The second obstruction to their happiness was Wake’s involvement in the war. The orders Rork brought him that week said he would take the St. James to the Cedar Keys to assist in army operations along that part of the coast. It would mean that he would be away for at least a month and probably far longer. When he would see Linda at Useppa Island he could not know.
Rork had brought other news, however. It seemed that he knew the third mate on the army steamer that took supplies up to Fort Myers on the Caloosahatchee River. Because many of the men in the Union militia regiment at Fort Myers had families and ties at Useppa, they usually stopped there for any supplies needed to go upriver. Linda could travel on the steamer, called the Yucatan, as a regular passenger and no one would bother her about her new identity. The ship would depart the commercial dock on Monday at noon, six hours after the St. James would sail at sunrise.
Linda had specific questions about life on Useppa. Over the last year, Wake had talked several times about the refugee community there, and in particular Hervey Newton. Her questions now concentrated on the details of life there and how she could be ready for it. She had lived in Key West all her life and had never known the kind of basic existence she would have on that little island.
Key West before the war had been prosperous, having in the 1830s the highest per capita income in the nation. All the amenities had come to the town through trade from around the South and the Caribbean, so that Linda Donahue had lived an easier life than many in similar sized towns of three thousand people on the mainland. Wake knew that Useppa Island, with its population of several dozen refugees living in palm frond huts on fish and fruit would be a considerable change for her. As he discussed the islanders’ way of life with her, Wake had nervous visions of her not adjusting to it and being miserable. But she was adamantly willing to go, and her spirit bolstered his.
Included in the price of the bed and fare was a daily newspaper, the first Wake had seen for a month or more. It carried the news of the island’s affairs as well as information passed along from other parts of the country about the war far to the north. The reports were of events four to six weeks old, from back in June and July. Wake pored over it each day, trying to obtain some sign the war was ending. He could find none. In fact, the Confederacy’s armies appeared as strong as ever, as chronicled in the newspaper’s litany of disasters.
Grant had been severely repulsed in a frontal assault at a place called Cold Harbor, Virginia, 7,000 soldiers dead in half an hour. The newspaper correspondent wrote that the despondent soldiers had known they would be killed in the battle and had pinned notes to their coats with their names and families’ addresses. Many of the politicians from the states whose regiments were decimated were calling for inquiries into Grant’s leadership.
The depressing news went on. In Mississippi, a Rebel general named Forrest defeated a Union force at Brice’s Crossroads. The Rebels had also repulsed a Federal cavalry raid in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia under a general named Sheridan. In Georgia, they had driven back U.S. General Sherman at a Kennesaw Mountain. They even had gone back up into Maryland and beaten the Union army at Monocacy. Washington was in a panic.
Wake read that the Republicans had nominated Lincoln again, this time with some politician from Tennessee named Johnson as his candidate for vice president. All in all, it looked like the hope from the previous winter that 1864 would be the last year of the war was not going to come true. In fact, 1864 was unfolding very badly. The men of the Confederacy had demonstrated that they still possessed plenty of skill and endurance to fight onward. They were far from beaten, and Wake marveled at their commitment.
The only good news he read about the war was the product of extraordinary efforts by the U.S. Navy. After months of searching, the U.S.S. Kearsarge, commanded by Captain John Winslow, had finally brought the C.S.S. Alabama to battle off the port of Cherbourg, France, in mid-June. The Northern papers reported that Raphael Semmes’ Alabama had been sunk in a glorious manner but that the “pirate” Semmes, who was responsible for the destruction of fifty-eight Union ships, had escaped capture when a British yacht had picked him up out of the water. As he read the account of the battle, Wake wondered what Alexander Semmes would think of the news. Alexander was Raphael’s pro-Union cousin who had stayed in the U.S. Navy and served on the west coast of Florida in command of the U.S.S. Tahoma until last December. He had an excellent reputation in the navy, but still it must have been difficult to see that a man of your own family was so
