MacPherson's Lament

RICHMOND-APRIL 2, 1865

GABRIEL HAWKS RECKONED he wasn’t in the navy anymore. It was amazing how fast a peaceful afternoon could turn into a foretaste of hell. He still hadn’t taken it all in. After the admiral had given the order to sail the fleet up to the signal station at Drewry’s Bluff, there had been scarcely time to think. The sailors had been like ants scurrying around the ship, almost knocking one another over in their haste to get things done. And there was a strained silence to the work, not like the usual bustle on board when the men chaffed one another and larked about as they worked. Now they communed with their thoughts and hurried through the tasks, tight-lipped and pale. It seemed that the end was coming, and while it hadn’t exactly been a surprise, it was still a shock to find that the inconceivable had come to pass. They were retreating. Richmond would fall.

They brought the provisions out of the hold and began to hand them out in packages, one to each member of the crew. These were rations to last who knew how long as they journeyed to who knew where. Suddenly Gabe had more food than he’d seen in weeks, but he wasn’t hungry anymore. His stomach felt like a bucket of James River water. The men gathered up their few personal possessions, unlashing hammocks and scrounging for canteens and blankets, muttering all the while among themselves about what this might mean.

“We’re for it now,” declared one grizzled veteran of the seas. “You know what this means, don’t you?”

Some of the younger crewmen, impressed for duty from army regiments, looked bug-eyed with fright, just like Gabe felt. “What’s it mean?” asked one.

“Why-defeat!” roared the old salt. “I reckon we’ll all be civilians come morning. And then we better get ’way from here quick as we can, lest we all be shot! By the Federals! Oh, they’re a-coming all right. You just watch the sky, boys, and you’ll see.”

Sure enough, not five minutes after he’d made this prediction, as they were up on deck stowing their gear away as best they could, somebody shouted, “Lookee yonder!” They turned the way he was pointing to see the whole sky on the north side of the James aglow with the fires of Richmond.

“It’s the Yankees, come from Petersburg!” someone called out.

But an officer nearby overheard, and he said, “Not yet it isn’t, boys. That’s our soldiers burning what they can’t take with them before they head south. That’ll be material and barracks going up in smoke.”

“What’s going to happen to us, sir?”

The officer scowled as if he didn’t want to answer, but finally he replied. “You’ll be boarding one of the wooden gunships for now. That’s all you need to be told.”

Tom Bridgeford leaned over and whispered to Gabe. “You think there’s any chance of making a run for it?”

Gabe looked up at the orange sky over Richmond. He shook his head. “It wouldn’t be fittin’ to run away,” he said. “Besides, doesn’t look like there’s too awful many places to go.”

It was well past midnight when the crew of the ironclads were finally provisioned and allowed to board one of the fleet’s five wooden gunboats. Gabe and Tom Bridgeford found themselves wedged together on the deck of the Roanoke, their faces illuminated by the glare from the burning ironclads. Admiral Semmes had ordered that the ships be torched rather than left to fall into the hands of the enemy.

“He could have just scuttled them,” said Gabe, watching the flames dance across the deck of the Virginia.

“Maybe he thought that time was getting short,” said Bridgeford. “Besides, what’s one more fire in the midst of this conflagration?” He pointed toward the sky over Richmond, still bright with the evidence of the night’s destruction.

“What do you think is going to happen now?” asked Gabe.

“Depends on how Lee has fared in Petersburg,” said Bridgeford. “If he still has fight in him, we might move the government south and keep fighting. Charleston would make a nice capital. Or Wilmington.”

“But we’re going upriver,” Gabe said.

Bridgeford stared off at the dancing fire shapes, pretending he hadn’t heard. Gabe wondered what he ought to do now. Pa could sure use him at home for the farm work this time of year, and it didn’t look like the Confederacy had much longer to live, but still he didn’t feel right about leaving just because things were going bad. If you gave your word on something, you stuck it out.

The Roanoke, moving steadily upriver, away from the burning ironclads, had not gone more than a quarter of a mile before an explosion shook the water, making the vessel lurch to starboard and tremble like a sapling in a hurricane. The flames had reached the ironclad’s magazine, whose loaded shells had not been removed by the departing crew. When the shell room exploded, it lit the shells’ fuses and catapulted the live ammunition high into the air above the river, giving the navy a send-off of spectacular fireworks. But no one cheered.

