Chapter Twenty-Three
When the news reached her, she nearly fainted with joy. She and her sisters jumped up and down in the kitchen, screaming in jubilation. Now David would be released from prison, and he would be coming home for certain. Mr. Alexander, Anna’s driver in Elmira, had never sent any word, so she took the lack of correspondence to mean that David was alive. He had to be. Mr. Alexander had been far too kind not to tell her if he’d learned of her husband’s demise. She knew in her heart that her beloved was alive and that he would be with her again soon.
The past two weeks had gone by at a snail’s pace. Although Anna loved her family’s farm, it had become a prison for her as well. Everything reminded her of him. She constantly looked at their wedding photo so she wouldn’t forget what he looked like. She had somewhat forgotten her father’s appearance, which troubled her deeply, but she assumed that it happened to everyone after a while. Although the memory of her father was fading, she wouldn’t allow herself to forget her husband’s handsome face. Not ever.
The thought of Stephen’s impending return also troubled her. Aunt Sarah hadn’t heard anything from Uncle Bill. Perhaps, the war was still going on somewhere that they didn’t know about. All Anna wanted was an end to it so she could resume her life and marriage. Glancing up at the clear blue sky, she noticed how bright it was, and realized she had been living in an overcast shadow ever since David’s abduction. Now, the dark cloud was finally lifted. He would be home any day; she was sure of it. In preparation, she sewed a new dress for herself and a new shirt for him. She picked wild flowers and placed them in vases around the house, and went into town to purchase ingredients for special desserts she planned to prepare for him. The only thing left to do was to wait.
Once they learned their exalted General Robert E. Lee had surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant on Palm Sunday, the Confederates mourned the capture of Lee’s noble army.
“Maybe they’ll let us go so’s we can be home in time for Easter,” David overheard one of the men say.
“I sincerely doubt that,” said another.
“Well, I surely hope they let us out in time for spring plantin’,” said a third.
David hoped so too. He couldn’t wait to see Anna again. This time, she wouldn’t be planting crops to feed the Union army. The thought made him smile.
On the evening of Tuesday, April 11, he sat propped on the steps outside the shed he was assigned to and watched the full moon slowly ascend over the horizon. It was an amazing, yet fearful sight, for the higher the orb rose in the sky, the more crimson it became.
“Ain’t that the strangest sight you ever did see,” remarked one of the wards.
“It’s a blood moon,” said another.
Several prisoners noticed too, and stopped to observe the curious manifestation before going on their way.
To David, it was some sort of portent. He had never seen the moon turn the color of blood before. All of Jake’s superstitions had rubbed off on him. He was certain of the premonition. Someone was in dire distress, and he worried for Anna’s safety.
Two days later, the Reverend Thomas Beecher arrived at camp. It rained throughout the entire day, but regardless, the convicts gathered outside to hear the reverend speak. He gave an inspiring sermon, and consoled the Confederates on their loss.
“Now, boys,” he said, “the war is over, and you will soon be with your friends. When you are dismissed and return to your quarters, should you fall down in the mud, don’t get up and say, ‘Well, damn the Yankees!’”
The congregation laughed.
Reverend Beecher went on. “You men should all be contented, as Paul the Apostle was contented, in and out of prison.”
The wards returned to their barracks with their spirits high. They were confident that their release would happen soon.
On the morning of April 15, church bells rang out from beyond the stockade walls.
“What’s the occasion this time?” David asked Sherwood.
“Is the war back on?” someone down the aisle from them pondered aloud.
“Might be it’s for Good Friday, ‘cept that was yesterday,” another ward said.
“Reckon they got the whole town up to watch us go free,” said another.
The inmates were ordered out into the prison yard. One of the officers informed them of the doom David had predicted four days prior. The President of the United States of America, Abraham Lincoln, had been murdered by a Confederate sympathizer.
The news hit him like a Minié ball. David’s body went numb. He thought back to that day in Gettysburg when the tall, bearded man walked past him, and their eyes had met momentarily. Many of the prisoners surrounding him expressed their regret, while others stood in silent sorrow.
“It is a good thing,” one defiant Rebel in the crowd hollered. “Old Abe ought to have been killed long ago.”
He was immediately apprehended by a number of guards and dragged off to be tied by his thumbs.
The men were released to their confines. Throughout the cold, rainy day, tensions grew between the Confederates and their captors. The prisoners endured threats of being shot or having bayonets used on them, but David understood. The Yankees were intimidating them to avoid insurgence. At the same time, they were vigilantly protecting them.
By nightfall, the captives feared for their lives.
