Brigader General Barnard E. Bee, CSA
“There stands Jackson, like a stone wall.”
No one knows whether Bee was admiring Brig. Gen. Thomas J. Jackson’s defense on Henry Hill during First Manassas, or whether he was complaining because Jackson was not advancing on Yankee positions. Either way, the nickname “Stonewall” stuck. Bee was wounded during the battle and died the following day.
FOREVER BE FREE
By Rich Trzupek
Copyright 2009 Richard J. Trzupek
Chapter Six
Across the Potomac River in Maryland, events were drawing rapidly to a climax. Special Order 191 made its way quickly to the headquarters of General George McClellan, Commander of the Army of the Potomac, the chief Union army in the east. It didn’t take McClellan long to realize that he had been given a once in a lifetime opportunity. He knew every move General Lee would make. He was certain to defeat the Confederates now. The war would be over -won.
Skillfully, McClellan moved his great army – over 100,000 strong – toward Lee’s. The Army of the Potomac smashed through a defensive line Lee hastily threw up in the mountain passes. Lee’s army retreated back toward the Potomac. He was baffled by the turn in events. General McClellan suddenly seemed to be able to read his mind. Lee headed for the Potomac River, simultaneously sending urgent word to Stonewall Jackson to send help. If Jackson could join him in time, he might be strong enough to beat McClellan. If not, Lee would slip across the broad Potomac and, with the big river between the opposing armies, to safety.
McClellan’s army pursued Lee relentlessly. As Lee headed for the Maryland river town of Sharpsburg, McClellan’s soldiers were right behind, nipping at his heels. Too close, Lee realized. There would not be time enough to cross the river if he must. He turned the Army of Northern Virginia north along the banks of a creek running near Sharpsburg; the Antietam Creek. Along the banks of this little stream, his army began to dig trenches and place their cannon, waiting for the soldiers in blue who were trying to destroy them.
Miles away, in Harpers Ferry, Stonewall Jackson read General Lee’s message with alarm. He knew that he would have to move quickly if he was going to save his friend and superior. But the thought of leaving the 14,000 Union soldiers untouched in Harpers Ferry -not to mention all of the fine cannon and muskets -was too much to bear. He was so close. He would take Harpers Ferry, but it must be done quickly.
To complete the capture, Jackson knew he must take the one remaining line of hills: Bolivar Heights. Once he had thrown off the Northern Soldiers defending these heights, Harpers Ferry would be surrounded and without hope. Jackson knew the type of soldier Dixon Miles was and had no doubt Miles would surrender the town.
Fiercely, Jackson’s men attacked the Union soldiers defending Bolivar Heights. The battle was brief. The boys in blue were unable to stop the ragged soldiers in grey and they retreated as fast as they could into the town. Jackson moved more of his cannon to the newly captured hills and prepared to renew his bombardment, this time from all sides. It would not be long now.
Inside the armory, the news from Bolivar Heights shattered what little will remained in Dixon Miles. Frightened beyond reason, unwilling to face another fierce attack by the ferocious Stonewall Jackson, Miles decided he had no choice but to surrender.
The commander’s decision infuriated Grimes Davis. Knowing something of the events in Maryland, Davis believed his duty – the duty of every soldier in Harpers Ferry – was to hold out as long as possible, to hold out to the last man if need be. They had to do everything they could to keep Stonewall from reaching Lee. If Lee could be beaten on the banks of the Potomac, the war could end and the killing would stop forever. Whatever lives might be lost here, so many more would be saved in the long run.
Colonel Miles would not listen to the rough-hewn cavalryman. More drunk than ever and half-crazed from fear and despair, his mind was set. Red faced, he dismissed Davis and started preparing a message to send to General Jackson. Frustrated, Davis wrestled with his thoughts. He knew what he had to do, but he was loathe do it. Finally, after some time, he made up his mind. He would do what he had to do and Dixon Miles be damned.
Privately, he spoke for a while to Lieutenant Green. The young officer readily agreed to his chief’s plan and set off to make the necessary preparations. There was one more bit of unfinished business that Colonel Davis needed to take care of. The discussion he and Miles had with Aunt Jean and Sara troubled him deeply. The sad, fearful look on Sara’s face gnawed at him. The headstrong young girl reminded him so much of his own daughter. He knew that Sara would worry endlessly about the young slave girl. Well, Davis thought, at least I can put her mind at ease on that score.
