Love and War

Billy heard no great condemnation of the commanding general, just acceptance of a fact. Little Mac had failed to pursue and destroy Lee's army when he had the opportunity, and the Original Gorilla would not like that.

Two days later came news of what Lincoln had announced publicly on the twenty-fourth. Over the evening fires, men argued and, in the time-honored tradition of armies, garbled the details. 'He signed this paper freeing every goddamn coon in the goddamn country.'

'You're wrong. It's only them in the states still rebelling come the first of January. He didn't touch Kentucky or places like that.'

'Well,' said one of the New York pick-and-shovel volunteers, 'the thing is still an insult to white men. No one will back him up. Not in this army.' Much agreement there.

Unsure of his own reaction, Billy went to Lije's tent and poked his head in. His bearded friend was kneeling, hands clasped, head bowed. Billy withdrew, waited five minutes, coughed and scuffed his feet before entering again. He asked Lije what he thought of the proclamation.

'A month ago,' Lije said, 'Mr. Lincoln was still meeting with some of our freed brethren, urging them to search out a place in Central America to colonize. So the conclusion cannot be escaped. He has promulgated a war measure, nothing more. And yet — and yet —'

Lije's index finger ticktocked, as if admonishing caution from a pulpit. 'I have read books about Washington and Jefferson and foul-mouthed Old Hickory which hint of powers in events — in the presidency itself — that sometimes transmute base metal to gold. It could be so here, with the deed and with the man.'

'He exempted any state that comes back in the Union by January.

'None will. That is why it is a war measure.' 'Then what's the worth of it, except to make the rebs mad and maybe start uprisings that won't amount to much?'

'What is the worth? The worth is in the core of it. The core of it — however equivocated, however compromised — is right. It creates, at last, a moral spine for this war. Henceforward we fight for loosing the shackles on fellow human beings.'

'I think it'll bring down a hell of a lot of trouble — inside the army and out.'

He hadn't changed his mind at dusk when he went for a stroll along the Potomac. He wanted to shake off lingering revulsion for the sights of the campaign and confusion over this newest twist in the war's course. He concentrated on thoughts of Brett

A melancholy bugle call sounded beneath the bluffs — a new call, played for the first time down in Virginia in June or July. Who had composed it and where, he didn't know. A last salute to a soldier.

Who was it for, who had died, he wondered. And what had died with the stroke of Lincoln's pen? What had been born? All were questions appropriate to the gathering autumn darkness.

He stood motionless, listening to the river's purl and the familiar camp noises and the fading of the final notes of 'Taps.'

In Virginia, Charles showed Ab An Essay on Man. Touching the lead ball embedded in the center, then the book itself, Ab asked, 'Who give you this?'

'Augusta Barclay.'

'Thought you told me you didn't have a girl.'

'I have a friend who sent me a Christmas present.'

'Is that right?' Ab fingered the flattened bullet again. 'You was saved by religion, Charlie. You didn't get a Testament wound' — every month or so you heard of someone's life being spared because a shot hit his pocket Scripture — 'but it's near as holy.'

Silence.

'You got a Pope wound. Says so right here.'

Charles didn't smile, just shook his head. Ab looked embarrassed and unhappy. Charles replaced the book, pulled the draw­string, and hid the bag under his shirt.

Cooper took his wife out of the house to tell her.

It was the hour of soft gray, with stars sparkling and a bar of orange light narrowing over the Wirral. Autumn breezes swept Abercromby Square, sending the swans to their sleeping places under the willows around the pond. A few leaves, already crisped and reddened, spun around the black iron bases of the street lamps.

'They want us home again. The message arrived in today's pouch from Richmond.'

Judith didn't reply immediately. Hand in hand, husband and wife crossed the square to a bench where they liked to sit and discuss decisions or the events of the day. A part of Cooper never surrendered fatherhood; he had given Judah permission to run a while, on the condition he not stray too far. He repeatedly glanced toward the fence for a sign of the boy returning.

They reached the bench. The wind was sharp. The Mersey smelled of salt and some newly berthed spice ship. 'That is a surprise,' Judith said at last. 'Was a reason given?'

Across the way, an elderly manservant emerged from Prioleau's house to trim the gas lamps flanking the front door. On the second floor, centered in a window lintel, a single star in bas-relief declared Prioleau's loyalty.

'The war isn't going well for the Yankees, but neither is it going well for our side. The toll in Maryland was dreadful.'

And lives were not the only loss. When reports of the battle reached Europe, the outcome was construed as a defeat for the Confederacy. Despite false cheer and pretense to the contrary, those in Bulloch's section knew the silent truth of Sharpsburg. The South would never gain diplomatic recognition.

'I'm wanted in the Navy Department,' he told her. 'Mallory needs help and evidently believes I'm the one to provide it. James has matters well in hand here, and I know he sent a favorable report on my work after we launched Alabama.'

Bulloch had officially commended Cooper's clumsy but effective defensive action on the pier. Cooper had stayed aboard the ship until the middle of August, when she was joined in the remote Bay of Angra, on the island of Terceira in the Azores, by two other vessels. One was Agrippina, a bark that Bulloch had purchased; aboard were a hundred-pound Blakely rifle, an eight-inch smoothbore, six thirty-two pounders, ammunition, coal, and enough supplies for an extended cruise. Bahama brought twenty- five Confederate seamen and Captain Semmes. The new ship was armed, coaled, commissioned, and christened, and Cooper felt another unexpected thrill of pride when the small band blared 'Dixie's Land' in the hot tropical afternoon.

The secret mission completed, he returned to Liverpool by passenger steamer. Judith was grumpy the day he told her about his feelings during the ceremony. One of their rare quarrels developed. How could he feel pride in a cause he had once derided? Caustically, he replied that she would have to forgive his lack of perfection. The statements and counterstatements rapidly grew incoherent. It took them a day to patch things up.

Now she asked softly, 'How do you feel about Secretary Mallory's request?'

He pressed his shoulder to hers. The wind was cold; the stars shone; the orange horizon-glow was nearly gone. 'I'll miss this old town, but I've no choice. I must go.'

'How quickly?'

'As soon as I finish a couple of current projects. I would hazard that we'd be on our way by the end of the year.'

She lifted his arm and placed it around her shoulders for warmth and because she loved his touch. 'I worry about a winter crossing.'

What worried him more was the last leg of the trip, the run from Hamilton or Nassau through the blockading squadron. But he refused to upset her by saying it aloud. Instead, he sought to reassure her with a squeeze, a press of his lips to her cold cheek, a murmur.

'As long as the four of us are together, we'll be fine. Together we can withstand anything.'

She agreed, then pondered a moment. 'I do wonder what your father would say if he saw you so devoted to the South.'

He hoped they wouldn't argue again. He answered cautiously. 'He'd say I wasn't the son he raised. He'd say I've changed, but so have we all.'