Chapter 2

April 14, 1867

Charlotte Heth busied herself setting out lunch at the long plank table which was shaded by an ancient oak that grew in front of her parents’ home – or what was left of her parents’ home. It had been her home too, but now it was a burned shell, a remnant of what they had started calling the Antebellum South. The blackened walls still stood, as did the front porch and the four Grecian columns that supported the portico. Sometimes she wished the rain squall had not come along before the fire had consumed the place. Now it remained; a giant white and smoke blackened hulk on the hill that overlooked the property, a constant reminder of all she’d lost.

She kept her back to the house as she set out the dishes, shutting away the memories. Bessie, her former house slave, and Mary, the cook, helped with the preparations. When the war ended their field slaves disappeared, but for the most part the house staff stayed. They were no longer slaves, but they stayed because the unknown was not an option, especially for young women. Some of the former slaves drifted back from Savannah and Atlanta with stories of mistreatment, rape and murder. They also told of being unwelcome in the North. So now Charlotte had twenty-three people to care for and worry about.

Former slave or not, everyone pulled their weight. They worked dawn to dusk, especially now, getting the crops planted. She felt vaguely uncomfortable that their toil included the Sabbath, but there was nothing for it. There was the large vegetable garden for food, the orchard to be tended and most of all the planting of the cash crops, cotton and tobacco, and some corn. They never called it a plantation. Her father and grandfather had felt that the term too pretentious. They just called it the ‘farm.’ It encompassed over five hundred fifty acres and was prime farmland west of Savannah.

It saddened her that she and her younger brother Tom, her son Michael, and her mother were all that was left of the family. She watched Tom in the field below as he and the mule worked the plow and made even rows in the large field. Behind them came seven year old Michael and Bessie’s son John, who was six, each with a bag of seed, sowing into the fresh made furrows in the red dirt. They didn’t have enough people to cultivate the entire place but they worked as many acres as they could.

She pulled a clean but well-worn lace handkerchief from the pocket of her apron and wiped her face and then pushed her auburn hair back. It was April, but already warm. She thanked God that the spring rains had come just before planting and the ground was ready for seed.

Tom’s limp was more pronounced today. He had been at it since sunrise; and all day for three straight days. She knew the stump of his leg were it joined his wooden leg would be bloody before nightfall, but he refused to stop. Tom had been serving with her husband’s uncle, General Harry Heth, when an army surgeon had amputated his shattered leg below the knee at Gettysburg in the summer of ‘63. He had come home to convalesce, and she had come with him, leaving her late husband’s family outside Charlottesville Virginia, taking their son to the relative safety of Georgia.

Within a few months Tom returned to the Army. She had called him a fool and wept for a day after he left. Four months later she received word her husband, James had been killed in some nameless battle in Virginia. She had been widowed at twenty-two, exactly three years ago. But even here tragedy found her. When the Yankee Army under General Sherman marched from Atlanta, her father joined the troops trying to block their way. He died of his wounds just a few days after being brought home. Her mother grieved for him every day, but she never lost her spirit.

Charlotte watched her mother. She was on the side of the house on her hands and knees weeding the vegetable garden. Charlotte marveled at her strength.

Tragically, within days after her father’s passing the war found them.

She remembered that day. It was December 1864 and a cold wind had come from the north. The skies were cloudy and there was smoke on the horizon from the fires she knew the Yankee troops had set. She had heard the stories of how General Sherman was cutting a fifty mile swath through the South from Atlanta to his intended target Savannah, burning everything in his path. He had set out to teach the rebels a lesson.

She stood on the wide porch, her father’s shotgun in her shaking hands that late afternoon as she watched the Yankee cavalry ride up the long, now-rutted drive to the house. They seemed less like a conquering army then a ragged bunch of men dressed in dust and mud-covered faded blue. They and their horses looked ready to drop. There was maybe a dozen in this party led by an officer. That gave her scant relief.

He stopped his horse not more than ten feet from her. On the large black stallion he almost came level with her position on the porch. He had a faded cloak covering his uniform. She leveled the shotgun. He looked at her but made no attempt to pull a weapon. She knew the rest of his men had stopped and were watching this tableau. Slowly and using his left hand he reached up and took off his black hat.

