Chapter 18

On impulse, Chance left the train in Albany and booked himself a passage on the Erie Canal packet boat that connected the Hudson River with Buffalo on Lake Erie.

The boat had an open upper deck with chairs, and an enclosed cabin below, half for passengers and the other half for mail and packages. The first thing Chance noted was that the boats and barges were bigger than the narrow boats he had grown up with. Of course the canal and the locks were wider too, but the concept was the same. A crew of four handled the boat expertly, drawn by a team of mules on the towpath.

The beginning segment of the canal was the steepest, climbing 200 or more feet over a course of 30 miles. It seemed they were constantly waiting for the lock basins to fill with water and lift them to the next height. Then the way evened out more, and they went long stretches without being interrupted by locks.

In the course of the leisurely pace of the mules, Chance had ample opportunity to talk with the captain, who was proud of his boat and prouder of the canal, calling it the eighth wonder of the modern world.

“Where have you ever seen such massive construction? Stretching 363 miles, and lifting 565 feet over 35 locks?” He puffed enthusiastically on his pipe, sitting at the tiller, holding the boat off shore.

“This is the only way to move materials and goods. Look at the same trip by wagon. It would take 15 to 25 days with a change of 8 horses and cost, roughly speaking, $100 per ton. It takes only 9 days by water using the power of two mules and costs around $6.00 a ton. Can you better that?”

“People say that the future of shipping is on the rails.”

“Not for moving real bulk, there’s nothing cheaper.”

“It’s cheaper to lay rails than build canals. And no need for water.”

“With canals we connect nature’s highways, the rivers and lakes. Those are already there and cost nothing.”

“President Lincoln has ordered the construction of Transcontinental Railroad to claim the West and tie the Union together.”

“And so it shall. But it won’t change the fact the Erie Canal is the greatest engineering feat in the world. Took thousands of workers eight years to complete.”

“Have you heard of the pyramids?”

“Sure, something Moses built. The preacher is always harping on that. But what of it?”

“It took a whole nation a generation to build. The first thing a pharaoh did on assuming power was to start constructing his pyramid.”

“So what? All just to bury one man. Where’s the sense in that? The Erie Canal is the lifeblood of this country.”

Chance gave up. Rails had won out in England, the canal traffic had declined and some canals had been abandoned. But maybe canals made more sense in America, where the distances were so much greater and transportation more difficult.

Chance didn’t mention his experience of canals in England since the Captain was so blinded by his feelings of pride and sense of ownership of the Erie Canal to appreciate anything else. But at times he jumped ashore to expertly tie up the boat with knots the others of the crew scratched their heads over. A couple of times he also pointed out a deadhead in their path, a submerged log that could easily pierce the bottom of the boat. For that he earned a swig of the Captain’s best whiskey.

They spent a day in Syracuse, off loading passengers and cargo, then resting. Chance had little impression of the town, as the crew dragged him off to a tavern to drink themselves full of cheap whiskey. They invited him to a whorehouse but he turned it down.

The next stretch to Rochester also passed uneventfully. On both banks settlements sprouted like mushrooms, but ten miles from the canal was nearly uninhabited, still mostly virgin forests.

Traveling at the slow pace of the canal reminded Chance of his own experiences. Feelings of loneliness, uncertainty about his future, and a sense of insignificance returned to haunt him. Yet most poignant, as he looked back, was his pain over his ignorance and just not having the necessary knowledge he had subsequently acquired. He’d been dumb, illiterate and naive in the ways of the world. Yes, looking back, he could hardly recognize himself.

Other memories returned too. He wondered what had happened to the Hardcastle Rose and the people on it. Colin was most likely in jail or being shipped to a penal colony somewhere. Then he thought of Emily and his thoughts got stuck on her. Emily Dubineau, Emily Bethune and April Cameron. The one and the same person. He wondered about that. Emily Dubineau, the much indulged daughter of a wealthy family. He remembered a smelly dark room and talking long with her, neither of them aware of what yet lay in front of them. A titled Lady Bethune, a wife and mother traveling to join her husband in foreign lands. Then the angel of mercy, April Cameron, who saved him when he was powerless to help himself. Was it not strange that with so many thousands of miles separating them, their lives had intersected only to diverge again? Would he meet her again in the future? He fervently hoped so.

