Notes

don't give a damn how much they spend. What's an honest man supposed to
do?"
"Go on as best you can the way you are-what else can you do?" Caudell
said. Liles was not a wealthy man like George Lewis, but he was a long
way from poor. Caudell had trouble sympathizing with his complaints, not
when his own chief worry was figuring out how to stretch his summer
money so he could pay the widow Bissett for his room and eat anything
better than corn bread and beans. But Liles glared at him over the tops of
his half-glasses. "Younger folks these days hasn't got no respect for their
eiders."
Caudell glared back. At thirty-four, he hardly felt himself still wet behind
the ears. And Raeford Liles, with his store full of good things and getting
fuller every day now that the war and the blockade no longer pinched him,
might have spoken a little more kindly to someone who'd fought to keep
him in the store-keeping business. Allison High had been right-with the war
over, memories of what it meant were short. He wondered how Allison was
getting along, down in Wilson County, and realized guiltily that he hadn't
thought about him in weeks. Memories were short, all right.
He said, "Never mind, Mr. Liles-we all have to go on as best we can the
way we are, I expect." Without waiting for an answer, he went back out into
the baking sunshine of the town square. The bell over the front door jingled
when he shut it.
He walked slowly back to the widow Bissett's house; moving any way but
slowly would have invited heatstroke. He took off his black felt hat and
fianned himself with it. The moving air briefly cooled the sweat that ran
down his face and trickled through his beard, but the sun smote the top of
his head with savage heat. He hastily replaced the hat.
Page 218
He'd baked outdoors, but found himself poaching instead when he went into
his upstairs room. He did not stay long enough even to open Mollie's letter.
Grabbing a length of line and a couple of hooks, he headed for Stony Creek,
north of town. Sitting on the bank under a tree-maybe taking off his shoes
and letting his feet trail in the water-was the best way he could think of to
fight the heat of a summer day. He might even catch his own supper, too,
which would save him some money.
He used his clasp knife to dig worms out of the soft soil, baited the hooks,
and tossed them into the water. Then he lit a cigar, blew a ragged smoke
ring, and, as near content as he could be in such weather, pulled the letter
from his pocket once more and used the knife again, this time to do a neat
job of slitting the envelope.
Mollie went on for most of two pages. After nearly a year of
correspondence with him, her handwriting was better than that of some of
the twelve-year-olds he taught. Her spelling remained wildly erratic, but
most of those twelve-year-olds had that problem too, Old Blue Back
notwithstanding. Much of the letter was chatter about her day-to-day life: a
dress she'd made, a cake one of her friends had baked, a complaint about
the high price of shoes. Smiling, he thought she and Raeford Liles could
have commiserated together. As usual, she said little about the way she
spent her nights. She knew he knew what she did, and doubtless did not
care to remind him of it unnecessarily. Living as she did in Rivington,
though, even her day-to-day life was out of the ordinary. One passage
leaped from the page at Caudell: "Last weak I come down with dyareaer
worsen I ever got it in the army. Benny Lang he comes to see me and wen
he sees how sick I am he gos off and wen he comes back he gives me sum
pils to take and I takem and next day I am rite as rain. I wish we wood of
nowed a bout it wen we was to gether on a count of a lot of good men who
dyareared them selvs to deth could of been saved."
Caudell nodded, just as if Mollie were there to see him. Diarrhea had killed
as many men, North and South, as bullets. With soldiers packed tightly
together, eating food and water that were often bad-and the water frequently
made worse by their own sinks nearby, or by men ignoring the sinks and
doing their business straight into a stream-how could it be otherwise?
Doctors could sometimes slow the illness, but they boasted no magical pills
to cure it overnight-not outside of Rivington, they didn't. Even the mention
of Benny Lang, whose name showed up fairly often in Mollie's letters,
failed to annoy Caudell as it usually did: wonder overcame what he still
refused to admit to himself was jealousy. And wonder and jealousy both
surged in him when, toward the end of her letter, Mollie wrote, "One thing I
may not have tole you a bout is that wen I went to a Rivington mans hous I
mean one of the ones out in the woods last week I went in side and it was as
cool as spring in ther you may be leev me or not just as you like. And it was
not cool atall out side likely it weren't in Nashvil too. That if you ast me is
as big a thing as the lites that burn elextristy or what ever the Rivington
men cal it. The thing the cool air comes out of is a box on the wall with a
nob on it like the ones that makes the elextristy lites bum. I wish for it al the
time on a count of hear in my room it aint cool atall. Dont you wish you
was in Rivington to? Yor true frend al ways, M. Bean, 47NC."