“The townsfolk will be breakin’ down the stockade walls any minute now,” one of the wards said. “They’re fixin’ to kill us all for the death of their glorious president.”
David thought it was strange irony—Lincoln had been the only man in all of God’s creation who had insisted on the unification and restoration of the country. He dwelled on how the president had died for his beliefs, just as thousands of soldiers had given up the ghost before him over the course of the past four years. He remembered reading in the papers that Mr. Lincoln requested for a band to play “Dixie,” out of respect for the South, while Washington City celebrated Richmond’s fall. The thought saddened him even more.
“Reckon the whole world’s turned topsy turvy,” he said.
His fellow inmates agreed.
That evening, the men inside David’s building speculated about how they would be destroyed.
“They’ll probably line us all up in front of a firin’ squad and shoot us,” a Rebel across from him said.
“Or bayonet us all to death,” the man above him interjected.
“My guess is they’ll bombard us with artillery,” Sherwood stated.
David leaned back against the wall and winced with pain. He closed his eyes, drawing a deep sigh. The hopelessness he had felt while in isolation reclaimed him.
Noticing his bunkmate’s discomfort, Sherwood said, “Summers, I’d be happy to pour more whiskey on your back.”
He had drenched David’s wounds soon after his release from solitary confinement, but the whiskey’s sting was so excruciating that he preferred to suffer.
“At least let me take a look at it,” Sherwood offered.
Opening his eyes, David slightly smiled and lifted his shirt. Several men around him moaned.
“Don’t look too good,” a nearby ward remarked.
“It ain’t right they did this to you,” said another elderly prisoner. “No other fellers got beaten that I heard about.”
“You oughta go over to the hospital tomorrow and see if one of the docs can fix you up,” Sherwood suggested.
Seeing the concern in his bunkmate’s brown eyes compelled David to agree.
The men settled in for the night, and Camp Chemung grew unusually quiet. They dozed warily, waiting for the Yankees to take their revenge out on them until the long night finally ended without incident.
In the morning, David took Sherwood’s advice and walked over to one of the hospital buildings. He overheard two wards discussing what they’d recently learned.
“On April 27, the Yankee steamer, Sultana, exploded on the Mississippi River while makin’ its way up North from Memphis,” said one man.
“That’s right awful,” said David. “I didn’t hear anything about it.”
“That’s because the newspapers had more important things to report,” said the other.
The first man nodded. “They estimate that 1,500 souls were lost. Most of the deceased were newly-freed Union prisoners.”
“More Yankee deaths,” said the second man. “What a damn shame.”
David couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not. Either way, the carnivorous war was still devouring as many lives as possible before eating its fill.
Making his way down an aisle, he encountered a surgeon, who introduced himself as Doctor Stoker. While conducting his examination, the good doctor said nothing about David’s wounds, nor did he inquire about how he’d received them. Instead, he silently rubbed iodine on his patient’s back and wrapped it with cotton bandages. David thanked him. On his way out, he overheard two other doctors conversing.
“Last month we lost four hundred and ninety-one of our Johnnies,” one said.
“Jones reported burying forty in just one day,” responded the other.
Walking past them, David glanced over his shoulder at the afflicted men lying on cots. A twinge of sympathy came over him. He wished for the power to restore them all back to health but knew he was essentially helpless.
Following Lincoln’s assassination, he read reports in the papers about how angry mobs of Yankee vigilantes were attacking Southern sympathizers in retribution. The hostile mobs roamed city streets, searched out people as traitors, and lynched them. David feared for his life, but more than that, he feared for Anna’s. If somehow, someone discovered she had harbored him for over a year, she would surely fall victim to their murderous rampage, as would her family. He prayed for her safekeeping and for his release, which now seemed impossible.
In Washington, a funeral was held the following Wednesday. Church bells in Elmira rang out for the occasion. Several cannons were fired, and the boom echoed off the mountains east of camp. Abraham Lincoln’s body was transported across the country on his funeral train, the Union. It traveled en route to Illinois, his home state, which was to be the president’s final resting place. A succession of stops was made along the way, allowing mourners the opportunity to bid their beloved leader farewell. One week after the assassination, the train stopped in Elmira. David learned that Amos would be participating in the procession.
A few hours later, he heard a train whistle shrilly pierce the air and knew Lincoln’s funeral train had arrived. The president he had stood so close to in Gettysburg was now close to him in death, and David knew for certain that the Confederacy was dead along with him. The thought deeply saddened him.
Later that evening, he searched out Amos, who had returned to his post.
“Tell me what happened?” David requested of the young black guard.
Amos sighed. “Ah do believe today is one of da mos’ saddes’ days I ever seed,” he replied.
