Candle in the Darkness - Lynn N. Austin [76]
“You don’t seem to be rejoicing like everyone else,” I said.
He raked his hand through his hair. “I’m tired. This has been the longest week of my life.”
I turned toward him on the bench so I could see his face. It appeared shadowed and gray, not from the night all around us, but from a restless anxiety deep inside him. “What’s going to happen?” I asked softly. “Please be honest with me, Charles. I know we’re at war, but . . . how will it all end?”
He wouldn’t look at me. For a long moment he didn’t reply. Instead, he held my hand in both of his, gently toying with the ruby ring he had placed on my finger. “You deserve to know the truth,” he finally said. “I don’t think we can possibly win this war.”
A rocket flared and boomed close by. Charles looked up at me, and his face was momentarily illuminated in sparkling light. “The Northerners have more manpower than we do, more resources, more guns. Compared to them, the South does very little manufacturing. We’re dependent on imported goods, yet we have no navy to protect our harbors. We’ll need cannon, arms, ammunition— but aside from Tredegar, there are few factories to produce them. Our transportation and supply networks are horribly inadequate. Five different railroads serve Richmond, but they are different gauges, and none of them connect properly with the others. It’s that way all over the South. . . .”
I touched my fingers to his lips to stop him. I didn’t want to hear anymore. There was another question I needed to ask, but I dreaded his answer. I turned away, afraid I would read the truth in his eyes before I found the courage to ask.
We sat in the dark for several minutes, watching the excitement that swirled around us. I felt wonderfully detached from it all, as if Charles and I floated magically above it, invisible, safe. But he brought me back to earth again when he sighed and said, “Listen now. If you’re rested, we should try to find the others. I think it’s time we headed home.” He started to rise, but I stopped him, my need to know suddenly greater than my fear.
“Are you going to fight in this war, Charles?”
He paused, then said, “I have to.”
“Why? Why can’t we go abroad for a while? Let’s live in London or Paris or someplace else until this ends.”
“Virginia is my home,” he said quietly, “not London or Paris. I have to fight to defend it. To protect you, my family, my friends.”
“Can’t you fight some other way? The new government will need leaders; can’t you run for office?”
“There are plenty of experienced politicians for that. They’re stepping all over each other, in fact.”
“What about your father’s mills? Won’t there be a greater demand for flour—”
“We’re at war. I have to fight.”
“But you just said you didn’t believe we could win.”
“Maybe not. But I do believe in the cause.”
“The cause? How can you say you believe in this cause?” I was growing panicked at the thought of Charles taking up a gun, fighting, dying. “You’ve admitted to me that slavery is morally unjust—”
“Caroline, listen now. . .”
“How can you fight for the right to preserve slavery?”
“This war isn’t about slavery. It’s about giving Virginians—not the politicians in Washington—the right to decide what goes on in Virginia. We’re fighting for the freedom to govern ourselves, just as our ancestors did during the first Revolution. All we want is independence, to be left alone to—”
“To continue slavery.”
“No. To govern ourselves.”
“So you’re going to pick up a gun and march off to war? You’re going to fight against a more powerful enemy, knowing you can’t possibly win?” I was trembling all over with dread and fear. Charles took both my hands in his and held them tightly against his chest, speaking calmly to soothe me.
“They were outmanned and outgunned during the last revolution, too. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison . . . a handful of courageous men from Virginia weren’t afraid to defend themselves against a stronger, despotic government. Right here in St. John’s Church, Patrick Henry said ‘Give me liberty,