Notes

after a surrender at Richmond. Not well, he suspected: who would care
about the high general of the losing side?
Page 212
George McClellan should have considered that before he ran his bootless
race for President, Lee thought. But then, Mc-Clellan's timing was generally
bad. His own humor quite restored by that snide thought, Lee sat down to
wait for a breakfast menu.
The summer sun beat down on Nashville's main square. The maples that
grew along Washington and Alston streets gave some shade, but could do
nothing to cut the heat or the oppressive humidity. When a buggy rattled
west down Washington, it kicked up so much dust that it reminded Nate
Caudell of his marching days in the army. But despite the beastly weather, a
good-sized crowd had assembled in front of the Nash County courthouse.
"What's going on?" Caudell asked a man who looked about to melt in frock
coat, vest, cravat, and stovepipe.
"The nigger auction starts at noon," the fellow answered.
"Is that today?" Caudell, who could no more afford a slave than he could a
private railroad coach and a locomotive to haul it, skirted the edges of the
gathering and started into Raeford Liles's general store. The front door was
locked. Caudell scratched his head-but for Sunday, Liles never closed the
place. Then he saw the storekeeper among the men waiting for the auction
to start. Liles was serious about wanting a servant, then. Caudell recognized
several other potential buyers, among them George Lewis; his former
captain had been elected to the state legislature, and lately spent more time
down in Raleigh than in Nash County. Lewis saw Caudell, too, and waved
to him. Caudell waved back. He had to check himself from coming to
attention and saluting.
But the crowd held a good many strangers, too. Caudell heard the soft
accents of Alabama and Mississippi, while a couple of men spoke with a
Texas twang he remembered from the army. His ears also caught another
accent, one that made his head whip around. Sure enough, there stood three
Rivington men, talking among themselves. Despite the coming of peace,
they still preferred the splotched, muddy-looking clothes they'd worn in
camp and into battle. They looked more comfortable in them than most of
the Southern gentlemen did in their more formal attire.
The courthouse clock struck twelve. Men with watches took them out to
check them against the clock. A minute or so later, the bells of the Baptist
church announced the coming of noon. After another brief delay, the bells
of the Methodist church, which was farther down Alston Street, also
declared the hour. Caudell wondered which clock was right, and whether
any one of them was. It didn't really matter, not to him; who but a railroad
man like Henry Pleasants needed to know the time exact to the minute?
Despite its announced starting time, the slave auction showed no sign of
getting under way. By the way they chatted and smoked and dipped snuff,
few of the would-be buyers had expected that it would. But the Rivington
men began to fidget. One of them pointedly looked at his wrist-Caudell saw
he wore a tiny watch there, held on with a leather strap. A few minutes
later, the Rivington man looked at his wristwatch again. When nothing
happened after a third such irritated glance, the man shouted, "What the
bleeding hell are we waiting for?"
His impatience set off the crowd like a percussion cap igniting the charge of
a Springfield cartridge. In an instant, a dozen men were yelling for things to
get moving. If he'd kept quiet, they likely would have stood around another
hour without complaining.
A man in a suit of exaggeratedly dandyish cut hurried out of the courthouse
and sprang up onto the platform that had been hastily built in front of it.
Pausing only to spit tobacco juice into the dust, he said, Page 213
"We'll commence shortly, gentlemen, I promise. And when you see the fine
niggers Josiah A. Beard has to sell"-he preened slightly, to show one and all
he was the Josiah A. Beard in question-"you'll be glad you waited, I
promise you will." His broad, beaming face radiated candor. Caudell
distrusted him on sight.
He kept up a bright stream of talk for another few minutes. The Rivington
men quickly started looking impatient again. Before they started a new
round of shouts, though, a black man came out of the courthouse and up to
stand beside Josiah Beard. The auctioneer said, "Here we are, gentlemen,
the first on the list, a fine field hand and laborer, a Negro named Columbus,
aged thirty-two years."
"Let's see him," one of the Texas men called.
Beard turned to Columbus. "Strip off," he said curtly. The black man pulled
his coarse cotton shirt over his head, stepped out of his trousers. "Turn
around," the auctioneer told him. Columbus obeyed. Beard raised his voice,
spoke to the audience: "Now you see him. Not a mark on his back, as you'll
note for yourselves. He's tractable as well as willing. He's a genuine cotton
nigger, by God! Look at his toes, at his fingers. Look at those legs! If you
have got the right soil, buy him and put your trust in Providence, my
friends. He's as good for ten bales as I am for a julep at eleven o'clock. So
what am I bid for this fine buck nigger?"