Sitting in the Grandview Hotel in Rochester, Chance was having lunch, a change from the bully beef and beans the river people usually served. A table over, a man was eating steak and Chance’s eyes kept going back to him. The man looked vaguely familiar, but Chance could not place him. It bothered him, and finally he rose and went over.

“Excuse me, Sir, but I’m sure I know you from someplace.” The man looked up and a flash of annoyance swept his face.

“What of it? I don’t recognize you.” Even the voice sounded familiar.

“I’m from Mississippi myself...”

“Yeah, another bloody Confederate.” The man put down his knife and fork, visibly irritated by the interruption.

“Excuse me!” Chance straightened abruptly, his pride prickled.

“Oh pack it in. I’m from Alabama, myself.”

“Served in the army?”

“Served in the field and prison―”

“That’s it. We were in Elmira together. That’s where I remember you from.” It all clicked. The man had put on weight, his face had filled out.

“You mean Hellmira, don’t you?” He scowled. “I think I recognize you too, Major somebody...”

“Major Fraser, 19th Mississippi.”

“Lieutenant Hobson, 4th Alabama. Have a seat.” Chance sat, and the two compared notes, reminiscing of army life, of the campaigns and the prison camp. The last was depressing, being reminded of comrades lost.

“So what brings you so far north?” Hobson asked finally.

“Oh I’m just passing through. And you?”

“There was nothing in Alabama but misery. No home, no family. My wife got tired of waiting and ran off with someone else, taking the children. They don’t want anything to do with me. The town I grew up in changed and not for the better. They’re still fighting a war that was lost. I got sick of it and moved north. At least here they’re moving on and not looking back so much. I own a furniture shop, making cabinets and tables. You’re not looking for a job, are you?”

“Well I’m looking for a situation, but not here.”

They talked some more, had a few beers together, discussed the future and never ever mentioned Hellmira again. Chance thought about the encounter afterwards. Hobson had put the war behind him, but maybe it was easy for him; he wasn’t missing an arm or a leg. It made Chance wonder how many didn’t find it so easy to forget and had a hard time restarting their lives. Wasn’t he also one of those, still looking?

Between Rochester and Buffalo there was barely any change in elevation as the country was more flat. The weather was changing though; Captain Cousins called it lake effects off Erie. There was a real sting in the air.

Paralleling the canal was the track of the New York Central Railroad and daily they saw the train pass their slow progress on the canal. On occasions the engineer pulled the whistle, perhaps to mock them.

“Never you mind. We’ll soon have steam driving us or tug boats to pull us,” Chance heard the Captain mutter, with the pipe clenched between his teeth. They negotiated the final step up and were soon in Buffalo where Chance disembarked after taking leave of the Captain and crew. It wasn’t so usual to have a passenger the whole way, most often people came along for just a short hop.

Buffalo was a thriving port city that gave access to the great lakes. Across the river was Canada and the Welland Canal that bypassed Niagara Falls and allowed shipping to the east and the Atlantic.

Chance didn’t linger but took a steamer to Cleveland, where he switched over to a small steam barge to go down the Ohio Canal to the Ohio River. The experience was very different than what he’d seen in the Erie Canal. The heyday of the Ohio Canal was past by the mid 50’s and there was less traffic on the water; signs of decay were showing up everywhere. The locks weren’t so well maintained, the reservoirs allowed to deteriorate and the canals leaked in many places. The costs to maintain the waterway, it was said, outweighed the revenues. But it had done its job, opened up central Ohio to settlement and industry, by providing a reliable transport for a time to far off markets. But now the railroad was providing that service, faster and year around (not frozen over in winter). Obviously the canal’s days were numbered.

Traveling, however, at such a slow place was wearing Chance down, and he was glad to reach the Ohio River at Portsmouth. Immediately he bought himself a ticket downstream to meet up with the Mississippi.

After the sparseness of the canal barges, the riverboat Blue Heron was a vision of luxury. Chance shared a small cabin with three others, but there was a spacious saloon that provided food and drinks from a bar, entertainment each night and gambling. Certainly more diversion for a weary traveler.

At every stop and layover, Chance inquired about the Osprey. No one remembered the boat or the name Samuel Carmody. He checked hotels, bars and freight offices. Nothing. It seemed that the Osprey hadn’t serviced the Ohio River run.

