I did not pay much mind to what was going on with the war. But I did listen around the edges of my brothers' conversations at the table. I came away with some sense of the madness.
In Tennessee it was ten above zero when the fighting was going on and the Yankees took Fort Donelson away from us. Ten above zero! How could you even hold a rifle in cold like that?
Twelve-year-old Willie Lincoln died in the White House and they say Mr. Lincoln cried and it took all the joy of winning Fort Donelson away from him. I wondered, Would he give it back to us if he could have Willie returned to him again?
The Yankees were doing things on our rivers—the Tennessee, the Cumberland, and the Mississippi—that were not nice. My brothers did not elaborate about what they were doing.
The Virginia House of Delegates wanted to enroll free negroes to fight in the Confederate army. I knew of only two free negroes, and they worked as janitors in the mill. I wagered they'd like to have Primus. Bonded or not, he could whip several Yankees with one hand tied behind his back.
***
In February, Governor Joseph Brown must have woken up at night unable to sleep. His wife must have asked him what the matter was.
"Georgia needs twelve more regiments before the fifteenth of March," he likely told her. Because that's what he told the state of Georgia.
Georgia raised thirteen regiments and three battalions by the fifteenth of March.
My brother Louis organized the Roswell Battalion. His ankle still bothered him and he could not mount a horse without help, but he trained them every day.
"I hope you're not planning on going back to the field," Teddy said.
Louis did not answer.
"Some Yankee will pick you off just trying to mount your horse." It was cruel of Teddy, but Teddy could be cruel when he had to be. He had a talent for it.
Louis had been planning on it. His men of the Ros-well Battalion talked him out of it. The town fathers talked him out of it. Governor Brown wrote him a letter and ordered him out of it. Pa came out of his other world and mumbled him out of it.
Camille got him in the back parlor and kissed him and whispered him out of it.
He and Primus spent an afternoon talking in the barn.
In the end, he didn't go, but he spent a lot of time alone. One cold night we couldn't find him, so I went out looking for him with Teddy. There he was, down by the stream.
He had built a small fire. Four long logs jutted out on each side and in the middle of these were smaller pieces of wood. Cooking in the center were pieces of venison. A great deal of smoke curled up overhead.
His only clothing was a leather breechclout to cover his private parts. His legs, folded under him, were bare, as was his chest. Around his neck he wore a large silver medallion. He huddled in an old gray blanket. His hair was wet, as if he had just come out of the stream. He was moving his lips, praying.
And on his shoulder was a hooty owl. It stared at us out of yellow-green eyes. But it never moved.
I became frightened and moved closer to Teddy, who put a protective arm around my shoulder and said, "Don't be afraid."
But I was. This was my beloved Louis, my darling brother, whom I looked up to so. Had he gone mad? I looked up at Teddy.
"Eh, Louis," he said, "you going to include us in your prayers?"
Louis nodded yes. He had heard.
"Look at that," Teddy told me. "There's wind around us. But none around him."
It was true. The bitter February wind that whipped around us stopped in the line bounding Louis. My mouth fell open. Teddy grinned down at me.
"Damn, that venison smells good," he said.
That Teddy was taking this all so lightly made me feel better.
"Is he going to stay here all night?" I asked.
"He better not. Or I'll have Primus fetch him in. Well, good night now, brother. I've got to get to the mill. Can I trust you to tell the Indian powers good night and come in soon to see to the safety of our women?"
Louis looked at us placidly, first at Teddy, then at me. "Go in peace," he said. It was in his regular Louis voice.
We turned and left. I felt a sense of peace come over me, as if everything was going to be all right and I would never have to worry again.
***
The elderly lady I was assigned to by Louis, Mrs. Stapleton, lived alone with a sixteen-year-old grandson. But I never met him. Yet for the first three Saturdays, when I was writing letters to her sister in England, stirring the soup her negro servant had made, and having lunch with her, all she did was talk about him.
It was James this and it was James that.
"I raised him since he was a knee-baby."
And, "He looks just like his father."
And, "His father was killed in a terrible fight in Dranesville, Virginia, on the twentieth of December. Right before Christmas. I haven't been able to get that boy to go to church since."
And, "His mother died when he was a child."
And, "He loves me so, that boy. He couldn't love me more if I were his mother."
Then why, I wondered, is he never around? But I did not ask.
She told me anyway. "He is fading away into nothing. He wanted to join the Roswell Troopers. I had to let him. But they discharged him because he is too young. Now he stays away from home a good deal. I don't know where he goes. Someone told me he goes to the town square to watch the young men drill. But after that, where? I hope he isn't falling in with bad company. Sometimes he doesn't even come home for supper. Oh, I am so worried about him."
