April 15, 1863
Hickory Heights
“Jamie, what in the world are you doing?” Annie grabbed her brother by the collar.
He looked up at her with a grin. “Making a trapdoor, silly. What do you think?” He shrugged her off and shoved the saw back down through the floorboards.
“Jamie!” Annie pushed him so hard that he fell over, the saw left standing and wobbling, making a strange metallic warbling. “Are you out of your mind? You’re ruining the dining room!”
Jamie sat cross-legged on the carpet that he had rolled up. “You of all people should know, Annie. You’re the Confederate spy, the friend of generals, the all-seeing rider who recognizes Trojan horses.” He grinned up at her again.
Was the boy mad? “Jamie, don’t ever call me that. What if someone heard you? I could get arrested, you know. Besides, I’m not a…a…” She choked on the word—it sounded so clandestine. “A spy. I just did my part.”
“That’s right, and I’m doing mine,” Jamie said. He was absurdly happy and good-natured.
“By hacking up the dining room floor?” Annie nearly shouted.
Jamie made a face and spoke in a patronizing tone. “Underneath this flooring is a part of the cellar that was dug but was never completely finished. I discovered it this morning. It’s a little cavern, about four feet wide and ten deep, right behind the jelly closet. I don’t know why they didn’t extend the cellar into it, but they didn’t. I guess because it’s not really square and they got tired of digging. Anyway, it’s a perfect hiding spot. The wall of the jelly closet has lots of cracks and seams in it—I stuck my hand through it; that’s how I found the hole—so there’ll be air aplenty for two men.”
“Air?” Annie couldn’t understand this mischief of Jamie’s at all. “Two men?”
“Me and Joseph Dickinson.”
“Joseph Dickinson?”
“Another Mosby ranger. I promised Major Mosby that we’d board him here.”
Annie plopped down onto one of the dining room chairs as Jamie turned and went back to work. She had feared this—that Mosby would want them to house one of his men. It was a dangerous business. If one of the Union raiding parties came through and found the riders…well, the least they did was arrest everyone. One house had already been burned down as punishment and warning.
Still, most of their neighbors were keeping at least one rider, especially after Mosby’s capture of the Union general Stoughton in March. That had been perhaps the most amazing feat of the war so far—one that reportedly had President Lincoln and other Washington officials so worried about Mosby that ten flooring planks on each side of the Chain Bridge were taken up each night to prevent him crossing the Potomac River into the city. It was a capture that had emboldened everyone in Fauquier and was drawing dozens of volunteers into Mosby’s rangers. Mosby himself had jumped up two grades in rank from lieutenant to major in two weeks—General Lee was that pleased by his performance.
In the middle of the night of March ninth, Mosby and twenty-nine of his rangers had ridden straight into Federal headquarters at Fairfax Courthouse. They slipped past miles of Yankee picket posts and the garrison’s guards, going right into the general’s bedroom and out again, without firing a shot and without waking anyone—anyone, that is, but the captured Union general, two captains, thirty soldiers, a telegraph operator, and fifty-eight horses.
Such joy there’d been among Annie’s friends and neighbors as they retold the story of Mosby pulling back the bedsheets on the snoring general and asking him if he knew of Mosby.
“Yes,” the general had replied sleepily, evidently groggy from too much champagne before bedtime. “Have you caught the devil?”
“No, sir,” came the reply of the Gray Ghost. “He has captured you!”
It was already legend.
Annie watched Jamie saw. She understood why Mosby wanted his riders spread out among the hills. He had camped as a group only once—seventy of them together in a barnyard—and it had been a disaster. A local woman had betrayed them, reporting them to a nearby Union cavalry post. The Federals had brought double Mosby’s numbers and charged down the farm’s narrow lane. Mosby’s rangers were trapped, hemmed in by fences and hedgerows and the tight driveway. They escaped through pure pluck, jumping the tall fences with their horses and shooting wildly. The Federal commander had also made a stupid error—ordering a saber charge. Their swords were no match for Mosby’s revolvers.
And so from now on, Mosby’s men would vaporize into the night, like the mists of the Blue Ridge breaking up and settling into different pockets of the mountains, remaining hidden and secret, alone or in pairs, until he sent word for them. It would certainly build up Mosby’s mystery, enhancing his partisans’ allure to Southerners and their threatening unpredictability to Union troops.
