55
By the last week in May, the end seemed near. Each morning Orry confronted that fact as he rose and drank the foul brew of parched corn the boardinghouse served in lieu of coffee. Since New Orleans fell, there wasn't even sugar to sweeten it.
Like everyone in Richmond, while he went about his daily routine Orry listened for resumption of the heavy artillery fire that shook windowpanes all over town. He was glad Madeline had so far been unable to join him; his mother was recovering too slowly. News of her seizure had struck him hard when he first read it in a letter. McClellan's guns had magically changed a sorrow to a blessing.
How ironic to recall that in February local papers had bragged about military success in the Southwest and the creation of the Confederate Territory of Arizona, whose boundaries not one person in a hundred thousand could define. Of what earthly use was a southwest bastion after Forts Henry and Donelson fell — and Orry's friend and superior, Benjamin, slid over to the State Department because someone had to be blamed. Benjamin had survived, but barely.
George Randolph replaced him. An earnest man, a Virginian with impeccable family background, an outstanding legal reputation, and recent military experience — he had commanded artillery under Magruder — Randolph held the War Department portfolio but could do little with it. By now everyone knew the real secretary of war lived in the President's mansion.
Island No. 10 had gone last month, a major weakening of control of the lower Mississippi. The Yankees had Norfolk, too; in desperation, the navy had sunk the already legendary
April had brought another, even more dire, indication of the Confederacy's plight. Davis approved a bill conscripting all white males from eighteen to thirty-five for three years. Orry knew it was a needed measure and grew angry when the President was cursed by street vagrants and state governors alike. Two of the latter said they would withhold as many men as they pleased for home defense, law or no law.
McClellan was close now, feinting toward the city. Though his strategic plan was not apparent, his mere presence plunged Richmond into a time of trial. Davis has already packed his family off to Raleigh. Jackson was still performing brilliantly in the valley, but that did little to mitigate Richmond's fear of the pincers that might snap shut from the peninsula and from the north at any moment.
The terror had become acute on a Thursday in mid-May. Five federal vessels, including
After Drewry's Bluff, Orry had trouble sleeping more than an hour or two each night. With the crisis building, he questioned whether his duties were appropriate to a supposedly sane man. As a favor to Benjamin, he went to General Winder in search of a house servant who had disappeared while Winder's bullies were recruiting bridge builders at gunpoint. The provost marshal denied such tactics and shelved Orry's inquiry without answering it or bothering to hide his animosity, which was now deep and vicious. The two had quarreled at least once a month ever since Orry's arrival.
Refugees poured into the city on foot and in every conceivable kind of conveyance. They slept in Capitol Square or broke into the homes of those who had already left by train, carriage, or shank's mare. Orry heard that Ashton was one of those refusing to leave. It leavened his dislike of her, but not much.
Soldiers swelled the population, too. Wounded sent back from the Chickahominy lines; deserters who had shot or stabbed themselves — who could say which were which? Specters in torn gray, they walked or limped everywhere, thin from hunger, hot-eyed from fever, befouled by dirt, and covered with bandages stained by blood and pus. Some women of the town aided them, some turned away. All night and all day, the wagons and buggies and carts rumbled in and rumbled out, and the windowpanes hummed and cracked, and sleep became impossible.
Orry had another bad experience in the pine building housing Winder and his men. This time he called at the request of Secretary Randolph, who operated a large family farm near Richmond. Randolph had a friend, also a farmer, who had refused to sell his produce at the lower prices fixed by the provost marshal. In a polemical letter to the
Orry went to the pine building to request an order freeing the prisoner. He sent his name in, but the general wouldn't see him. Instead he had to speak with one of the civilian operatives, a tall, lanky man dressed completely in black save for his linen.
The man's name was Israel Quincy. Looking more like a Massachusetts parson than a Maryland railroad detective, he clearly enjoyed having someone of Orry's rank in his shabby little cubicle as a supplicant. He was quick to answer the request.
'There'll be no release order from this office. That man made General Winder angry.'
'The general has made Secretary Randolph angry, Mr. Quincy, as well as most of Richmond, because of his absurd tariffs. The city desperately needs food from outlying farms, but no one will sell at the prices set by this office.' Orry drew a breath. 'Your answer is no?'
His dark eyes benign, Quincy smiled at the visitor. Then the smile seemed to crack and reveal the venom beneath. 'Unequivocally no, Colonel. The secretary's friend will stay in Castle Thunder.'
Orry rose. 'No, he won't. The secretary has the authority to go over the general's head and will do so. He preferred to follow protocol, but you've made it impossible. I'll have the prisoner out of that pesthole within an hour.'
Leaving the cubicle, he was stopped by Quincy's sharp, hard, 'Colonel. Think twice before you do that.'
Disbelieving, Orry turned and saw arrogance. He boiled over. 'Who do you people think you are, terrorizing free citizens and stifling any opinion that differs from yours? By God, we'll have no damned Pinkertons operating in the Confederacy.'
Low-voiced, Quincy said, 'I caution you again, Colonel. Don't defy the authority of this office. You might need a favor from us one of these days.'
'Threaten me, Mr. Quincy, and with this one hand I'll beat you into the ground.'
Forty-five minutes later, Castle Thunder lost one inmate. But there were many more for whom he could do nothing. As for the warnings of the power-drunk guttersnipe in the black suit, he never gave them another thought.
At the War Department, Orry supervised the packing of box after box of ledgers, files, records, as May twisted down to its fearsome end, which brought the battle of Fair Oaks, virtually on the doorstep of the city. McClellan clumsily repulsed the Confederate attack, which saw Joe Johnston seriously wounded and replaced in twenty-four hours by the President's former military adviser, back from exile.
Granny Lee took charge of the Army of Northern Virginia for the first time. Confidence in him was not high. Boxes were packed with even greater haste, and a special train kept steam up around the clock to haul off Treasury gold if the final assault broke through Lee's lines. Orry sweated and packed more boxes and picked up a rumor of a plan afloat in Winder's department. He heard no details, only that he was the target. Quincy's forgotten threats came to mind again, increasing the tension he felt. He thanked the Almighty that Madeline wasn't here to face the danger and feel the madness.
'Please,' the woman said.
Scarcely thirty, she looked much older. She smelled of the mud bespattering her clothes. Three children, starved gray mice, hunched against her skirt, and over her shoulder peered an adolescent black girl with decayed teeth and a red bandanna on her head.
The heavily planted garden rustled and dripped. The shower had stopped an hour ago, about half past six. The garden was twenty feet square, wild and green — almost too lush. Ten steps led down to it from the house. At
