9 a.m. on October 29, 1863
Wauhatchie
“It was the damndest thing I ever saw,” said Charlie Griffin, a young lieutenant from the 110th Pennsylvania. He handed to Eli letters they were to carry back to Brown’s Ferry. Eli thought Griffin looked to be no more than 25, his hair and thin beard dark brown.
“The damndest thing,” Charlie continued. “We were in a hell of a fight with those rebels and I don’t know how it would of come out because it was hot work, I can tell you that, when all of a sudden there were mules running past us everywhere. Must of been two or three hundred of ‘em, I swear, and they were charging hell bent for leather right at the rebels.”
Charlie smiled broadly at the memory of it. “I mean it was a regular stampede and those mules were making a hell of a racket in the dark, braying and thundering like the devil himself was on their tails poking their backsides with a pitchfork.”
He laughed. “I tell you, it plum scared the living daylights out a them rebs. We took a few prisoners and they said those mules made such a racket they thought it was a whole brigade of Union cavalry charging right down on top of ‘em.”
He was laughing so hard he could hardly stand, and he coughed out, “Them rebs, they just threw down their guns and ran like rabbits. That whole damn end of the rebel line just skedaddled and the rest of them boys had to give it up. With their whole flank gone, they didn’t have no choice, and that was the end of the fight.
“And it weren’t nothing but a bunch of damn mules. It was too dark to see ‘em, of course, but it sounded to the rebs like a thousand U.S. mounted cavalry com’en down on top of ‘em. And it were’nt nothing but mules. I don’t know what set them mules off, but damn if they didn’t win that fight. Some a the men think we oughtta make all them mules generals, they done such a good job driving off the rebs. Or make ‘em captains, anyway.”
He slapped his thigh and roared with mirth.
Joe was laughing, too, but Eli just smiled sheepishly and shook his head. He had feared he would be court marshaled for what happened. Now it seemed he might get a medal if he admitted to it, which he had no intention of doing. Why the mules bolted could just remain a mystery as far as he was concerned.
Ten minutes later Eli and Joe trudged down the road back to Brown’s Ferry, the laughter of Lieutenant Griffin still echoing behind them.
“I thought we’d be in big trouble,” chuckled Joe. “Turns out, we’re heroes.”
Eli strode forward stony faced.
Joe frowned. “Look, I’m the one who oughtta be angry, here.”
“Leave it be, Joe,” said Eli. He didn’t want to talk, and was sorry today he allowed himself to say so much the night before.
“Calpurnia wasn’t a slave,” said Joe. “You need to know that.”
“Then why did she stay with you?”
Joe sighed. “You are a hard case, Eli Craft. I swear. My pa’s a blacksmith, and he’s also a Quaker who’s always been a strong abolitionist. He helped run the underground railroad for escaped slaves. You heard a it?”
Eli slowed his pace, not looking at Joe, and shrugged. “A few things,” he said, “rumors, mostly.”
“We had a lotta escaped slaves come through our home.
“Now my mama died of a fever when I was just a year old.” He shrugged. “I don’t remember her. About that time Cal came to us. My dad took my mama’s death pretty hard. Besides me, there was also my two sisters he had to care for while still runn’en his business. He needed help, so he asked Cal to stay for a spell to lend him a hand, which she did.
“Well, the time grew longer and longer, and Pa, he came to rely on Cal more ‘n more. In fact, I don’t know how he would a survived without her at the start. I was too young to know, but my sisters later told me she kept him going when he thought he didn’t have no reason to. She was a strong woman, Eli. I never knowed stronger.
“I’ll tell you this, to escape and get to Ohio she’d come over five hundred miles on her own with slave catchers and the hounds on her trail, and that’s better’n I could a done. You more’n anyone oughtta know that. I’m told she was near half dead when they brought her to us, but in just a day or two my sisters said she bounced right back. She weren’t never the kind to just lay a bed, and that’s a fact.
“So, she washed us and she fed us and she took care a us like we was her own.”
“No,” said Eli shaking his head. “I don’t believe that.”
“Just listen for once,” sighed Joe, pressing on. “Just hear me out. Time went by. She could a gone, but she didn’t. She didn’t because my pa didn’t want her to. The truth is, he was in love with her, which was a hard thing for him.”
“Because she was black,” said Eli.
“No, because a my ma,” said Joe, unable to hide a note of irritation. “He felt it weren’t right to love another woman, but he did and Cal knew he did. The truth was, she loved him, too.”
Eli stopped dead in his tracks. “No,” he said, shaking his head. “Now I know you’re lying. A black woman, a slave, could never love a white man. I know this.”
“Your wife loves you, don’t she?”
“I’m not white!”
“You ever look in a mirror?”
“This color,” said Eli holding up his arm and pointing to his skin, “is not who I am. I am an African.”
“You’re an African,” said Joe, pointing to Eli’s heart, “because it’s inside there.” Pointing to his skin Joe said, “We ain’t nothing because a this.”
“Just try being a black man once and see,” Eli spat back at him. “If I was black on the outside, I wouldn’t be here today. The 125th wouldn’t let me enlist.”
Joe stared at Eli a moment. Eli looked away refusing to return the gaze.
“Cal stayed because she loved my pa and because she knew he needed her. That woman was strong, but she was also the kindest soul I ever knowed. There was more love in her than in a whole church full a people on a Sunday.
“After two years a my pa acting like a fool, it got too painful for Cal ‘n she made up her mind to leave. That’s what finally pushed pa to admit what the rest of us already knowed. Faced with losing her, he just broke down and begged her to marry him. Of course, there weren’t a church where they could get hitched. Even the Quakers in our town wouldn’t hear a it. But from that moment on they was husband and wife, and I got two half brothers.”
“No, no,” said Eli, shaking his head. “She wanted to go and he kept her there, kept her there against her will. That’s something you could never understand. It was rape, pure and simple. That’s all it could be.”
Joe shuddered. “I ain’t get’en mad again ‘cause there’s something powerful wrong with you, Eli. You can’t help yourself, and I ain’t get’en mad.”
But Eli could see he plainly was getting mad, and mad as hell.
“My pa’s one a the most upright men you can ever know. He and Cal were two peas in a pod, and I couldn’t never a asked for a better family. Cal was my mama, and I don’t care what you think, Eli.
“Cal died two years ago, and it just about kilt us all. My brothers help run the blacksmith business because my pa’s a ruined man, and his heart is just plain broke.
“Now my pa don’t believe in war and he don’t believe in fight’en ‘n he begged me not to join in this war, but I did anyway. You know why?” He looked at Eli until Eli was forced to look back.
“I’m here because I one time saw my mama’s back, saw the lash marks she carried till the day she died, and I swore I’d fight to end the kind of meanness that could do that to any woman as decent as Calpernia.”
Joe resumed walking to Brown’s Ferry.
Eli watched him go until he was out of sight. He wanted to weep, which made him angrier. He flung down his musket and the mail pouch, picked up a large gray stone and threw it as hard as he could after Joe. Then he just stood there breathing heavily until his pulse stopped racing and the heat drained from his cheeks. He picked up his gun and the bag, looked down the empty road before him, heaved a heavy sigh and resumed walking.