Sighing, Annie made a decision. She was having to make so many these days, and this was definitely not something to bother Miriam with. Hickory Heights would take on this Mosby partisan, feed him, and protect him. She stood up and was about to ask Jamie what he would need to finish the trapdoor when Jamie’s words came back to her. Another. Annie’s heart began to beat quick-time. “Jamie,” she whispered hoarsely, “you said ‘another ranger.’ Who’s the other?”
Jamie pulled back a plank. “Why, me, of course. I joined up last week. There’s a hundred of us now.”
“Oh, Jamie,” Annie gasped.
Jamie stood up and faced her. “I turned fifteen two weeks ago, Annie. You know the major said I could join when I turned fifteen.” He was matter-of-fact. “Now, see if Isaac can find two hinges for me. They need to be flat, so that there isn’t a bump in the carpet when we cover it up.” He turned and squatted, back to work.
Already he was different.
Two weeks later, on April twenty-seventh, Annie was grateful for that trapdoor.
It was late afternoon. The world seemed a sweet-smelling pink haze as cherry and apple trees across the county opened their blooms to the warm air. Annie was standing in their hillside orchard, closing her eyes and just inhaling the delicate scent that promised fruit for the autumn. Her cousins Colleen and Sally were tossing hard green hickory balls back and forth. Annie wished she had enough money to buy them some real toys to play with. She leaned over to pluck some tiny violets that were growing in the tall, greening grasses. Some were deep purple, others white, even more a cross between. Those—white with purple stripes that looked almost gray—were being called Confederate violets. She thought she’d make a tiny bouquet for Miriam’s bedside. Her mother had always loved to walk among the tree blossoms this time of year. Today she just hadn’t the strength.
Annie meandered from violet clump to violet clump until she came to the last one, cast by itself against the split-rail fence. She almost missed it.
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, / And waste its sweetness on the desert air. Annie leaned against the fence and tried to remember the rest of Thomas Gray’s poem about a peaceful country churchyard. And all the air a solemn stillness holds…. That world of gentle poetry, her time of tearing up over love sonnets, seemed so long ago. That kind of quiet verse seemed naïve now. The world had become such a violent place.
Her mind shifted to some of the Byron poems she’d read. They certainly were more reflective of the anger, frustration, and restlessness she sensed around her. Byron wrote about brooding heroes with mysterious, perhaps criminal pasts. So many of his poems were filled with despair and unhappy lives, predetermined by a mean-spirited fate. Only a few, such as the one quoted by Thomas Walker, retained the hope, the idealism that Annie looked for in her reading.
One night Mosby had stopped at Hickory Heights to eat dinner with them. He’d noticed the Byron volume, lying on a table in the parlor. “My favorite poet,” said Mosby, picking it up.
Annie had laughed and told him who had sent it to her.
“Really?” Mosby had said, turning to look at her carefully. “Have you had any more contact with this Yankee?”
“No, Major, and I wouldn’t care for any either. He was quite rude,” said Annie.
“But if he ever shows up in these parts, you will forget that, won’t you, Miss Sinclair. It seems to me the man was quite taken with you.”
Annie blushed. “I don’t think so.”
Mosby shook his head. “You want him to be, Miss Sinclair. He might tell you something useful to me. I’m sure you understand.”
She understood all right. Mosby saw her as a useful tool, a lure. She had felt cold all over, assessed like a horse at an auction.
Full many a flower…Annie leaned over to pluck the last Confederate violet. Her life was not what she had thought it would be. Would she just waste away, unloved, a mere pawn that men would push across a chessboard of war?
A tug on her skirts stopped Annie’s thoughts. There was little Will, his eyes ever wide and fearful. Annie reached out and put her hand on his thick, tousled hair. “What is it, Will?”
“Do you see the blue?” he whispered.
Annie looked up to the sky, awash in soft spring turquoise, not a cloud freckling it. It was a glorious day. “Yes, darling. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Was little Will a poet in the making? she wondered. Wouldn’t that be lovely?
He frowned, tugged at her skirts, and pointed to the east. “The blue.”
Annie followed his point. In the distance was a growing sea of blue uniforms, as if a hunk of sky had fallen down across the valley. Toward them, out of the mass, came a thin stream of riders.
