Peach Orchard Farm, 1864
WILL HEARD MUSIC as he stepped up on the veranda and opened the front door. Mozart, perhaps. Certainly something he’d heard before. A soothing trickle, like a babbling brook, that sent the mind to happier times. Patience Portland, the simple young woman who soothed with her music. Patience, sister of the austere owner, Edgar Portland. Will couldn’t bring himself to like the man and respected him less after he’d heard him, more than once, railing at Charlotte, but the ladies of Peach Orchard Farm were a different matter.
Private Barney Timmons, thin as a whipcord with a beard down to his chest, limped up beside him leaning on a thick stick. “She plays like a dream, don’t she, Captain?”
“She does.”
“She’s pretty, too, and real sweet.”
Patience drew attention with her flowing corn silk hair and unaffected manner. “Leave the ladies alone, Private.”
“Aw, I didn’t mean no harm, Captain. Nice, though, to be around a lady again. Makes a man forget about the war for a while.”
Will couldn’t argue that. Yet, the women were the biggest problem with camping here at Peach Orchard Farm. They were all pretty in their own way and turned heads. His men were lonely and had they not been mostly injured and sick, he’d have had his work cut out for him. As it was, they were too feeble to do much beyond admiration and talk. He’d sent the handful of healthy ones, other than those needed to care for the wounded, back to the front.
Feeble. Sick. The ghastly wounds had taken a toll on his company. How would the Union ever win a war without healthy soldiers? He’d dispatched a messenger to General Rosecrans for further orders, but a reply could take days. For now, he had little choice but to hold his position. Soon, though, he and the able would return to the front.
He was torn between the desperate need to fulfill his duty to the United States and the longing to spend more time with the most troublesome woman, at least for him, at Peach Orchard Farm.
Since their walk in the woods, he’d thought about Charlotte’s wise advice and of the way she helped him believe again. For a while, war had stripped him of hope. Charlotte’s quiet strength and faith that good would prevail had given it back again. There was good, and he’d found it again here at Peach Orchard Farm.
Though careful to maintain a respectful distance, he was as enchanted by Charlotte Portland as Barney was with Patience’s piano music.
Leaving Barney to listen to the lilting Mozart, Will strode through the parlor and into the dining area toward the pallets spread from one side of the long room to the other. The stench of too many poorly washed men and too many wounds filled his nostrils like cannon smoke. Flies stirred the thick, hot air. Would cooler weather never come to southern Tennessee?
Conversations of home and food and pain littered the air. Bushy-bearded Sergeant Paxton held sway in one corner with his humorous poetry readings, and a few others read from Bibles they’d carried from home.
Cries of “Captain” followed his passage, and he paused with words of encouragement or to hear that a letter had arrived.
He found Charlotte on her knees spooning broth between the parched and fevered lips of Private Johnny Atkins whose hands were burned and his eyes wrapped in bandage from a minié ball blast that barely missed taking out his skull. He was lucky, if losing both eyes at age eighteen could be considered fortunate.
“Charlotte.” Will approached her from the back and saw the spoon pause. He knew a moment of pleasure in watching her quiet hands, in gazing at her shiny, tidy hair and the bent nape of shapely neck.
She turned and flashed him a smile that lit him from the inside out. “Will.”
“Is it the captain, ma’am?” Private Atkins asked, his blind face moving left and right as if to see.
“Yes, Private, Captain Gadsden is here to see you.”
“’Morning, Johnny.” Will motioned to the broth. “May I?”
“Of course.” Charlotte moved aside and offered the bowl and spoon. “Private Atkins was telling me about his sweet Betsy back in Ohio.”
Will took her place on the hardwood floor and leaned toward his soldier. “To hear Johnny tell it, Betsy is the prettiest girl in all of Ohio.”
“She is, Captain,” Johnny insisted. “All the boys wanted Betsy, but for some reason, she picked me.”
“Because she is a wise and fortunate young lady,” Charlotte said, her voice smiling.
Will spooned soup into the young soldier’s mouth, heart heavy. For indeed, no one could say what Betsy would think when she learned of her beau’s misshapen face and missing eyesight. The war was over for Johnny, but his battles were yet to begin.
“Didn’t mean to take anything away from the present company,” Johnny said. “I bet Miss Charlotte’s mighty pretty, too, ain’t she, Captain?”
Will lifted his eyes to Charlotte’s, saw the blush crest her cheekbones.
“You’d win that bet, Johnny,” he answered softly, purposely keeping the tone light. Charlotte Portland was more than pretty. “One more bite, Private.”
The private opened his lips like a pitiful baby bird and Will spooned in the last of a rich, savory soup.
Johnny awkwardly dabbed his crooked mouth with the back of a bandaged hand. “Thank you, sir. These womenfolk are fine cooks.”
“I’ll pass along your compliments.” Charlotte took the bowl from Will. “Rest now.”
Leaving the injured soldier, Will walked with Charlotte through to the summer kitchen, where she added the bowl to a pile of unwashed dishes. The very magnitude of what the Portland women and slaves did for the Union Army humbled him. Some, like Josie, made no bones about their distaste or outright hatred of the Yankee, and he supposed, in their place, he would feel the same.
The kitchen was alive with smells and activity. One slave woman scrubbed dishes while another worked a large bowl of pale brown dough with long fingers. A sturdy black man—Pierce—came in from outside with an armload of wood to feed the hungry stove.
A clatter of noise at the back door drew Will’s attention as Ben and Tandy thundered inside. Fast and energetic was the way of these two, who were as close as brothers though their skin contrasted like sun and moon. Exuberant and full of boyish curiosity, they reminded him of his childhood days in Ohio.