The bidding started at five hundred dollars and rose rapidly. The Texas man
who'd asked to see all of Columbus ended up buying him for $1,450. Even
with prices still high, that was a goodly sum, but he seemed unperturbed. "I
could sell him in Houston tomorrow and make four hundred back," he
declared to anyone who cared to listen. "Niggers is still mighty dear
anywheres in the trans-Mississippi." Another black mounted to the stand.
"Second on the list," Beard said. "An excellent field hand and laborer,
gentlemen, named Dock, a Negro aged twenty-six years." Without waiting
for a customer's request, he added, "Strip off, Dock."
"Yassuh." Dock's Negro patois was thick as molasses. He shed his shirt and
trousers, turned before he was told to do so. His back, like Columbus's, had
never known the lash, but an ugly scar seamed the inside of his left thigh,
about six inches below his genitals.
Josiah Beard once more started to extol the slave's docility. Before he was
well begun, George Lewis called, "Hold on, there! You, boy! Where did
you get that bullet wound?" Dock's head lifted. He looked straight at Lewis.
"Got this heah outside o' Water Proof, Louziana, las'
yeah, f 'urn dat Bedford Forrest. He done cotched me, but my three frens,
they gits away." The auctioneer did his best to pretend Dock had never been
a soldier in arms against the Confederacy. Bidding was slow all the same,
and petered out just past eight hundred dollars. One of the Rivington men
bought the slave. He paid gold, which did a little to restore Josiah Beard's
spirits. As Dock came down from the platform toward him, the Rivington
man told him, "You do your work and we'll get on fine, boy. Just don't put
on airs because you used to carry a rifle. I can lick you any way you name:
bare hands, axes, whips, guns, any way at all. Any time you want to try, you
tell me, but you have your grave picked out beforehand. Do you understand
me?" "You don't need to lick me none, masser-you gots de law wid you,"
Dock said. But before he answered, he measured his new owner with his
eyes, saw that the Rivington man meant exactly what he said and could
back it up without the law. He nodded, more man to man than slave to
master, but respectfully nonetheless. Page 214
Caudell thought the Negro sensible to submit-if he was submitting and not
shamming. If he was shamming, he'd likely regret it. Caudell had seen that
the Rivington men were uncommon fighters. More slaves went up on the
block. Some did have scarred backs. A couple of them showed the marks of
bullets. One black, when questioned, said he'd belonged to the 30th
Connecticut and had taken his wound at Bealeton. That made Caudell
frown, for Lee had ordered captured Negroes treated like any other
prisoners. Someone had seen a profit in disobeying.
The Rivington men bought most of the slaves with bullet wounds, and got
them cheap. The ones they didn't buy, the Texans did. Caudell suspected
they would try to unload their purchases on fellow westerners who were
desperate for labor and who might not recognize a bullet scar when they
saw one.
"Seventeenth on the list," Josiah Beard said presently. "A fine tanner and
bricklayer, named Westly, a griffe aged twenty-four years." Westly, who
stood beside him, was slightly lighter of skin than most who had preceded
him; griffes carried one part white blood to three black.
The bidding was brisk. Raeford Liles raised his hand again and again.
Caudell understood why: a slave with two such de-sirable skills as tanning
and bricklaying would quickly be able to learn what he needed to help out
at a general store, and would make Liles extra money when he rented him
out around town. But when the griffe's price edged toward two thousand
dollars, Liles dropped out with a frustrated snarl of disgust. A Rivington
man and a fellow from Alabama or Mississippi bid against each other like a
couple of men holding flushes in a poker game. Finally the man from the
deep South gave up. "Sold for
$1,950," Josiah Beard shouted.
"Masser, you lets me keep some o' my pay when you rents me, I works
extra hard for you," Westly said as his new owner came up to take him off
the block.
The Rivington man laughed at him."Who said anything about renting you,
kaffir? You are going to work for me and for nobody else." The griffe's face
fell, but he had no choice save going with the man who had bought him.
More field hands were sold, and then a prime bricklayer and mason, a black
man named Anderson. The auctioneer beamed like the rising sun as the
Negro's price soared up and up. Again Raeford Liles bid, again he had to
drop out. The fellow from the deep South who had bid on Westly ended up
buying Anderson for $2,700 when the Rivington man who had been
bidding against him abruptly quit. He did not look altogether happy as he
went up to pay Josiah Beard. Caudell did not blame him. As someone in the
crowd remarked, "Hellfire, you can buy yourself a Congressman
forcheaper'n $2,700." After Beard disposed of all the male slaves on his list,
he sold several women, some field hands like the men, others cooks and
seamstresses. "Here's a Negro named Louisa," he called as yet another
wench climbed up beside him. "She's twenty-one years old, a number-one
cook, and a prime breeder. Tell the gentlemen how many little niggers
you've already had, Louisa."
