Candle in the Darkness - Lynn N. Austin [70]
“Where’re all these places I reading about?” Tessie asked one morning. “They near Richmond?”
We went downstairs to the globe in Daddy’s library, and I showed her where to find the Confederate states: South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas. Then I showed her Virginia—sandwiched uncomfortably between the North and the South. Richmond was less than one hundred miles from Washington, D.C.
“What you think gonna happen here?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Everything is changing so rapidly—and you know how I’ve always hated change.”
“Oh yes, I do know that for sure.”
I gave the globe a spin, setting it in motion. “I used to believe that the United States was strong and that nothing could ever shake our great country. But this flood of hatred between North and South is spreading faster than I ever imagined it would.”
Tessie nodded. “It look like we all gonna drown in it pretty soon.”
By the time Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated as president in March, the renegade states had created a new government in Montgomery, Alabama, with a written constitution guaranteeing the autonomy of each state. They’d selected Jefferson Davis, the former Secretary of War, as president of this new Confederacy. So far, Virginia still hadn’t joined them.
I helped Tessie read President Lincoln’s inauguration speech in March as we sewed yards of lace on my bridal gown, and his words sent a chill through me. Lincoln promised not to interfere with the states that already had slavery, but he clearly believed that no state had a legal right to leave the Union. He said he hoped the crisis could be resolved without resorting to warfare, but he vowed to preserve the Union no matter what.
The idea of war was unthinkable to me, yet events seemed to be drifting dangerously close to one. At my engagement party two months previous, the rising tide of unrest seemed far away from Richmond. Now my familiar world felt threatened, the future precarious and uncertain as the floodwaters rose higher, inching closer to Virginia.
I turned to Charles for reassurance. He was now taking part in a state convention that was meeting to decide whether or not Virginia would secede. So far, the delegates had proceeded very slowly, leaving everyone waiting anxiously for news.
“There are three factions within the Virginia convention,” Charles explained to me one day on our carriage ride home from church. “Those who favor immediate secession, those who want to stay in the Union, and those who want to work out a compromise.”
“Which faction do you represent?”
“I’m not an official delegate,” he said. “I’m only assisting Mr. Randolph, but he favors compromise.”
I felt slightly reassured when Charles told me in early April that the convention had voted nearly two-to-one against a motion to secede. For now, it looked as though Virginia would remain in the Union. But that was soon to change—so swiftly, in fact, that we were all unprepared.
Late one Saturday afternoon in mid-April, I had been entertaining Charles’ relatives—Sally, his mother, and two of his aunts—for afternoon tea, planning the guest list for my wedding, which had been set for July 20. My visitors had just departed a few minutes earlier, and I was helping Tessie gather the dessert plates and teacups when my cousin Jonathan burst into my parlor in his usual whirlwind fashion.
“Is Sally here?” he asked breathlessly.
“No, you just missed her. In fact, it’s a wonder you didn’t bowl her over on the front walk.”
“Have you heard the news?” Jonathan’s face was serious, not smiling. I was almost afraid to ask.
“What news?”
“Big news, Caroline. The South Carolina militia has fired on Union troops at Fort Sumter. The war has begun.”
I groped behind me for the nearest chair and slowly sank down onto it. “No . . . that can’t be true. No one would be stupid enough to start a war against his own countrymen.”
“But it is true. All of Richmond is