The ships endured an hour’s wait at one of the drawbridges between Richmond and Drewry’s Bluff, while the troops who had set the evening’s bonfires were allowed passage across the bridge. The route they had taken was punctuated with patches of leaping flames as the Confederates-literally-burned their bridges behind them. While the sailors were waiting for the span to be raised, the sky began to go from black to gray, and finally first light gave them a glimpse of the devastation.

Whole city blocks were now ablaze, and the Tredegar Iron Works flamed like hell itself, rending the morning air with the shudders of the exploding shells within it. A dense cloud of smoke hung over the city, like a blanket laid over a corpse. There wouldn’t be much left for the Yankees to take now, and the people of Richmond knew it. A great throng of them were gathered on the Manchester side of the river, trying to escape the conflagration.

The gunboat docked, and the men of the James River fleet tumbled ashore, weighted down with all their belongings, too stunned from the rush of disasters to think what to do next.

“I hope they don’t expect us to march any considerable distance,” said Bridgeford. “Most of us couldn’t do more than a couple of miles at the best of times, not being used to it.”

“I reckon I can walk,” said Gabe Hawks. “I followed Stonewall from one end of Virginia to t’other. But I ain’t no damn pack mule.”

“Ah, Hawks, but at the moment you look like one.” Bridgeford laughed and pointed to the jumble of necessities they carried: a mess-kettle, bags of bread, chunks of salted pork, pots and pans, tea, sugar, and tobacco. Which of these precious items could they leave behind in their flight? And what would become of them if they did not?

“Hey, you old salts! How do you like navigating on land?” A line of cavalry was passing by on the road-boys scarcely older than Gabe, looking thin and tired in their tattered gray. But when they saw the grounded sailors, staggering about on dry land with pans around their necks, like a gaggle of stranded geese, they cheered up considerably, and drifted out of sight still laughing and making catcalls at their less fortunate comrades in arms.

Admiral Semmes, without a ship under him, looked just as lost as anyone. He gave orders for the gunboats to be burned and set adrift. Then he called on his captains to muster the troops. Only now the captains were to be called colonels.

“My orders are to join General Lee in the field with all my forces!” the admiral called out. “And we shall proceed accordingly.”

Bridgeford nudged Gabe and said softly, “But where the devil is Lee, and how do we get there?”

Just then one of the officers shouted, “To the railroad depot! Forward, march!”

And they lurched off into a cloud of smoke and road dust.

Gabriel Hawks had just rejoined the army.

Newtown, Edinburgh

Dear Bill,

If I hadn’t received a terse (and utterly incomprehensible) letter from Mother on the same day your note arrived, I would not have dreamed of believing you. In fact, I would have been appalled at your lack of taste and judgment in perpetrating such a prank, and I might have considered giving your name to every insurance salesman in Danville, just to keep you occupied for a bit as unpleasantly as possible. But apparently it is true. Mother and Daddy are getting a divorce. I still haven’t fully grasped it. I suppose it would be useless asking them to stay together for the sake of the children when both of us have postgraduate degrees? But still!

I feel as if I’d just fallen off a tightrope and there is no longer any safety net beneath me. I suppose that family is one of those things that people simply take for granted. Or maybe I stopped thinking of Mother and Daddy as people with new experiences ahead of them. To me they just were, like Mount Rushmore or Old Faithful. They weren’t supposed to change. I was the one who was allowed to go off and have adventures. They were supposed to be the one constant in my life. I don’t like this new world one bit. Can we put it back the way it was? Did you try?

I tried calling home about six times, but Mother is being brittle and maddeningly perky. “These things happen.” “Of course we’ll always be friends.” You know the sort of rot people speak when they don’t want to tell you what’s really going on. I didn’t want to push it. And I called Daddy at his office and got much the same line, except in a more dignified and forbidding tone.

I know you think I’m going to be on the next plane to Richmond, but I can’t. I have job interviews coming up here and I simply can’t get away. Anyhow, divorces take months and months, so I suppose there’s no real rush. Perhaps we ought to let them simmer down a bit before we do any meddling. But meanwhile you must try to find out what’s going on! We can’t deal with this thing until we know the facts. Tell Mother that as her attorney you have to be told everything. And keep me posted. I mean often.

Bill, I’m relying on you. You’re the family’s only hope. Don’t let this happen!

Love,

Elizabeth