"I's had fo', suh," she answered.
"She's good for many more, too," the auctioneer declared, "and every one
pure profit to her owner. And she's a good-tempered wench, too." He turned
her around, pulled down the top of her dress to display her clear back. She
fetched Josiah Beard almost as much as Anderson had, and looked smug
when the Texan who had bought her led her away. Some Negroes, Caudell
knew, took pride in the high prices they brought. It made more than a little
sense: an owner with a large investment in his animate property was likely
to treat it better.
Page 215
The slave trader looked out at his audience. A smile stole across his face.
"Now, gentlemen, as the piece de resistance, I have to display for you a
mulatto wench named Josephine, nineteen years old, and a fine hand with a
needle."
Caudell caught his breath as Josephine climbed up onto the platform beside
Beard. He let it out again in a sudden, sharp cough. So did most of the men
who saw her. She was worth every bit of that vocal admiration, and more.
She might have had a trace of Indian blood as well as white and Negro; her
cheekbones, her slightly slanted eyes, and the piquant arch of her nose
argued for it. Her skin, perfectly smooth, was the precise color of coffee
with cream.
"I'd like a piece o' that, resistance or no resistance," a man close by Caudell
said hoarsely. The schoolteacher found himself nodding. The slave girl was
simply stunning.
Instead of simply showing Josephine's back, as he had with the other
wenches, the auctioneer unbuttoned her dress and let it fall to the boards.
She was bare under it. The coughs from the crowd doubled and doubled
again. Her breasts, Caudell thought, would just fill a man's hand; their small
nipples made him think of sweet chocolate. Josiah Beard turned her around.
She was as perfect from behind as from the front.
"Put your dress back on," the auctioneer told her. As she stooped to obey, he
called out, "Now, gentlemen, what am I bid?"
To Caudell's surprise, the auction started slowly. After a moment, he
understood: everyone knew how expensive she would be, and everyone was
hesitant about risking his money. But Josephine's price climbed steadily,
past $1,500, past $2,000, past $2,500, past the $2,700 that had bought the
skilled bricklayer and mason, past $3,000. Bidders dropped out one by one,
with groans of regret.
"Three thousand one hundred and fifty," Josiah Beard said at length. "Do I
hear $3,200?" He looked to the Alabama man who had stayed in the auction
all the way. The man from the deep South stared hungrily at Josephine, but
in the end he shook his head. The slave trader puffed out his lips in a small
sigh.
"Anyone else for $3,200?" No one spoke. "Thirty-one fifty once." A pause.
"Thirty-one fifty twice." Beard clapped rus hands together. "Sold for
$3,150. Come forward, sir, come forward."
"Oh, I'm coming, never fear," said the Rivington man who had just bought
Josephine. The crowd parted like the Red Sea to show respect for someone
who would pay so much for a chattel. The Rivington man reached into his
knapsack, pulled out a paper-wrapped roll of gold coins, then another and
another.
"There's a hundred and fifty ounces of gold," he said, then opened yet
another roll and counted out thirteen more. He passed the money to Beard,
roll by roll and then coin by coin. When at last he was done, the slave trader
had more than thirteen pounds of gold and a slightly sandbagged
expression. Still matter-of-fact, the Rivington man said, "Along with the
wench, you owe me eleven dollars."
"Yes, sir," Josiah Beard said, not even questioning the calculation. He
peeled the money from the fat roll of bills he had collected over the course
of the afternoon. "Let me have your name, sir, if you please, for the bill of
sale."
"I'm Piet Hardie. P-i-e-t H-a-r-d-i-e. Spell it right." "Let me have it again,
sir, to make sure I do." Beard wrote, then straightened and turned to
Josephine. "Go on, girl, go to him. He bought you-you're his." Moving with
a grace that matched her beauty, Josephine descended from the auction
block. Piet Hardie slipped an arm around her waist. She stood very straight,
neither pulling away nor pressing herself against him. A collective sigh of
envy went up from the crowd. The fellow from Alabama who had been the
Page 216
next-to-last bidder said, "Tell me, sir, what are you going to do with her
now that you got her?" Hardie threw back his head and laughed
uproariously. "What the bleeding hell do you think I 'm going to do with
her, sir? The same thing you'd have done if you'd bought her." The Alabama
man laughed, too, ruefully. Caudell happened to be watching Josephine's
face. It congealed like cooling fat. She must have hoped the Rivington man
would differ from others in more ways than his dress. Finding out so
harshly that he did not could only be a cruel disappointment.