Caudell wished with all his heart and sweaty soul he were in Rivington, oral
least in that house. If any of Mollie's letters had given him the slightest hint
the town held enough children to support a school, he would have moved
without' a second thought. Rivington had to be the boomingest town in the
state, the place where everything happened first, even ahead of Wilmington
and Raleigh. The railroad, the telegraph, and the camera had all come to
North Carolina since his own boyhood. Now Rivington boasted these
wonderful electricity-burning lights and cool air in summer. Both those
things Page 219
sounded as interesting as the camera any day. He wondered when they
would appear outside of Rivington and why he hadn't heard about them in
the newspapers. The railroad had been ballyhooed for years before it finally
arrived. Just then, he got a bite. He tossed aside Mollie's letter and his
speculations, and pulled a bullhead out of the creek. The fish flopped on the
bank; he had to grab it to keep it from wriggling back into the muddy water.
It had swallowed the worm. He dug up another one, impaled it on the hook,
and tossed in the line again to see what else he could catch.
He waited with an angler's patience for a fish or fat turtle to go for the bait.
By the sun, he had an hour or so of daylight left. Maybe, he thought, he
would make a little fire right here, cook his supper, and sleep out on the
grass. The mosquitoes would eat him alive, but that might be better than
tossing and turning in his hot bed. He plucked at his beard as he tried to
make up his mind. If he didn't hook anything more than one little bullhead,
it wouldn't matter anyhow. That wasn't much of a supper. Something stirred
in the clump of jasmine on the far side of the creek. He looked up, got a
glimpse of brown hide through the leaves. Deer, he thought, and then, with
a tinge of alarm, or maybe cougar. He sat very still. The big cats rarely
attacked man unless provoked. With his sole weapon a clasp knife, he had
no intention of doing anything provoking.
The leaves parted. His breath went out in a startled grunt, as if he'd been
kicked in the belly. Peering out at him, her lovely face frightened as any
hunted wild thing's, was the mulatto wench Josephine. Before either of
them could say anything, before the girl could turn and bolt into the woods,
hounds belled back in the direction of town. Josephine's eyes, already wide
and staring, showed white all around the iris. Her lips skinned back from
her teeth. "Hide me!" she hissed at Caudell. "I do anything you wants,
massuh, anything, long as I don't gots to go back to that feller bought me.
He a devil, he is. Hide me!" Caudell had seen her up on the auction block,
naked as the day she was born and ever so much more tempting. The
thought of her doing anything he wanted raised a dark excitement in him.
But hiding a runaway slave was against every law in the Confederacy-and
where could he hide her, anyway? More daunting than mere lawbreaking,
too, was imagining the revenge Piet Hardie would take on him if he tried
and failed.
The hounds cried again, louder and closer. Josephine moaned. She plunged
away through the bushes, leaving Caudell just as well pleased he had not
had to tell her yes or no. He quickly got up, pulled in his line, picked up the
bullhead he'd caught, and started back to town. That way he would not have
to tell the Rivington man yes or no, either. He wondered what the fellow
had done to Josephine to make her run so, then shook his head. Better not to
know.
When the hounds chorused again, they were only a few hundred yards
away, and plainly on the scent. Caudell heard Piet Hardie shout, too, at the
men who ran with the dogs: "Keep them on the leash. If they mark her, by
God, I'll pay you in paper instead of gold!"
Barbara Bissett fried the bullhead crisp and golden brown on the outside
and firm and flaky and white in the center. It was as fine a fish as Caudell
could have wanted and, with hot corn bread, turned into a pretty fair supper
after all. Even so, he hardly tasted it.
The Georgia Railroad engine wheezed to a halt. The conductor came into
the car in which Lee was riding. "Augusta!" he bawled. He hurried along,
left the car, went into the next one. Faintly, through two doors, Lee heard
him announce the stop again.
He got to his feet. "Major, you may send me to a lunatic asylum if, having
once returned to Richmond, I Page 220
voluntarily board a train again at any time within the next ten years," he
said to Charles Marshall. "I am heartily sick of traveling from hither to yon
inside a box"-he waved to show he meant the passenger coach-"as if I were
a parcel to be delivered by the postman."