So it went in Cairo, where the two great rivers met. Chance spent a week in the city, trolling for information along the water front. Still nothing. He took a freight boat up river, landing sometimes on the Missouri side and sometimes in Illinois. All along the way he asked but found nothing.

It wasn’t until St. Louis, the Gateway to the West, that Chance came across the first bit of information regarding the boat. The harbormaster’s record indicated that the Osprey booked a berth two times in 1862, then nothing since. It made no mention whether the boat was north or southbound.

Chance decided to go north. It was in La Crosse, Wisconsin that he came across fresh news. A Samuel Carmody had stayed in the Riverview Hotel for three days in late 1864. The desk clerk couldn’t describe the individual but the signature in the guest register looked familiar. Adjacent to his name the home address was given as Winona, Minnesota, only a day’s journey north.

Arriving there the next day, Chance scanned the river front for any sign of the Osprey, but to his disappointment found none. Inquiring about the boat on the waterfront brought no information, but the post office had an individual registered as Samuel Carmody on a river location known as Yeoman’s Pond. Chance hired a cab and was soon there. The Pond turned out to be a bay that faced the river which at this point was more of a lake. Asking, he was pointed to a barge fixed up as a houseboat, whereupon Chance found a sign Carmody Pictures and Portraits. Could this be it? he wondered after searching so long. He knocked on the door. It opened and to his gratification he beheld his partner and friend Samuel himself, blinking at him over the rims of his reading glasses. “Yes?” Sam asked.

“Sam, it’s me, Chance.”

“Chance, is it really you?” Sam blinked some more, then stepping inside, motioned Chance in. “I thought you were dead for sure. Heard that the 19th Mississippi was badly mauled at...?”

“At Antietam. We lost over 40 percent of our men. But how are you? What are you doing here? Where’s the Osprey?”

“The Osprey’s gone. Commandeered by the Union back in ‘63, and the way I heard it, was sunk below Vicksburg by a Confederate ironclad.”

“No! I was there. At the siege and got wounded. Taken prisoner to spend the rest of the war in Elmira.” Sam just blinked: the name meant nothing to him.

Over coffee and sandwiches, the two friends soon caught up with each other. After he lost the ship, Sam worked for a while selling glasses and lenses, then he discovered photography and opened his present business which was thriving. He still loved the river which was why he lived on a houseboat.

“You know when the Yankees took the boat, eventually they paid me compensation. Near six hundred dollars. Rightly speaking half of that’s yours. Wait till tomorrow and I’ll go to my bank and get out your share.” It was interesting how the longer they talked, the more a southern twang crept into their conversation. Samuel had been the first real friend Chance met after he arrived in Natchez and then got married in Fayette.

“It’s really good to see you again,” Samuel said.

“Same here. It appears we both have survived.”

“So what’re you planning to do now?”

“I don’t know. I thought to find the boat and hadn’t made plans beyond it.”

“Stay here. I got work enough for two, we can resurrect the old partnership.”

“I don’t know. I’m not the same man I was back then. I have two sons, but no life to settle into. I’m still looking for ... I don’t know what, but I’m not ready to settle down.”

“Too bad, I’d love having you here. But if you change your mind, you know where to find me. You’re welcome anytime.” They ate, sipped whisky and talked the night away.

Next day, they picked up the thread again. “I’m so sorry to hear about Anabelle. You know I was sweet on her, don’t you? If you hadn’t married her I would’ve for sure... if she would’ve had me. But she was in love with you.” Sam wrinkled his face. “All the same, I never had the sense that you really loved her.”

“I think I did... sometimes. I liked her very much and enjoyed our lives together but I just don’t understand about this love thing.”

“Haven’t you ever felt love before?”

“I don’t know, I might have. There was someone, but it felt more like a need. I needed to see her, talk to her... I don’t know, hold her. It was like a constant itch that needed to be scratched.”

“Yeah, that was love. What happened to her?”

“It was a long time ago, back in England. She got married to someone else. I feel as if I’ve been chasing her memory ever since.” Sam looked at his friend with pity. He admitted to almost getting married and for a while, lived together with a woman, but in the end he found single life more comfortable.

“This way I only have to please myself. You know, you can’t ever please a woman. If you give them what they want, they’ll want something more.” Sam laughed.