"For a very reasonable price, gentlemen, I can supply shackles, to ensure
that your animate property doesn't become more animated than you'd care
for." Josiah Beard chortled at his own wit. Several men came up to purchase
restraints.
Caudell drifted away from the town square. For him, the slave auction had
been nothing more than a way to pass part of a long Saturday afternoon. He
could not even dream of owning a slave, especially in summer with his
school closed. Tutoring, writing letters for illiterate townsfolk, and neatly
transcribing county records gave him income sufficient to keep from
starving, but not much more. George Lewis fell into step beside him. "How
are you today, Nate?"
"Well enough, thank you, sir." Though captain no longer, Lewis was a big
enough man in Nash County for Caudell to keep on giving him the title of
respect. "I see you didn't buy any niggers today."
"Didn't plan to; I have enough for the tobacco acreage I grow-maybe even
too many. More than anything else, I came to see what prices were like, in
case I decide to sell a couple."
"Oh." Caudell had known for a good many years now that he would never
be a wealthy man. The knowledge no longer bothered him. Sometimes, as
now, he derived a certain amusement from listening to the things wealthy
men had to worry about. Do I have too many slaves for my land? Should I
sell a few? No, that was a problem which would never trouble him.
Some of his thoughts must have shown on his face. George Lewis clapped
him on the back and said, "If you're having trouble, Nate, you just let me
know. I don't aim to let anybody who served in my company do without so
long as I can help it."
With stubborn pride, Caudell answered: "That's right kind of you, but I'm
doing well enough, sir." Lewis raised a politely dubious eyebrow. "There's
plenty worse off than I am," Caudell insisted.
"Most of 'em have farms, though, to keep food on their tables," Lewis said.
On the edge of anger now, Caudell shook his head. Lewis shrugged. "All
right, Nate, if that's how you want it, that's how it'll be. You ever change
your mind, all you ever need do is let me know about it."
"I will," Caudell said, knowing he wouldn't. Lewis's concern touched him
all the same. The captain's children did not attend his school; Lewis could
afford better. But he looked out for rich and poor in the country. Caudell
had voted for him without hesitation last fall and was ready to do it again if
he stood for reelection.
Lewis made his good-byes and went off. Caudell was about to head back to
his room when Raeford Liles called after him, "Got a letter for you, Nate.
Let me open up again." Caudell trotted back to the general store. Liles
worked the key, threw the front door wide. He went behind the counter.
"Here y'are: from that gal o' yours up Rivington way."
Page 217
"She's not my gal," Caudell said, as he still did whenever he got a letter
from Mollie Bean or sent her one.
"Too bad for her if she's not, on account of I wish everything and everybody
in Rivington'd get blown to hell and gone, and if she was your gal I'd leave
her out of that there wishin'."
"I wish you would do that, Mr. Liles," Caudell said.
"Only since it's you as asks me, Nate." Liles proceeded to curse the town of
Rivington and its inhabitants with vigor and inventive wit whose like
Caudell had not heard since an army mule driver tried to flay the hides off
his beasts with his tongue one afternoon when they bogged down in a road
a week of rain had converted into a true bog. "An" the worst of it is, they all
got money fallin' out their backsides like it was turds. Three thousand one
hundred fifty mortal dollars for that there mulatto wench? The devil fry me
for bacon in the mornin', Nate, what the hell's he gonna get from her he
couldn't go down to the whorehouse an' have for a few beans? It don't feel
no better on account of it's expensive, now does it?"
"I don't suppose so," Caudell said, after a small hesitation brought on by
thinking of Mollie and of the trade she plied in Rivington.
The storekeeper never noticed that his answer came a beat late. Liles was in
full spate, like the Mississippi in flood season. He was also getting to what
really bothered him: "Or that griflfe Westly or that nigger Anderson, almost
two thousand for the one and twenty-seven hundred for the other, by Jesus!
I been to other auctions, too, and had the same thing happen to me. How's a
man supposed to get the help be needs when he can't noways afford to buy
it? Niggers is gettin' so dear, it's damn near cheaper to do without 'em. An'
them Rivington men is a big part o' runnin' the prices up, 'cause they just