“Good Lord! Girls, get to the house! Tell Aunt May that Yankees are coming. She needs to hide the hens.” She grabbed Will by the shoulders. “Find Isaac and Bob. Get them to run off the livestock. Hurry!” She pushed him ahead of her as she gathered up her skirts to run.
Will darted silently. The girls squealed, “Yankees coming, Yankees coming,” almost like a nursery rhyme. Annie glanced back at the blue swarm. They were coming at a trot. They had maybe twenty minutes. “Curse these skirts,” she muttered as she tripped and almost fell.
Hickory Heights was suddenly abuzz with frantic action. Isaac burst out of the house’s back door carrying a broom, shouting at Bob to “Git them horses loose.” He thundered after the hogs, swatting them and shouting, herding them toward the woods. Aunt May ran for the smokehouse to retrieve the bacon hanging there and stuff it up the chimney. Rachel and Lenah scrambled after the hens and chicks, grabbing them by the necks and thrusting them into their aprons. Bob opened the paddock gates and whistled, waving his arms, stampeding their few remaining horses into the fields. With a lump in her throat, Annie watched Angel, tail high, take off toward the hills. “Fly, girl, fly far away. Come back to me tomorrow.”
Annie could already hear the sound of banging canteens and jingling stirrups and sabers. It would be only a few moments before the Union cavalry was in their yard. She looked back again and gasped. There were so many of them.
Hurling herself up the front porch steps, Annie flung open the door and called into the house. “Jamie! Jamie!”
“I’m here.” Jamie stepped out of the parlor. A Colt revolver was thrust into his belt. But what horrified Annie most was his clothes. He had on a private’s uniform, Confederate butternut.
“What are you doing? You’ve got to hide.”
Clattering down the stairs came Joseph Dickinson. He was a grown man from Prince William County with two small children, and a true marksman. He was wrestling himself into his coat as he came. Two pistols gleamed at his belt as well.
“Let’s head out the back, and shoot our way clear if we have to,” Joseph said to Jamie.
Jamie nodded.
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Annie cried. “There are too many of them. Maybe hundreds. Use your cellar, Jamie.”
The front-hall door swung open with a long, groaning squeak. Little Will, solemn, stood in it. “They’re here.”
Behind him came a racket of hooves skidding along gravel.
“Rein in!” came a shout.
“Hurry!” Annie shoved Jamie, then shoved Joseph Dickinson.
“Dismount!”
Annie careened into the dining room, slipping across the floor to the carpet. The three of them grabbed the corner of the rug, tearing at the tasseled ends, yanking it up. Jamie snatched the trapdoor handle and pulled.
“Surround the house!”
“You first.” Joseph pushed Jamie toward the hole.
The front door creaked open. “Where’s your mother, boy?”
Jamie disappeared into the hole like a diver into water.
“In here?” Heavy, slow footsteps.
Joseph looked over his shoulder and cursed.
“No time,” he whispered to Annie. He let go of the trapdoor so that it closed with a thunk and scrambled toward the kitchen, dropping one of his pistols.
“What’s that?” Running feet slapped the hall floor.
Annie flung the carpet corner in place, batted the pistol under her skirt with her feet, and shook her petticoats so that they flounced open like a balloon to cover the trapdoor and the gun just as three Union officers rushed into the room.
One stood eyeing her as the other two officers ran past, jostling her dangerously. Annie noticed their tread made a hollow echo as they crossed the trapdoor. She inched herself completely over it, nudging the pistol with her toes until it lay between her feet. She took a deep breath and tried to make her feet take root there, like an oak, to hide her brother.
Will appeared at the dining room door and ran to her side. He took her hand and planted himself on the trapdoor as well. He was a clever boy, that Will. Annie smiled down at him and felt courage. She looked back up at the officer and waited.
“We are searching for Mosby and his men by order of…”
BANG! Out back, a rifle shot reverberated.
“Here’s one.”
“Stop or I’ll shoot again!”
More shots. Silence. Then a scuffle of feet as Joseph Dickinson was dragged in front of the Union officer.
“Well, you caught me, boys,” Joseph said agreeably. “I hope you have some good grub. I’d just come to ask this lady for some food. I haven’t eaten for two days.”
The Union officer snorted. “Where there’s one, there’s sure to be more. Unless he’s a deserter.”