In the end they agreed. “Stay as long as you like. You can have the bedroom on the left.”

Chance stayed a good month, lulled into complacency by his friend’s companionship. But after time passed and the winter deepened, he was becoming restless.

One night he went out by himself to a place called the Junction where he sometimes had a drink. Alone, he had a chance to puzzle about his future. He was no farther along in settling on anything. He read the paper, as if he could find anything there to solve his problems. A shadow fell across him and looking up, he found a man standing over him, grinning from ear to ear.

“Captain Fraser, it’s so good to see you. I thought you were surely dead, listed as wounded at Vicksburg.”

“Captain Hargrove, isn’t it? You survived too. Lost track of you after Antietam.”

“I was wounded and damn near didn’t make it. Wouldn’t have in a field hospital, of that I’m sure. They would’ve chopped off my leg and I would’ve died of gangrene. Nuns took care of me and nursed me back to health. I became a Catholic after that, I tell you. How about you?”

“Ended up in prison where I nearly died. But after the war I had no life to return to and I haven’t found anything new yet.”

“Really? I work for the Union Pacific Railroad, building the Transcontinental. Maybe you can join up. I seem to remember you’re an engineer and we could sure use you. Trained people are so hard to convince to come to the rough life at the railhead. But I tell you, it’s an exciting life and we’re making history, linking the East with the West with one continuous rail line. Imagine that.” Chance laughed so hard that his friend wanted to share in the joke. “What’s so funny?”

“I have some background in canals. Joining the railroad would be like selling out to the enemy.” Hargrove frowned; he didn’t get the joke.

“I got an Irish crew working our way west. Chinamen are coming east and it’s a race who can claim more territory and get more federal subsidies.”

“I’m not much for the Irish.”

“I guess you have to be Catholic to appreciate them. Tell you what, if you’re interested I’m staying here until Tuesday on company business. If you decide for it we can go west together. I tell you the future is out there. We’re opening a whole continent.” It was hard to resist the man’s enthusiasm for the grand vision of his job, building a country.

“In years to come we’ll be reading about this in history books. How a continent was won.” Hargrove waved his hand from east to west.

“After the army and the war, I’m really not much for history,” Chance declared.

They did some more drinking, celebrating their odd reunion.

“Here’s to you Captain.” Hardgrove lifted his glass.

“Actually I was promoted to Major after Antietam.”

“No joshing. So was I! Then they moved me to rail transport and that's how I ended up working for the Union Pacific after the war. You couldn't do any better.” Chance was slowly warming to the idea.

“What would I do there? I never had to build a railroad.”

“You’re an engineer. You know steam. Learn a little surveying, rail gauge and gradients, and you’ll soon be building bridges or blasting through tunnels.”

“Do you do that? I mean, tunnels?”

“Not much. The western bunch is slogging through the Rockies at a snail’s pace, a mountain every step of the way. We? We have to make a deal with the Mormons to lay tracks through Utah. And talk the Indians into not bothering us. You haven’t lived until you’ve tasted buffalo meat.”

They had more to drink. Hargrove that was ex Major Jesse Hargrove, was already slurring his words. “To enjoy drinking, start with whiskey or bourbon then switch to cheap gin. Of course you’ll wake with a horrible headache in the morning either way but you won’t know the difference and save yourself a pile of money.”

Chance had some difficulty finding his way back to Sam’s place, but he made it and fell into bed. He woke with a headache as promised, and Sam served him ‘the hair of the dog’ to settle him.

Chance told Sam about the meeting the previous night and the proposition he was facing.

“The thing is I don’t know what else to do. Maybe the army spoiled me for real life. I learned to take orders, but now I lack the initiative for myself.”

“More likely the prison did that to you,” Sam guessed. They went back and forth several times trying to work it out. Finally, Chance decided to risk it: the plan at least intrigued him. That afternoon Chance wrote a long letter to the Neelys and one to the Sutcliffes, telling them what he intended to do. He expected it could take him up to two years on this project.

On Tuesday he packed his bag, took leave of Sam and met up with Hargrove at his hotel, ready to go. They walked to the rail depot and got themselves seats on the westbound train. As they left, Chance took a good look at the Mississippi, feeling that he had opened a new chapter in his life.