younger of his sisters. Minerva read the poster again and again. The next day she and the man went to the constabulary to tell the authorities that she was not missing and that she was not dead. She was, she said, nothing more than a free woman in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The black man and his family would try for the longest to get her to go to Winifred to explain her new life but Minerva refused.
The posters read: “Lost Or Harmed In Some Unknown Way On The Streets Of This City—A Precious Loved One.” They gave Minerva’s name, height, age, everything needed to identify her. A daguerreotype of Winifred and Minerva had been taken not long after they came to Philadelphia, both women sitting side by side in the photographer’s studio. The poster reproduced that portion of the photograph that contained Minerva. But at the bottom of the posters, like some kind of afterthought, in words much smaller than everything else on the poster, was the line “Will Answer To The Name Minnie.” And so Minerva did not see Winifred Skiffington again for a very long time.
It was the “Will Answer To,” of course, that had done it. Winifred had meant no bad thing by the words. With what little money she had, she hired a printer—an enlightened white immigrant from Savannah, Georgia—to make up the posters and put them up all about Philadelphia, “where any eye could see,” she had instructed the printer. She had meant only love with all the words, for she loved Minerva more than she loved any other human being in the world. But John Skiffington’s widow had been fifteen years in the South, in Manchester County, Virginia, and people down there just talked that way. She and the printer from Savannah would have told anyone that they didn’t mean any harm by it.
April 12, 1861
The City of Washington
My Dearest and Most Loved Sister,
I take pen in hand to-day to write you not more than a fortnight after I have arrived in a City that will either send me back in defeat to Virginia or will give me more Life than my Soul can contain. I may be able to postpone forever my need to be in New-York. My thoughts have been on you and Louis, as they have been since the long ago day you married. My promise to return to be with you when your child is born remains steadfast, no matter how much Life this City affords me.
The City is one mud hole after another, and there is filth as far as the eye can see. Virginia green has been reduced to a memory. It has only been in the past three days that I have summoned enough courage to go much beyond the five square blocks that make up what I have come to call my habitat. I am staying close to Home because the streets (I have trained myself to refrain from calling them roads), particularly after dark, are not safe for any man, even the ruffians have a hard time of it, and while I am prepared to use my pistol, I would rather hold it back just yet. Aside from the fear of man unleashed, there is also the general fear of such a large metropolis, and I am more than afraid of being lost in the City.
My Accommodations are more than adequate, certainly far more than those some Immigrants must endure. How I came by those Accommodations is an interesting story, and I trust that you have the time, and the fortitude, to read how I came to be situated where I am.
The friend whose name Louis gave me has been dead for a year, I learned to my disappointment. I was told there might be lodging at a Hotel on C Street. I was also told that while Senators and Congressmen lodged there, it was hospitable to people of our Race because that was the way the owners and proprietors wanted it. The door facing C Street took me into the Saloon, which is on the first floor of the Hotel. While the people of renown in this City take to hard drink by one in the afternoon, I satisfied myself with a lemon drink at the bar. As I neared the end of my drink, I took on more courage and looked about. The room was empty save myself and two other gentlemen, one a man of our Race at a table in the corner.
I could see people coming and going from a room next to the saloon. I assumed it was the dining area of the establishment. I drank the last of my courage and decided to investigate that particular room. It was indeed a dining room, a rather large one with more than 30 tables, but I discovered that that was not why people were coming and going, Dear Sister. The dinner hours were over and supper was still a time away.
No, people were viewing an enormous wall hanging, a grand piece of art that is part tapestry, part painting, and part clay structure—all in one exquisite Creation, hanging silent and yet songful on the Eastern wall. It is, my Dear Caldonia, a kind of map of life of the County of Manchester, Virginia. But a “map” is such a poor word for such a wondrous thing. It is a map of life made with every kind of art man has ever thought to represent himself. Yes, clay. Yes, paint. Yes, cloth. There are no people on this “map,” just all the houses and barns and roads and cemeteries and wells in our Manchester. It is what God sees when He looks down on Manchester. At the bottom right-hand corner of this Creation there were but two stitched words. Alice Night.
I stood transfixed. At about two-thirty there were few people in the dining room, only those preparing the table for the evening meals. I stepped closer to this Vision, which was held away from all by a blue rope of hemp. I raised my hand to it, not to touch but to try to feel more of what was emanating. Someone behind me said quietly, “Please, do not touch.” I turned and saw Moses’s Priscilla. Her hands were confidently behind her back, her clothing impeccable. I knew in those few seconds that whatever she had been in Virginia, she was that no more.
It was then that I noticed over her shoulder another Creation of the same materials, paint, clay and cloth. I had been so captivated by the living map of the County that I had not turned to see the other Wonder on the opposite wall.
“How have you been, Calvin?” Priscilla inquired. She had no fear in her words that I might have come to take her back. Her words conveyed only what she had said, a need to know my condition.
I responded, “I have tried to be well, Priscilla. I have tried very hard.”
I could still see over her shoulder that other Creation. Priscilla saw it in my eyes and moved aside. This Creation may well be even more miraculous than the one of the County. This one is about your home, Caldonia. It is your plantation, and again, it is what God sees when He looks down. There is nothing missing, not a cabin, not a barn, not a chicken, not a horse. Not a single person is missing. I suspect that if I were to count the blades of grass, the number would be correct as it was once when the creator of this work knew that world. And again, in the bottom right-hand corner are the stitched words “Alice Night.”
In this massive miracle on the Western wall, you, Caldonia, are standing before your house with Loretta, Zeddie and Bennett. As I said, all the cabins are there, and standing before them are the people who lived in them ere Alice, Priscilla and Jamie disappeared. Except for those three, every single person is there, standing and waiting as if for a painter and his easel to come along and capture them in the glory of the day. Each person’s face, including yours, is raised up as though to look in the very eyes of God. I look at all the faces and I am more than glad now that I knew the name and face of everyone there at your home. The dead in the cemetery have risen from there and they, too, stand at the cabins where they once lived. So the slave cemetery is just plain ground now, grass and nothing else. It is empty, even of the tiniest infants, who rest alive and well in their mothers’ arms. In the cemetery where our Henry is buried, he stands by his grave, but that grave is covered with flowers as though he still inhabits it.
There are matters in my memory that I did not know were there until I saw them on that wall. I must tell you, dear Caldonia, that I sank to my knees. When I was able to collect myself, I stood and found not only Priscilla watching me but Alice as well.
I spoke to Alice thus: “I hope you have been well.” What I feared most at that moment is what I still fear: that they would remember my history, that I, no matter what I had always said to the contrary, owned people of our Race. I feared that they would send me away, and even as I write you now, I am still afraid.
Alice responded to me, “I been good as God keeps me.”
I am “laboring” here now, at the Hotel, the Restaurant, and the Saloon, trying to make myself as indispensable as possible and yet trying to stay out of the way, lest someone remember my history and they cast me out. I would be sick unto death if I were sent away. After years of being a nurse to Mother, my work here is not taxing. I am happy when I get up in the morning and I am happy when I lay my head down at night.
All that is here is owned by Alice, Priscilla and all the people who work here, many of them, to be sure, runaways. My room is on the top floor of the hotel where everyone lives. It is a nice room and it fits me well. Jamie comes and goes as a student in a school for colored children. He is as fine a young man as any father or mother