She fell silent. We were in her solarium and she was knitting him a muffler. Gray. Then she said to me, "Leigh Ann, I would ask a favor of you, child."
"Yes, ma'am."
"If you would just do this one thing for me. Your brother Louis is the commander of the Roswell Battalion, is he not?"
"Yes, ma'am."
She leaned forward and put a hand on my knee. "Leigh Ann, would you ask him if he would please take my James in his battalion? At least ask him if I may send my James around to see him about it. When he meets James I just know he will take him."
"But, ma'am, I don't understand. You lost your son. Aren't you afraid you'll lose James, too?"
A look of peaceful understanding came over her face. "Oh, child, I've already lost my James. There is more than one way to lose people. If he could go away and fight, at least I know I will find him again. Or at least he'll find himself. And I don't want him to think he has to stay home for an old lady like me."
I hugged her. I told her I would ask Louis. And I did.
***
Louis listened solemnly to me about James Stapleton. We lingered over the supper table one night to talk. And I poured out the story of James.
He understood. I saw it in his face. He understood James's need to go to war. James had an ally in my brother Louis.
"Send him to me, here, tomorrow night at eight," he said.
I sent a note around to Mrs. Stapleton.
***
At eight precisely, James knocked on our front door. Careen let him in. She curtsied to him and showed him in to the library, where Louis waited. I was standing in the doorway of the front parlor where I could get a glimpse of him.
He was tall and thin, but someday he would grow into those shoulders just as my brothers had into theirs, and when he did I wanted to be around.
He had a shock of dark brown hair and a well-shaped, pleasant face, and he stood straight and tall. He nodded graciously at Careen, stopped at seeing me, and bowed, then did something that near broke my heart.
He saluted me, a perfect salute.
I curtsied. And in that brief moment all eternity stopped and I fell in love with this young man.
Louis appeared in the doorway of the library just in time to see this exchange, to see us staring at each other. Just in time to understand what was happening.
"Are you coming in, young man?" he asked.
"Yes, sir." But still James stared at me.
"Is this how you obey orders? Allow yourself to be distracted by a pretty girl?"
James collected himself and went into the library. The door closed behind them.
They were in there a good hour. I stood in the doorway of the front parlor that long. Careen came to me.
"Doan make it so obvious," she told me. "He comes out an' sees you here, he'll know you fancy him from the get-go."
"I don't care," I said. "I've never seen anyone so beautiful. You've been in there. Tell me, what's going on?"
"I just brung them some coffee and cakes. Your brother, he stop talkin' when I come in. You know how they do. But I see he give that young man some rum. Suppose he wanna see how much of a man he be. That James, he come from a good family. That Stapleton family, they go way back. My mama, she know the lady what take care of Mrs. Stapleton."
"I don't care if they're nobody."
"You oughta sit down before you fall down. I gonna get you a cuppa tea."
Careen was my age, but she was physically more mature. She no longer ran around getting into mischief with me. She had a respectable bosom already, at twelve, and had gotten her woman's time of the month. She was now chief housegirl, which meant she answered the doors, showed people in, introduced them to my brothers and Viola, delivered notes and mail, saw to it that visitors' rooms were properly readied, and carried out myriad other responsibilities.
With all this, of course, came the "right" to scold the lot of us on occasion. Lovingly, of course.
She brought me tea and stood over me while I sipped it. "Your brother, he introduce you proper-like," she told me.
"How do you know?"
" 'Cause he be a proper-like gentleman. An' when he call you, you doan run. You come on out slow-like, makin' like you couldn't care a fig's worth."
She was right. After another agonizing fifteen minutes, when the door of that library finally opened and they came out and shook hands, Louis called my name.
I came out of the parlor, slow. Like I couldn't care a fig's worth.
"This is my little sister, Leigh Ann," Louis said. "Leigh Ann, this is James Stapleton, the newest member of the Roswell Battalion."
First, respectfully, I hugged Louis and thanked him. James stepped aside.
Then James bowed. I curtsied. He took my hand and kissed it. "Captain Conners," he asked, "may I have the honor of writing to your sister while I am away at war?"
I saw my brother's face. No expression. "Of course," he said, "but I think you ought to also ask my brother, Teddy. He's really her guardian."
"Yes, sir. I will."
Careen was waiting to open the door. I looked at Louis. He glanced at me speculatively, but I went ahead and did what I wanted to do, anyway.
I stood on tiptoe and kissed James on the cheek. "Good luck," I said.
That's all it was. A good luck kiss. Careen rolled her eyes. James left. The door closed behind him.
Louis said nothing except, "I think you ought to go to bed now."
"It's still early."
"I really think you ought to go to bed. Or else I'm going to have to give you a lecture about how to behave with boys. And I really don't feel like it."