“Ma’am.”

He bowed his head slightly as he said it.

Out of habit, Charlotte gave a slight curtsey, but the shotgun never wavered.

Even with his dark hair plastered to his head, she could see he was a handsome man, but his face was hardened by a scar on his right cheek that was still quite red and extended from his upper cheekbone to the corner of his mouth. It was hard to tell his age but at most he was thirty.

“May I dismount?”

She nodded. He spoke with a not unpleasant accent. She had met some Yankees before the war and many, especially those from the northeast, were particularly grating on her ear.

He moved slowly as if he was a much older man. That’s when she saw the ragged, dirty, blood-soaked bandage on his left thigh. She quashed a pang of sympathy.

He stood at the bottom of the wide steps still holding his hat, and obviously favoring his left leg. “I’m sorry ma’am ... but ... you and your family must vacate this house.”

There was a terrible weariness in his voice.

“I think not sir!” She cocked both hammers of the gun.

She watched him as he leaned against the wide porch rail at the bottom of the steps, his eyes as dark as ebony. There was a great sadness there too. It was as if he was too burdened to care whether he lived or died. It was almost as if he was asking her for relief.

Tears came to her eyes as she lowered the gun. She angrily brushed them away, not wanting this man to see her weakness. “Can you not spare us our home, sir?” she pleaded. It’s just my mother and I ... and my young son ... we can’t harm you.”

The tears streamed.

“You’ve taken everyone else ... everyone.” She sobbed.

Faced with this latest tragedy, she suddenly felt overwhelmed and faint. She had eaten little in several days. She started to fall, her legs no longer able to hold her.

Overcome by the memory of that day, Charlotte involuntarily looked back at the blackened house. Suddenly, it was as if he was there again, the memory sharp. She looked up at the spot on the porch where she had collapsed.

Somehow, even with his wounded leg the Yankee officer caught her. She felt his strong arms around her holding her. She remembered the smell of him, sweat and dirt and horse and something more. She allowed the blackness to overwhelm her.

When she regained her senses she was on the cane settee on the porch and he was sitting in a wicker chair beside her holding her hand. She looked into his face and saw concern and a gentleness there that belied the scar and the wound. His eyes still had that haunted look. This man was a warrior but he hated war.

At that moment he remembered he was holding her hand and gently let it go. “I’m very sorry ma’am to have troubled you ... and to have caused distress.”

He seemed genuinely concerned and apologetic.

She started as she saw two of his blue-coated troopers carrying a long wooden sideboard from the house and down the steps.

Her temper flared, and she said with some heat, “Sir, do you intend to loot as well as burn?”

He smiled. It was a melancholy smile. “No ma’am, your mother has enlisted my men to save the furniture.”

Charlotte was astonished. “What did you say?”

Just then her mother appeared. “Come dear, no time to waste. These gentlemen have agreed to help us. They will move our things into the barn, which the Colonel has agreed to spare, as well as the livestock.”

She sat up and he handed her a cup with water in it. She drank. “Why?”

He looked at her, the sadness reappearing. “I am very tired of all the destruction this war has caused. Such a waste.”

“Will you be disciplined?”

He shook his head. “I don’t believe so. Headquarters will see a big fire on the horizon and we will ride in and say we have accomplished our mission, and then move on.”

“But your men?”

“Will they report me?” He looked across the porch at his men in the yard. “They’re loyal men and ferocious in a fight, but have little stomach for burning houses and such.”

“Will others come?”

“No. The army is on the move, so you should be safe.”

She watched his men carry more furniture to the barn. She was ashamed to see how dilapidated it seemed. There really wasn’t much left. They had sold much of the furniture, along with items of value like the silver to help them survive. The few remaining coins and heirlooms were buried in the woods, but what remained was pitifully small.

“Excuse me, Colonel, we found these.”

One of the soldiers held her father’s pistols and rifle and his officer’s sword.

“They belonged to my father. He’s buried over there.” She pointed across the way to the family cemetery, surrounded by a low whitewashed brick fence.

The Colonel nodded his understanding.

“Sergeant, leave them here with ... I’m sorry I don’t know your name.”