Colonel Davis returned to the bombproof and pulled Sara and her aunt aside into a quiet corner where they could talk privately.
“Mrs. Ercinek, Miss Larson,” Davis began “there are a couple of things I think you should know, but need your assurance that will keep them in strictest confidence.”
“You have our word,” Aunt Jean said. Sara nodded gravely in agreement.
“Good,” Davis said. He was a shrewd judge of character and he had long-ago decided that these women would be true to their word. They were, he believed, women of honor.
“First of all, I don’t want you to worry about the little colored girl. She will be safe, I can assure you,” he said.
“Not if she’s going back to Martinsburg,” Sara protested.
Colonel Davis shook his head. “She won’t be going back to Martinsburg.”
“Colonel?” Aunt Jean questioned.
Davis exhaled slowly and then plunged forward. “Ladies, you must not tell a soul, but Colonel Miles “is even now preparing to surrender Harpers Ferry to the rebels.”
“No!” Sara and her aunt gasped simultaneously.
“I’m afraid it’s true,” Davis said. “Dixon Miles is a fool and a coward. But my troopers and I won’t be surrendering with him. We’re going to ride out tonight and make our way to McClellan. We’ll take the little slave girl with us.”
“Where will she go?” Aunt Jean asked. “Surely she can not stay with you and your soldiers.”
“No,” Colonel Davis agreed. “Of course she can’t. I have friends not far from here who will get her someplace safe. You’ve heard of the underground railroad?”
Sara and her aunt shook their heads, not understanding.
“Not everyone in the North believes it’s right to return escaped slaves,” Davis continued. “There are a great many people who think, as I do, that the Fugitive Slave Act is a horrible tragedy. The railroad is made of some of these people. We’ve helped a great many escaped slaves, hiding them and secretly moving them north, into Canada, where they will be safe.”
“And you can make sure that Lucinda gets to these people?” Sara asked.
Davis smiled. “I can,” he said. “There is a great lady who will meet me not far from here. She’s a small, old colored woman who used to be a slave herself. She’s brave and she’s smart. She’s helped more slaves escape than anyone I know of. Harriet Tubman is her name. Believe me Sara, Lucinda will be safe with Miss Tubman. I’d take one Harriet Tubman over a regiment of soldiers.”
Sara was relieved. The weathered soldier was a brave man himself. She understood that what he was doing was very risky, not only in trying to escape the rebel net, but in choosing to help a young black girl who was -by law stolen “property”.
“How will you get through the rebel lines?” Sara asked.
Davis laughed. “Don’t you worry, we’ll find a way,” he said. “If we can, we’ll find someone who knows the roads around these parts. There are always old trails that don’t show up on any maps. The rebels don’t have enough troops to cover every little footpath. Oh, we’ll find a way all right.”
Sara was silent for a moment, thinking. There were few people who knew the country around Harpers Ferry better than she. She could show Colonel Davis secret roads that the rebels would not know of.
Aunt Jean, reading her niece’s thoughts, squeezed Sara’s shoulder in a silent message. The meaning was clear. It was too dangerous. It was no place for a child. Sara grasped her aunt’s direction eagerly. In truth, the thought of accompanying Colonel Davis frightened her more than she would like to admit. She had quite enough of the war and the explosions and the dead bodies. She didn’t want to meet any more of Stonewall’s soldiers, especially deep in the dark woods.
The fear she felt made a part of her feel ashamed and made another part of her angry. Why should she have to face such a choice? Why did a brave man like Colonel Davis have to risk his life so? Why did there have to be a war at all?
“It’s all so stupid,” she said finally.
“What do you mean?” Aunt Jean asked.
“If the north is just going to send slaves back anyway, why are we fighting a war at all?” Sara said.
Grimes Davis squatted on his haunches, so that he might bring his eyes level with Sara’s. “This war is not about slavery,” he said somberly. “Slavery is just a piece of it.”
“If it’s not about slavery, what then? Why are we fighting at all?” the young girl repeated.
