“Oh, Jeannette!”
I heard Mother B. rush into the room. I realized then I must have been in some danger, because she had never called me anything but Miss Bébinn. I’d crossed a bridge.
“Water,” I whispered.
She quickly poured a cup from the pitcher and helped me raise my head to drink.
“We were so worried, dear,” she said. “Your fever’s broken, thank God.”
“How long have I been sick?”
“About a week, my dear. It’s the end of June.”
There was something different in the room that I couldn’t place. The change confused me.
“Where am I?”
“In your room upstairs at the hospital.” My room? Couldn’t be.
“No,” I said. “Something . . . missing. Gone.”
“You’re just weak. You’ve been sick a long time.”
Her voice was so clear. Then it came to me. The strangeness was the quiet. There was no artillery thundering overhead. No shells exploding and tearing walls apart.
“Is the siege over?”
She nodded. “Yes, thank God. It ended sometime yesterday. General Grant is negotiating the terms of surrender.”
By the end of the day I was able to take some soup. The following day I had a small meal and felt strong enough to get dressed and sit near a window, where I overheard details of the forthcoming surrender. From the raised voices I gathered it wasn’t going well. General Grant wanted an unconditional surrender. The rebel commander, a man named Pemberton, seemed to think he could get better terms or go on fighting. He didn’t care that it would mean more killing. He declared more Yankees would die before he would allow them to enter Vicksburg. He seemed to me like a bold fool. I knew how we were suffering on our side, and we were well supplied. From the rebel wounded brought to our hospital, it was easy to see it was the opposite with them. Their bodies were thin and racked with scurvy.
It took a few days, but the two sides finally came to an agreement that they signed on July 4. The soldiers were going into the city for it, and I was determined to go, too, against Mother B.’s wishes. I wanted to see for myself what forty-seven days of shelling and artillery fire had wrought. When I insisted, she agreed to accompany me. We rode in a cart driven by Union men.
The destruction broke my heart. I had expected to see a city. Instead I saw buildings torn apart; sidewalks crushed into pieces; houses whose fences and gardens had been trampled. Dogs and cats whined with hunger. The dogs ran to our wagon and leaped at the wheels. One of the soldiers aimed a rifle at them, but Mother B. stopped him from firing.
The rebel soldiers were to be paroled, and they walked into the city from their posts to get the papers saying they were free to go. Many of them had no shoes, and their uniforms were tattered with holes. Their arms and necks were spotted with red welts that I guessed were insect bites. As we rode on, I saw that the city’s residents had built caves, like the shelters we had beneath Shirley House, to protect themselves from the shelling. Women and children, rail thin, with pale white faces and eerie hollow eyes, stared out at us as we passed.
“Who will feed them?” I asked Mother B.
“I’m sure the general will arrange it,” she said.
One woman stepped forward from a cave and asked for food for her girl. The child’s yellow curls beneath her small, dirty bonnet made her look so much like Calista I thought I would cry. I made the soldier driving the wagon stop, and I handed the woman some bread.
I decided, as the wagon moved on, that I wouldn’t wait anymore. It was time to make my way home to Catalpa Valley.
That night I lay awake. The litany of Papa’s land was on my mind and soon came to my lips.
Belle Neuve
Baton Bleu
Siana Grove
Chance Voir
Belle Verde
Mont Devreau
Petite Bébinn
I didn’t know how I would make my way home, but the litany felt like a magnet drawing me on. If I just started walking, I figured, I would make my way there. I could take the jerry-rigged road the soldiers had built through Louisiana. By God’s grace, I could make it. I got on my knees on the bed and prayed, but really it seemed all my thoughts, all my being, were already bent on this one prayer. I opened the drawer in my cupboard and took out my pistol. I cleaned it by candlelight and loaded it. I would have it with me from now on.
Chapter 19
In the early morning I awoke and wrote a letter to Mother B. I told her I was resigning my position so I could check on my family, if they were still alive. This was in Louisiana, I wrote, but I didn’t tell her where. I didn’t want her to have the burden of trying to conceal my location if she was questioned. I packed a bag and fashioned a sling for it from the cloth of my apron so I could wear it across my body. I put the pistol in my pocket and tied on my bonnet.
As I made my way down the road, I passed the porch of the house where some of the generals kept their headquarters. I caught the scent of a cigar and realized General Grant was sitting up there out of my line of sight. He’d never spoken to me before, so I thought I could walk on without his notice. But he called out to me in a calm, matter-of-fact way.
“Miss Bébinn.”
“Yes, sir?”
“You appear to be on the verge of a journey.”
“Yes, sir.”
“May I ask where you’re going?”
I looked up and could see him leaning on the front rail, his hat pushed back on his head.
“Sir, I grew up in Louisiana.” I hesitated. I hadn’t said these words complete, out loud, to anyone. “My papa owned a great plantation. My half sister is still there, I think. I haven’t been home since I was sold away a few years back. I want to find her.” A sob rose in the back of my throat, but I stood firm. “I want to go home.”
He knocked a bit of ash from his cigar onto the ground in front of the porch. “Is that wise? The surrender is still new. You may come upon rebels who don’t know about it.”
“I figured I’d take the road our men built out that way. I’m hoping our soldiers might be more plentiful in the area than rebels right now.”
He nodded. “Come in, Miss Bébinn. I’d like to have a word with you.”
“Yes, sir.” I went up the steps, but I wasn’t happy about it. It was clear he wasn’t going to let me go. I had to figure out how to convince him or, failing that, devise a different plan for slipping away.
In his study, the general tapped cigar ash into a tin plate and sat himself on the edge of his desk. “You’re right about that. There are probably more Louisiana men here and in Tennessee than there are in Louisiana right now. But that don’t make it safe.”
I shifted on my feet. “I still aim to go, sir.”
He nodded and seemed to study me. “How long have you been nursing for the army, Miss Bébinn?”
“About two years.”
“Have you received any pay?”
I shook my head. “No, sir. But I haven’t wanted for anything. I was glad to have food, shelter. And I was grateful for the work.”
“You’ve tended a lot of wounded, I’m sure.”
“Yes, sir, but I can’t count them all. So many.”
“Do you know any of them in particular, I mean someone you’re comfortable with?”