He went on to describe how numerous regiments led the funeral procession, including Commander Tracy and his staff, followed by solemn pallbearers who accompanied the black hearse containing the president’s casket. Behind the hearse came scores of government officials. Thousands upon thousands of mourners in carriages and on foot followed behind. Amos estimated that the crowd was nearly the same in number as the prisoners in camp. Stretching for two miles, the funeral party reached a park beside the Congregational Church. A tear-evoking eulogy was given on Lincoln’s behalf. Afterward, the casket was returned to the funeral train, which resumed its westward journey.
“If dere’s one ding Ah knows,” Amos concluded, “it dat Ah neber forget dis day fo’s long as Ah lib.”
David saw a tear trickle down his cheek, but Amos quickly brushed it away.
“Did you hear any angry Northerners say they’d come in here and kill us?”
Amos shook his head. He scowled as an idea came to him. “You‘s frettin’ ‘bout yo’ wibe, hain’t you?”
“Yeah,” David softly replied.
“Well, dere no need fo’ dat. She be fine, Ah knows it.” He grinned while blinking to hold back his tears. “Wese all be fine.” He walked off.
David bit his lower lip, holding his emotions in check. He hoped the guard’s confident words were accurate and Anna was indeed safe.
The prisoners were recruited to beautify the camp. A flower garden was sown inside the front gate. Trees were planted and lawns were groomed. David volunteered, finding that he enjoyed cultivating flowers, for it wasn’t as tedious as planting crop fields.
“These are right purty,” one of the wards next to David said as they planted flowers along the main thoroughfare.
“Reckon they brighten up the place a bit,” David replied. It didn’t take away from the reality of his captivity, however. Men were still starving and dying.
“Now that the weather’s warmin’ up, the Yanks are fixin’ to let us bathe in the river,” remarked another inmate. “Sure will be nice to feel clean again.”
David agreed.
“Did you hear they caught that scoundrel, John Wilkes Booth?” asked the first man. “Trapped him inside a burnin’ barn in Virginee and shot him dead.”
“I read about it this mornin’,” said David.
The other two men looked up at him from their digging.
“Seems the Yankee government uncovered a conspiracy, and Booth, who was an actor, played the leadin’ role.”
One of the men snickered at David’s pun. The other gave him a sarcastic look.
“They arrested several people, includin’ a woman who owned the boardin’ house where Booth was stayin’ and the doctor who mended his broken leg. After Booth shot Lincoln, he jumped from the presidential box, fell onto the stage at Ford’s Theatre, and hollered what they think was ‘Sec semper tyrannis’.”
“What’s that mean?” the first man asked.
“It’s Latin,” said David. “It means ‘thus always to tyrants’.”
“I read about that too,” said the second man. “Lincoln and his wife had been watchin’ a play when Booth crept up from behind and fired a bullet into the back of the president’s head.”
“Booth must’ve been crazy as a loon to think he’d git away with it,” said the first man. “But now that the real culprit has been captured, all of us in here are vindicated. They can’t use us as scapegoats any longer.”
A commotion attracted the men’s attention.
“What’s goin’ on?” David asked a passerby.
“We jist got word,” the inmate said. “General Joseph Johnston surrendered to Sherman in Durham Station, North Carolina.”
Stunned, David dropped his shovel. “I have to tell Richardson!” He ran to the barrack and found his bunkmate.
“I can’t believe it’s all over,” Sherwood said in a daze, “and in my home state, to boot.”
David sadly shook his head. “I heard he surrendered in Durham Station. Is that near your hometown of Raleigh?” he asked.
“Right close.” Sherwood expelled a sigh. “I surely do hope I have a home to return to, and the Yankees didn’t burn it to the ground.”
David hoped he also had a home to return to, although he knew his farm in Alabama was still basically intact. It was the one in Pennsylvania that concerned him most, the one that belonged to his wife. He wondered if Anna still belonged to him, and held out hope she still loved him. She was all that kept him going.
The Southland’s dream of becoming its own nation was quashed for certain now. These were the last dying embers of a fire that had once blazed with passion and glory, its defenders righteous in their beliefs, noble in their cause, and gallantly brave until the very end. The United States of the Confederacy had been extinguished, and at long last, the war between North and South was truly over. Both sides were a reconciled nation once again, but David wondered if the division between Yankeeland and Dixie would ever completely heal or if a scar along the Mason-Dixon Line would remain there forever.
The men inside Barracks #3 anxiously awaited their release. Inmates by the hundreds took their oaths of allegiance to the U.S. government in hopes that their freedom would be granted quickly.