Colonel Davis struggled to find the right words. It was difficult for him to understand sometimes, much less to find a way to explain it.
“Sara,” he began slowly, feeling his way along “this country of ours is a great experiment, maybe the greatest in the history of the world. There has never been another country like it. For thousands of years, countries have been ruled by kings and queens and emperors. Some were good and some were bad, but the people who they ruled had nothing to say in the matter.”
“When we broke away from Great Britain, we decided to change all that. Here, the country would be ruled by the people. The people would choose the leaders they liked and they would get rid of the leaders they don’t like. The people would be the boss of their leaders, not the other way around.”
“The kings and queens didn’t like that, you know. If this experiment worked – if the people – could rule themselves, why have kings and queens? What would happen to them and their palaces and their beautiful clothes? They didn’t want America to work, but we’ve made it work. We’ve made it work better than anything else in the world.”
He was talking passionately now, his voice rising and earnest. It wasn’t Grimes Davis talking at all any longer not really. He had caught the rhythm of something else of a music that was bigger and greater than him or any man or woman. The music was flowing through him now.
“But Sara,” he said “it can’t work – this great, wonderful experiment won’t work – if we can’t all work together, if we can’t all agree that we will follow the rules that the majority of us decide upon. Can you see that? If the South can decide it doesn’t like this law or that President, after the majority of the people have decided, then the people aren’t really ruling at all. If the South can decide to quit when they don’t like something and go off on their own, well then what’s to keep Wisconsin or Illinois or Maine from doing it next? What’s to keep any city from doing the same thing? There would be no more United States. That would be bad enough, but it would mean that this great experiment would fail. The world would laugh. The kings and queens would win, maybe forever.”
Sara’s heart quickened to the words and her aunt looked at the cavalryman with newfound respect. Who could have guessed that such stirring thoughts lie in the heart of the slight, dirty soldier? Sara thought about what he said and compared it to what he was doing. There was something that didn’t make sense.
“But Colonel,” she said “you’re breaking the law now by not following Colonel Miles orders and by taking Lucinda, aren’t you? Isn’t that the same thing?”
Grimes Davis threw back his head and howled in laughter. “My goodness Sara Larson, you are far too bright for your age. God help the young man who marries you!”
Sara blushed with the compliment, but she also wondered if the Colonel was avoiding the question.
The cavalryman continued. “You’re right Sara,” he said “I’m breaking quite a few laws. Good or bad, I realize that is always a terrible thing. Moreover, it’s a thing we must always be prepared to pay a price for, no matter how good our intentions. The law is the law, even when it’s a bad one. If am punished for what I intend to do, I will accept that.”
Davis paused a moment, contemplating the possibility of what he had said. He could be thrown in jail – or worse for disobeying orders and for helping a slave to escape. He knew that. If it happened, he could make no defense, nor would he try. A person must accept the consequences of their decisions. Grimes Davis had never lived his life any other way.
“Sara,” he continued quietly “sometimes there might be a law so bad, or there might be someone who needs your help so much that breaking the rules is the only thing to do. It is a terribly serious thing to decide. The reasons must be very, very good indeed. I’ve thought about it a lot. What I do, I do for the sake of my country, my men and a little slave girl who has no other choice. Those are, I think, reasons good enough. If they are not, so be it.”
“But Sara, when the South decided to leave this country, to risk destroying the best form of government the world has ever known, why did they do it? They did it because the world is changing. They did it because the North is growing and building great new cities and because thousands of people are fleeing the kings and queens to live in those cities. The North grows stronger and the world is changing, but the South doesn’t want it to change. They want to keep their great plantations and, yes, to keep their slaves. And they know –they know Sara – that as the North grows stronger and bigger, they won’t be able to keep up. They won’t have enough votes to do whatever they want. They won’t be able to keep their poor people from making great cities themselves and making their lives better. The rich people won’t be able to keep their big plantations and the slaves that make them rich. That’s why they broke the rules. Now Sara, I ask you, does that seem like a good reason to destroy the country to you?”
Sara shook her head. Of course it didn’t. These were all bad reasons. They were not only bad reasons for the people in the North and for the slaves, they were bad reasons for the South. They were bad reasons for the whole world. Sara understood. There was more at stake than she ever had guessed.
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