had helped the Union forces or not. I waited, along with the rest of Richmond, for the dam to break, for the thin Confederate lines to cave in and the massive Federal army to engulf us. I prayed that Robert was right, that this battle would be the one that would end the war.
Two days after we returned from Hilltop, Aunt Anne and I were eating our breakfast when the boom of cannon shattered the quiet June morning. It rattled the windows and shook our teacups in their saucers.
“That sounds very close,” Aunt Anne said.
“It is.”
The cannonading continued to rumble, swelling into a ceaseless, thundering roll. We could see the chandelier swaying and feel the ground shaking beneath us. If I could have driven out to the battlefield and pulled Charles to safety, I would have gladly done it.
The battle lasted all day. There was no escaping the sound of it or the constant shuddering reminders that somewhere close by, men were being blown to pieces. We later learned that the battle at Chickahominy Bluff had been a scant five miles away. The Union army had been close enough to count Richmond’s church steeples, until the smoke of battle obscured them from view. None of us needed to wait for the morning newspaper to know that a terrible battle raged and that the city was in great peril.
When Thomas learned that Mr. St. John and many of Richmond’s other citizens were driving out to watch the fighting, he begged to go with them, threatening to steal my little mare and ride out bareback if we didn’t let him go. To appease him, Eli carried a stepladder up to the balcony off my father’s room, and we all climbed up to the roof to peer through Daddy’s spyglass.
Confederate encampments stretched around the edges of the city, their tents covering the ground like a blanket of snow. Above the treetops to the northeast, a haze of smoke was visible on the horizon, lit from beneath with flashes of fire like summer lightning. The sulfurous smell of gunpowder hung in the air. Wagons, soldiers, and horses jammed the roads leading toward the road we had just traveled to get to Hilltop. Along with the steady rumble of artillery, the wind carried the crack and sputter of gunfire. I tried not to imagine bullets raining down on Charles in a deadly shower.
We could also see the endless line of ambulances laboring up Broad Street to Chimborazo Hospital, just east of us. I needed to go there and help—if for no other reason than to assuage my conscience. Eli had warned me not to trust my feelings, but he hadn’t been able to tell me how to deaden them. Knowing I wouldn’t be able to sleep, I spent the evening hours at the hospital, working late into the night.
Early the next day, the sounds of battle began all over again, the artillery resounding endlessly from Richmond’s hills. The carnage was unimaginable. By the end of the second day, all of Chimborazo’s three thousand beds were filled, as well as the floor space between them. The ambulance drivers continued