Chapter 15: Registration

1871

The election registrars met in one of the smaller courtrooms on the first floor of the old courthouse. Robert Williams sat on a narrow, wooden bench along with about twenty other men, two of whom were black. As each man's name was called by the clerk, the would-be voter rose to stand at the end of the long, bare table. Sometimes the registrars asked him a question or two but most often the group's secretary simply stamped the paper and handed it to Mr. Meriwether, the head registrar, to be signed.

The secretary, dressed like the other men in a long, dark coat, white shirt and floppy tie, was M. Peter Holmes, his muttonchop whiskers now barely an echo of their luxuriant selves. Also at the table was the newly chosen State's Attorney, Spencer C. Jones, a handsome and ambitious one-time Confederate cavalry officer whose pride in his past was unbounded and whose stories attempted to improve it with each telling.

"Williams," said the clerk in a rather squeaky voice. He cleared his throat and spat with a clanging response from the cuspidor. "Robert Williams. Come on up here."

Robert shuffled past the other men in his row and stepped to the end of the long table.

"Democrat it say here." The chairman peered at him through thick spectacles. Dust particles flickered in the beams of sunlight coming through the dirty windows.

"Yes sir," said Robert, hands folded behind him in one of the first positions he had learned as a soldier, feet as wide apart as his shoulders.

"Democrat," said the man again, raising his voice and showing Robert's paper to the elderly man beside him.

"Weren't he a blue ... a Fed'ral soldier?" said the white haired man, glancing from Robert to the chairman and back to Robert, making a face as though he had swallowed something sour. His gray tongue flickered in and out of his purple lips.

"He was," said the chairman, nodding his head and looking regretful.

The older man grumbled something and turned to spit.

"Rockville District?" said the chairman.

"Yes sir," said Robert.

"Anyone have a question?" the chairman asked the other registrars. "Or objection."

One balding man nodded, looked at Robert and said, "You ever signed that loyalty oath, boy?"

"No sir," said Robert, feeling his stomach churn and afraid others might hear it.

"You in the war?" asked another man whose shaggy mustache was stained yellow by tobacco. He squinted, obviously trying to see clearly, his gnarled fingers laced together on the tabletop.

"Yes sir," said Robert. "But not for long."

"What?" said the man, cupping his ear. "Speak up."

"I was captured at Bull Run," Robert said.

"First Manassas?" asked the man shaking his bald head as the chairman pulled at his sleeve. "Lemme finish."

"Right," said Robert, gulping down a bubble of gas. "Yes sir."

"Who captured you, boy?"

"Not sure, sir, some of Stonewall's men I think, Virginians I'm sure. It was kind of confused, hot and confused. I was never exchanged or pardoned."

"Lord," said the man explosively, "you a mutha'fuckin' damnyankee, a Union so'jer?"

"Yes sir," said Robert, clamping his jaw so he would not smile.

"By damn," snorted the old man, "damn it all t'hell an' back, an' you want t'vote in this blessed county?"

"Yes sir," said Robert, nodding his head and looking around the table at his inquisitors. The faces he saw were not friendly. He licked his dry lips.

"Now calm down, Jim," the chairman said to the man beside him. "Calm down." He patted the man's long arm.

"May I?" asked Spencer Jones, slowly standing, tall and ramrod straight, a bit thick around the middle, britches tight on his thighs, boots aglow.

"Of course," said the chairman, who like the other registrars had been appointed by Governor Swann from a list prepared by W. Veirs Bouic. Judge Bouic's goal had been to restore the proper order of things and to undo the harm caused by what all right-thinking local men knew were unfair and punitive registration acts passed during the war years.

"Did you grow up here, in this county, son?" asked the glaring attorney, thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, eyes narrowed. A heavy gold chain hung across his wide stomach.