The Union leaders had to attempt a new tactic on Vicksburg. Only it wasn’t a new military tactic. It was an old one—the siege. I heard the generals even had to study historical sieges so they understood how one worked. When I thought about it, though, the strategy sounded simple, with just two pieces. The Union troops would surround the city and cut off supplies to the inhabitants, Confederate soldiers included. It would be like putting hands around a throat and choking the person to death. That is, if they didn’t die from the second piece of the strategy: relentlessly bombarding the city with shells and artillery fire.
I must have slept during the siege, but it wasn’t restful. No way it could be. Even behind the lines, we were subjected to the same noise—constant cannon fire and thunderous artillery. The Confederates returned the shelling, and many Union soldiers took shelter in caves they built into the hill below the white building called Shirley House that contained the regiment’s headquarters. The citizens of Vicksburg had to do the same, and I was sad thinking of the women and children in those dark holes, hungry and frightened.
Late one afternoon the stretcher-bearers were bringing in another wave of wounded. I was directing them where to put the men. The ones who needed surgery went straight into the hospital building. The ones who could wait or, unfortunately, might not make it went to the cots under the pavilion. Sometimes I just didn’t know and referred them to a doctor under the tent. I saw a young soldier who had taken a minié ball through the eye. I didn’t know how such a wound could be tended, so I sent him to the doctor. Another man whose left leg was nothing but a mass of blood—he went to surgery. I moved as quickly as I could. I was able to be fast because such sights no longer horrified me. I’m sad to say it, but that’s how it was. After a while it became a common thing to see a man’s body mangled—limbs blown off, skulls shattered. But in a war, you don’t look away. You can’t look away. You have to look and look closely; put your hands on what’s torn and broken and bloody and do your best to bind up what you can. Help lessen pain. Offer words of encouragement.
That day I happened to look at a stretcher-bearer and saw a familiar face. I directed him into the tent and followed him with my eyes. I couldn’t remember his name. He had been a slave at Holloway’s, a well-known fisherman who’d generously shared his catch beyond his family circle. He was also one of the faces that had stared silently and coldly at me when Fanny and I had walked to the big house each morning. His eyes were wide and dark, and he was short and squat in his build and walked slightly bowlegged. Fanny had said, “Don’t mind Phocas. He don’t mean nothing by it.”
Phocas. It was him. He’d gained a few pounds, but his walk was the same. So were the eyes. When he went to leave again, I touched his arm. “Phocas. Do you remember me? From Holloway’s?”
He frowned at me, and after a moment his expression cleared. “You that light girl. The one that didn’t talk.”
“Yes. Can you come back later? Tell me what happened?”
“You mean after you and Silas ran away?”
“Yes. I can make you a meal. Just come up to the hospital.”
“All right.”
My head buzzed with curiosity for the rest of the day. Really, I only cared to know about Aunt Nancy Lynne. Unless Phocas had run away, too, he had to know news about her. All the Holloway slaves knew Aunt Nancy Lynne. I made a simple supper of stew and bread in the hospital kitchen and waited at the window. It was possible Phocas wouldn’t come. He might be sent on other duties. From Silas’s work, I knew they often buried the dead at night. They dug huge holes and pushed the bodies into one massive grave. The men were dying by the thousands—there was no other way. But soon I saw Phocas down the road, making his way up the path to the hospital steps. I met him at the door and shook his hand.
“Thank you for coming, Phocas. My name, my real name, is Jeannette.”
“So you can talk, huh?” He tilted his head like he would examine me.
“I wasn’t supposed to. It was so no one would find out I had some education, that I could read. I didn’t want to deceive you all.”
He nodded.
I took him to the table and offered him a bowl of stew and bread. He started eating, and I sat across from him. I didn’t want to interrupt his meal by making him talk right away. Instead of asking questions, I told him about me and Silas—how Aunt Nancy Lynne and I had spent months making clothes for us, how I had left the plantation dressed as a man and thought we’d be caught when I’d seen Boss Everett on the train.
“Sweet Jesus,” he said when I finished my story. “That’s why they didn’t find y’all. They had those dogs out there for days, sniffing for miles around. Boss Everett ’bout pitched a fit when he came back from his trip and heard you was gone. But they couldn’t find a trace of either of you. It was like you disappeared into the air.”
I gripped my fingers under the table. “Aunt Nancy Lynne didn’t get in any trouble, did she?”
“Oh no! She too smart for that. She went to Missus straightaway and said she upset and scared because one of her house girls was missing and that you might have run off with Silas.”
“Yes, oh my goodness, of course.” I should have known she would know what to do.
“She was just crying and crying, and there was Missus consoling her and telling her they’d find you and bring you back.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. Aunt Nancy Lynne was smart.
“And of course Massa was sad to lose his best man. I think that made them stuck on Aunt Nancy Lynne more than ever. Massa died in the summer of ’60.”
When I saw that he had finished his meal, I poured coffee for both of us. “How did you get here, Phocas? Did you run away?”
He shook his head. “Didn’t run. But I came here because I knew there’d be food.”
“There’s no food at the Holloway Plantation?”
“There ain’t no Holloway Plantation. Not anymore.”
My hand went to my mouth. “What happened?”
“A few months ago Missus Holloway heard about the Yankees ransacking the big houses in the country. She had us go out into the backyard and bury the family silver. Then one day she and one of her younger boys—the other two are fighting with the rebels—went down the road to check on some neighbors she ain’t heard from in a spell.
“She get there and didn’t find nothing but ashes. House burned down. Clothes and furniture all over the place. Well, that done it. Just about lost her mind. She came back and called for me to bring her our big wagon. Made me dig up all that silver. While I was doing that, she had the rest of the family and Aunt Nancy Lynne loading up the cart with the silver, their clothes. They took the pictures off the walls. She even made them take down that damn chandelier and put it in the wagon! That big old thing from the front hall. Don’t know why they’d want all that nonsense weighing them down.”
“And Aunt Nancy Lynne! She’s still all right?” It was so good to hear her name spoken.
Phocas chewed on a piece of bread. “Well, let me tell you. I get on a horse, and they all get in that wagon, Aunt Nancy Lynne with them. Missus said we were riding for the bayou. Wanted to get a skiff to take them west. Missus said if we could get west, we could catch a train.”