“Just the pair I was searching for,” he said.
“Captain, sir!” Benjamin’s sturdy shoulders jerked back as his body stiffened to a charming salute. His cowlick vibrated from the motion, a feather in his pale cap of hair.
Slender and taller, Tandy followed suit. “Reporting for orders, sir.”
Will returned the salute, aware that Charlotte and the kitchen slaves watched, the former with mild amusement, the latter with wary, shifting gazes. “At ease, men.”
“Captain Will, we found a snake. A cobra, I think.”
“A cobra, is it?” He fought to keep the smile from his lips.
“Benjamin,” Charlotte said, “there are no cobras in Tennessee.”
“But it was, Mama. Like the one in my book on the pharaohs. I’m sure it was a cobra.” He spread his fingers in an imitation of the snake’s head, his young voice insistent. “It puffed up something fierce and tried to strike us.”
“I killed it, sir,” Tandy said, his bandy chest stuck out. “I saved Ben from a sure death.”
Lizzy whipped around the worktable, her white apron flapping with the quick movement. “Snakes be a bad omen. You stay away from them snakes.”
“Aw, Mama.”
She clutched Tandy by the shoulders. “I mean it, Tandy. Something bad’s gonna happen you go messin’ with snakes.”
The boy dropped his head. “I killed it real good, Mama.”
“All right, then. All right. You killed it. That’s good. That’s right.” She clutched the boy to her apron front and patted his back. “Ain’t nothing gonna happen. You’re a good boy. Go on, now. Go on. Mama’s got more work than sense.”
Her fingers trembled and Will could see the episode had shaken her, though he did not understand her superstition.
Tandy squirmed away from his mother’s embrace and glanced at Ben. Both boys stood quietly now, downcast, their former exuberance crushed.
“I have something for you,” Will said, and was pleased when interest flared on both faces. He reached into his greatcoat and withdrew the drawstring leather bag he’d carried for three years. “Remember how I told you that my family owns a marble factory?”
Two heads nodded and Charlotte, who’d been murmuring softly to Lizzy, looked up.
“You boys like to play marbles?”
“Don’t know how,” Ben said.
“Would you like to learn?”
The boys traded glances and the boyish excitement was back.
“Tell you what, come on outside. I’ll show you how it’s done.”
“Really? Will you really show us, Captain?” Ben’s eagerness touched him. Did Edgar Portland not play with his child?
Will led the way out onto the back porch, down the steps and into the side yard, surprised when Charlotte followed. Two amputees lounged against a live oak, playing cards, their walking sticks leaned against the trunk. Otherwise, the browning lawn was empty. From the front porch, he heard conversations, and someone laughed. Standifer, he thought, with his rowdy personality and never ending repertoire of bawdy jokes. From the direction of the slave quarters came the scent of corn bread, and someone sang in a deep, rich voice.
“‘There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole...’”
Will wished the words were true, but he’d seen too many wounded like Johnny who would never be whole again.
At the bottom of the porch, he went to his haunches, balancing on his toes, and was amused when the two boys imitated his stance. He opened the leather bag, worn and faded now from use. “I’ve had these since I was a boy.”
“Did you make ’em in your factory?”
“My grandfather made them there.” He’d had many bags of marbles over the years, but these he treasured because his grandfather Gadsden had passed to his reward not long after the gift was given. Will dumped the contents into his hand and jiggled the hand-smoothed clay.
“Do you still play with them?” Ben asked in his sweet way. The blue-eyed child was more like Charlotte than his father in both looks and personality, and now Will understood why. Edgar Portland didn’t appreciate his blessings.
“They’re yours now.” Though he treasured them still, these simple clay reminders of home and family, of the family business that would someday be his if he survived this endless war, giving them to Ben seemed the right thing to do. He could give nothing to Charlotte, but he could do this for her son.
On nights before a battle, when the soldiers were skittish and distractions at a premium, a boy’s game could remind men of why they continued to fight. They fought so innocent boys could knuckle down in a game of ringer. So children of this great nation, including the Africans, could live in peace and freedom. Marbles soothed the troubled soul, like that balm in Gilead someone was singing about.
He drew a circle in a patch of dirt and explained the simple rules, not a bit surprised when Ben and Tandy caught on quickly and began to play. Charlotte watched, brown skirt brushing the side of her son, who was on his knees, tongue in his teeth, focused on a shot.
Will felt Charlotte’s presence, saw her buttoned boots from the corner of his eye. Once the boys had grasped the game, he rose to join her.
“Are you sure you want to part with them?” Charlotte’s blue eyes met his. His breath hitched in his throat.
For her and her son, he would. Their pleasure was worth the sacrifice. “The war has stolen enough from them.”
That she agreed was obvious in the dip of chin. “Thank you.”
“I hope they’ll remember me with kindness when I leave rather than recalling the...difficulties.” He didn’t want them to hate him when they were old enough to look back and understand what the Union Army had done to their home.
“Are you leaving soon?” The words were spoken in a mild tone, but she’d tensed and the corners of her mouth turned down.
“Every dispatch could bring orders. Any day now, I’d think.”
“I see.” She rested her hands at her waist in a sign he’d come to recognize. When she was agitated most was when she seemed the most serene, and now those hands went quiet at her waist.
“I’ll miss you,” he said.
She twisted her head toward the empty back porch before surveying the backyard. He’d already looked. There was no one about to hear him but a pair of boys intent on a marble game.
“You mustn’t say such things.”
She was right. He mustn’t. He tipped his chin. “My apologies, then.”
“Oh, Will.” And in her sigh were the words neither could say.