“I don’t care what those Billies want,” one defiant, blonde-haired Rebel near David’s bunk proclaimed. “I’ll never take their damned oath!”
When the news came on May 11 that Jefferson Davis had been captured the previous day in southern Georgia, David resolved to take the oath himself. There was no reason to hold out any further hope for the Confederacy. Besides, he wanted nothing more than to return to his beautiful bride, but he was having doubts whether she would still have him. After all, he hadn’t heard from her. Perhaps Stephen lied to her and told her he was dead. Perhaps he convinced her that she should move on—with him. The thought riled David. He couldn’t get home fast enough, if for no other reason than to punch Stephen in the face.
In the morning, he stood in line behind hundreds of other prisoners, waiting for hours until his turn came. Just ahead of him was the blonde-haired Rebel who had sworn he would never take the oath. Reminiscent of the day he was incarcerated into the prison, David entered a building to see several Union officers inside. One of them looked at him as he entered and motioned for him to approach.
“You are here to take your oath, correct?” he inquired.
David raised an eyebrow at him. Of course, you dimwitted Yankee, he thought. Why else would I be here? “Yessir,” he meekly replied.
“Raise your right hand.”
He obeyed the command. His mind flashed back to the day he and Jake enlisted, when they had vowed to uphold the Confederacy and everything it stood for. They had taken a solemn oath in honor of their beloved homeland. Now, after years of unequivocal pain and suffering, the cause was lost, gone to the annals of history, along with his best friend and father. David’s heart ached at the thought of it. The officer noticed his sorrowful expression.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
David nodded in response.
“Repeat after me. “I, state your name.”
“I, David Summers.”
“Do solemnly swear, in the presence of Almighty God—”
He repeated the words.
“That I will henceforth faithfully support, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and the Union of the States thereunder, and that I will, in the like manner, abide by and faithfully support all laws and proclamations which have been made during the existing rebellion with reference to the emancipation of slaves.”
David echoed the officer’s words at every pause.
“So help you God,” he stated.
“So help me God.”
Once his recital was completed, the officer mundanely said, “At the time of your release, you will be given your parole papers. Dismissed.”
David scowled. “When’s that gonna be?”
The officer snorted. “It’s the government. We’re required to submit the necessary paperwork. Once it’s approved by Washington, you’ll be released.”
David stared at him in disbelief.
The officer added, “It shouldn’t be long. Three or four weeks would be my estimation.”
“Three or four weeks!” David exclaimed.
“On your way, soldier,” the officer barked.
David reluctantly saluted.
The officer returned the gesture and released him.
As he wandered back through camp, David counted out the remaining days of his captivity. At best, he would be released in June. Walking past the flower gardens, he noticed several rose bushes were beginning to bloom. He bent down to smell the floribundas and detected their sweet fragrance. His mind drifted back to last summer, to the rose garden that Anna had nurtured on their farm in remembrance of her mother. He missed his darling Anna so badly that he physically ached. He longed to hear her soothing voice, feel her soft touch, smell her sweet perfume, and taste her intoxicating lips.
A dreadful notion entered his mind, the same one that insisted on resurfacing time and again. What if she had grown tired of waiting for him? What if she had finally given in to Stephen’s advances? The thought made him seethe with hurt-filled anger, and his internment frustrated him even more. He wrote a letter to her, telling her how much he missed her and that he would be released soon, although he was careful this time not to mention their secrets. When he was finished, he took it to the post for delivery.
The next morning, he received a letter from his little sister, Josie. He pulled the letter out from the opened envelope and read:
Dear Brother,
Ma says its my turn to write. I am doing well with school and with helping out around here but I wish I could visit you. I wish you wernt so far away. I have read books about New York, and it seems very cold. I hope you are keeping warm. Ma does not want me to tell you but she has been seeing a lot of Mr. Lawrence. Do you remember him? He used to be a friend of Pa’s until he moved up north to Tenessee. I dont like him much. Callie keeps pestering us to have you write. I told her she could write to you, but she says you should do it first. When can you return to us dear brother? We are all in need of your presence. Ma says to say she loves you and so do I and so does Rena. Farewell for now.
Affectionately your sister,
Josephine
David’s mouth dropped open. He couldn’t believe the words he had just read. How could his mother be courting again? Just up and forget all about their father? And with Kit Lawrence, no less? David remembered him all too well and didn’t like him much, either. His shock turned to disgust. He considered that, should his mother marry this man, Kit would gain all rights to his family’s farm, which meant he stood to lose his inheritance. Even though he had no inherent desire to be a farmer, the idea appalled him, regardless. Not only was his mother moving on, but Anna might just as easily be moving on as well. He had to be released, and soon.