MacPherson's Lament

RICHMOND-APRIL 3, 1865

IT HAD SEEMED like a sensible idea at the time: march the sailors to the railroad depot-and escape from the approaching federal forces by the fastest and most invincible means of transport: the iron horse. A southbound train could take them to Danville in a matter of hours, while the pursuing army would be on the march six days traveling the same distance.

There was but one difficulty with this sterling plan…

“It would seem that the Confederacy can add yet another item to its list of shortages,” drawled Bridgeford. “We appear to be somewhat lacking in trains, though not, perhaps, in fellow passengers.”

The depot was crowded with fleeing civilians and with wounded soldiers who had tottered out of the hospital, bandages and all, to escape the burning capital. The remnants of the Confederate navy clustered together, hemmed in by frightened men and women and crying children. But there were no trains. Only a few unhitched passenger cars into which more refugees had packed themselves, waiting for someone in authority to appear and preside over their deliverance. Admiral Semmes took some of his officers and began to search the train yards. No one challenged their authority. All the railroad workers had run off the previous day, when the last of the trains had departed.

“Where are the trains?” asked Gabriel. He knew the Confederacy had a good supply of railroad cars. Many’s the time Stonewall’s troops had circled an evening campfire and told the story of Stonewall Jackson and the B &O Railroad. In May 1861, Thomas J. Jackson-then a colonel-and his troops had occupied Harpers Ferry, with more than a hundred miles of Baltimore & Ohio railroad track within the territory he controlled. The B &O was a lifeline for the Union, conveying soldiers and supplies back and forth between Baltimore and the Ohio Valley. Day and night those trains ran, carrying coal and grain to supply the Union and fortify it during the hostilities ahead. Under orders from Richmond, Jackson put up with the incessant trains as long as there was a chance of Maryland seceding to join the Confederacy, but when that hope faded, Jackson was free to take on the B &O. The colonel complained to railroad president John W. Garrett about the endless procession of noisy trains steaming through the narrow river valley, disturbing the nightly slumber of his troops. Mr. Garrett, anxious to keep peace with the occupying army, canceled the night trains so that they would not disturb Colonel Jackson’s sleeping soldiers. A few days later, Jackson persuaded the B &O president to reschedule the day trains so as not to interfere with troop maneuvers. Finally all the trains were running through Harpers Ferry between the hours of eleven A.M. and one P.M. Was Colonel Thomas J. Jackson satisfied with that? Indeed he was. He promptly sealed off both ends of the valley at Point of Rocks and at Martinsburg, and appropriated fifty-six locomotives and nearly four hundred railroad cars for the Confederacy. His men loved to tell that story around the watch fires. The laughter dulled their hunger.

But where were Stonewall’s trains now, in their hour of need?

“Where are the trains?” echoed a steam engineer from the Fredericksburg. “Why, I reckon the government’s took ’em when they lit out! Hustled away from here yesterday like rats down an anchor chain, and left the rest of us high and dry to face the fire and the Federals.”

“He’s right!” called out an approaching officer, just back from inspecting the contents of the railroad yard. “There’s nothing out there now but a heap of spare parts. And there’s one small locomotive, but there’s no fire in her, and no railroad men to run her.”

“They’ve left us a locomotive?” roared the steam engineer. “Why, who needs railroad men if they’ve left us a working engine? I reckon I can run her. Haven’t I kept the Fredericksburg afloat and sailing all these months? A steam engine is a steam engine, even on land. I say we fire up the damned thing, attach these railroad cars, and make off with it. Who’s with me?”

“But what’ll we use for fuel?” someone called out. “There’s none of that!”

The steam engineer looked around. “I don’t reckon the railroad will be needing that there picket fence,” he roared. “I say hack her down and throw her in the furnace.”

The pall of smoke overhead and the rumble of distant cannons left very little room for argument among the stranded sailors. Anything was better than staying in Richmond. Any gamble was worth taking. As the men surged forward to follow the ship’s engineer, they were beset on all sides by the frightened townspeople, begging not to be left behind, but Admiral Semmes ordered them all turned out of the railroad cars.

“It’s better for unarmed civilians to fall into the hands of the enemy than for armed soldiers to be left to face them,” the admiral told them.

“If our engine will bear the load, we’ll takeall of you that will fit aboard,” an officer promised a sobbing woman. “Once our troops are loaded.”

The other commanders were shouting, “Draw the cars together! Couple the cars!”

Gabriel Hawks wondered how long it would take a gang of sailors to assemble a train, and whether it would run if they did succeed in coupling the cars together. Would they be better off slipping away from the station one by one and trying to make it home? Surely the duration of the war could be counted in days. And it was planting time up home in Giles County. It might take him two weeks to walk it, but once he was west of Richmond, he was almost assured of a safe journey back to the mountains. He had been wounded. He had been both a soldier and a sailor. Surely, Gabe thought, he had done all that any government could ask of a man not yet twenty years old. But he looked at the anxious faces of the women, clutching their crying children and regarding the gaggle of sailors with such faith in their own deliverance. He looked at the gaunt cripples from the hospital, hobbling along to help assemble the train. Gabriel cursed himself for a fool, but he followed the throng down to the railroad yard. He knew he couldn’t face his family if he ran out on these people now. Besides, his old commander Stonewall was dead; Jeb Stuart was dead; A. P. Hill was dead. Even the ironclad Virginia was dead. Who was he to outlive the war?

Tuesday, probably

Dear Bill,

What do you mean, you’re drawing up lists of property and assets? Are you out of your mind? Our baby pictures! The green leather chair in the den that we used to fight each other over. How can you hold these possessions hostage in some emotional chess game?

Shouldn’t you be trying to talk Mother and Daddy into getting counseling, for heaven’s sake? They’ve been married forever, you know. You can’t just help them to throw all that away. And yet, from what I’m hearing, you’re docilely filling out your little legal forms and making motions as if these were two total strangers.

Don’t you care? Surely you’re not so hard up for business that you’re going through with this just to keep yourself working! How much are you charging Mother for this, anyhow? And isn’t Daddy furious? He did, after all, pay to put you through law school, only to find you used against him in court as a weapon, like an ungrateful trained shark.

None of this makes any sense. But I cannot come over right now. Not that I’m doing all that well with my job interviews. I’m so worried about the family soap opera that I can barely concentrate on the questions. I tried talking about this with Cameron’s mother, but she professes to know nothing of such matters. “Fortunately I was widowed,” she said. Whatever that means.

Has there ever been a divorce in the family before? I think not! A murderer, yes, but never a divorce.

Please try to be more forthcoming in your future correspondence. It is bad enough to be stuck over here without feeling that things are being kept from me as well.

As well as can be expected,

Elizabeth