Joseph laughed. “I’m no deserter, Captain. I’m just taking a break from rousting your camps to look for some dinner. Thought this house looked promising. That’s all. My ma used to say I must have a hollow leg, I’m so hungry all the time. And with you boys ranging around the country, it’s been right hard to get a decent meal.”
He was a cool one, thought Annie with admiration and relief, to think up such a good charade so fast.
The captain hesitated a moment, weighing Joseph Dickinson’s story, then changed his mind. “Search the house.” He snapped his fingers.
Two dozen Yankees crowded through Hickory Heights like ants over a picnic, yanking open doors, stabbing suspect walls with their sabers. They even pulled open drawers, saying with sarcasm that Mosby was cowardly enough to shrink to that size to hide.
All the while, the officer stood watching Annie. She glared back at him.
From upstairs came a booming voice. “Git away from that door, you varmint. Missus Miriam’s in there.”
Annie couldn’t help a smile. “Heaven help your soldiers, sir, if they take on Aunt May. She’s fiercely loyal to my mother.”
There was a yelp of pain.
“Git, I say.”
A young corporal appeared at the dining room door. His face was red with embarrassment. “Sir, there is a lady upstairs. She’s ill, sir. I…I…I think we should leave her room alone, sir.”
“Dangerous up there, sonny?” Joseph asked with a grin.
The young man nodded sheepishly and rubbed his backside.
The Federal officer’s lip curled in disdain. Curtly he ordered, “Look under the woman’s bed, soldier. Feigning illness is the perfect ploy.”
The young man nodded. A few minutes later there was another sound of scuffling and a thwack.
“Ain’t you got no respect? Lord have mercy on your soul for disturbing a kind lady….”
Feet raced down the stairs and the corporal reappeared, breathing hard. “Nothing there, sir.”
The officer nodded and the boy disappeared.
Another soldier appeared carrying some of Jamie’s clothes.
“My brother’s,” Annie said quickly. “He’s off with Stuart.”
Voices from outside: “Here’s a cellar. Bring candles.”
Annie squeezed Will’s hand as he stiffened to the sound of muffled voices below their feet. Her heart pounded in her ears and she fought hard the urge to call out a warning to Jamie.
Joseph started complaining, “If you’re going to take all this time, could I ask the miss here for some milk?”
The Union officer looked at him with contempt. “We’ll be leaving soon enough, Reb. I wouldn’t be in such an all-fired hurry. Some of us feel you Mosby riders should be hanged as horse thieves. I, for one, would love to carry out that sentence.”
Crash. Annie heard the sounds of metal pushing through wood, glass breaking. She couldn’t stand it. What if they stabbed Jamie through the wall? Arrogance was fast becoming her ready weapon. She said icily, “Really, sir, surely you have better things to do than to break our jelly jars? Or are those and sick women the only foes you’re brave enough to attack?”
Joseph whistled. “We do grow them sassy down here.” He grinned. “What say you, Captain?”
The officer grunted, stuck out his jaw, and stomped the floor. The sounds below stopped. Within a few moments, soldiers dusty with cellar dirt appeared. “Yes, sir?” They saluted.
“Confiscate whatever horses and feed you find so that they cannot supply Mosby.” He turned to Annie. “Harboring Mosby raiders is a crime, miss, to be punished severely. I am within my rights to order this house torched. I spare it because of the sick woman. If we come here again, though, it will be a different story.”
He turned and left. As Joseph Dickinson was led away, he tipped his hat to Annie. “Good luck, miss.” At the door, she heard him say, “Now, what have you boys got to eat?” playing his part of a hungry, wandering soldier to the last. She was grateful to him. He’d definitely distracted the Union officer.
It took another thirty minutes of searching to satisfy the Union troops that they’d found all they could take—four horses that had wandered back home and all the feed corn in the barn. They rode off, their noise fading away like thunder disappearing over the mountains.
Not until then did she move off the trapdoor and release Jamie.
He popped up, red-faced, furious, sputtering. “They nearly stabbed me. I should have shot them through the wall!”
Annie flopped into a chair, suddenly exhausted from all the tension. “Thank God you did no such foolishness, Jamie. See what Mosby’s raids bring on us? I hope he waits awhile before trying anything else.”
“Wait? What for? We’ve been called to rally tomorrow.”