"For the good of the country, sir, I may find myself constrained to act as if I
have not heard you," his aide answered. "I beg you, however, not to take
this as implying I fail to sympathize with your point of view." Lee looked
around as he got off the train. "The city is larger than I had thought it to be."
"About fifteen thousand inhabitants, I am given to understand," Marshall
said. He looked about, too.
"Seems a pleasant enough place."
Among the gaggle of people greeting new arrivals and wishing Godspeed to
departing loved ones was a rather corpulent middle-aged man who wore
Confederate gray and a colonel's three stars on his collar. He pushed his
way through the crowd Lee always seemed to draw, as if he were a
lodestone attracting iron filings. With a salute, the fellow said, "George W.
Rains, sir, at your service." Lee returned the courtesy, then extended his
hand. "Delighted to see you, Colonel. Allow me to present to you my aide,
Major Marshall."
When the formalities were complete, Rains said, "I have my carriage here.
May I drive you to the hotel? I Ve arranged rooms for you and Major
Marshall at the Planters', which is by far the finest establishment in the city.
Even English travelers, men with wide experience of the world, think well
of the Planters'-with the exception, I fear, of the tea, which, one of them
complained, was so weak he did not see how it got out of the spout."
"I should find that no great hardship, Colonel, preferring coffee as I do,"
Lee said. "I am confident you will have done everything necessary for our
comfort. Your exemplary management of the powder mills here throughout
the course of the war makes me certain of your ability to tend to such
trifles." A bare-chested slave attached to the train station carried the
newcomers' bags to the carriage. Lee gave him a dime; having come from
Kentucky, he still had on his person a fair sum of U.S. specie. The slave
grinned, displaying uneven yellow teeth. Colonel Rains raised a quizzical
eyebrow but said nothing. He flicked the reins to set the carriage in motion.
"Your shops are busy here," Charles Marshall observed. "They were even
busier during the war," Rains answered. "A large portion of the goods that
came into Charleston and Wilmington through the blockade were sold here
at auction, for dispersal all over the interior of Georgia and South Carolina."
"Is that a bookstore there?" Lee asked, pointing. "Perhaps I shall buy a
novel, to commemorate my stay here. It's been a good many years since I've
had the leisure to enjoy a novel, but I just may indulge myself."
"They're first-rate on a train," Rains said. "As I was telling Major Marshall,
Colonel, I feel at the moment a certain-sufficiency-in respect to trains," Lee
said. "On the off chance, however, that I may be forced to ride them more
than I would wish, I shall have to investigate that shop. Merely an off
chance, of course, as I say." Lee admired Rains for keeping his face so
straight. He wondered how many more thousands of miles he would put in
rattling along over the iron rails before his career was done. They pulled up
in front of the Planters' Hotel. Slaves strolled out to take charge of Lee's
luggage. He and Marshall got down from the carriage. "I will leave you
gentlemen here, to recover from the rigors of your journey," Rains said. "If
it pleases you, I shall return for breakfast tomorrow, then drive you over to
the powder mill."
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"You are very kind, Colonel," Lee said. "That sounds most satisfactory. I'll
see you, then, at eight o'clock tomorrow morning, if that be not too early."
"Eight o'clock will be fine." Rains saluted again. "Good day to you, sir,
Major." The carriage rolled away. Lee and Marshall went into the hotel.
Spurred on by shouts from the white manager and clerks, the serving staff
did everything but carry them to their rooms. Yet the shouts were goodnatured,
and Lee got the impression an ordinary guest would have received
treatment no different from his own. He thought better of the Planters' for
that impression.
Supper did nothing to disappoint him, and over chicory-laced coffee the
next morning he told Rains,
"Your establishment here compares quite favorably to the Gait House in
Louisville, Colonel. Smaller, certainly, but very fine."
"I've heard of the Gait House, though I never stayed in it. I think, sir, if you
were to say that to Mr. Jenkins behind the front desk, you would have to
stand back quickly to keep from getting hit by the buttons that flew off his
waistcoat as he swelled up with pride."
Lee smiled. "I'd sooner risk buttons than a good many other things that have
flown through the air in my direction." He drained his cup, got to his feet.
"Perhaps this evening, when we return, I shall brave Mr. Jenkins's
waistcoat. Meanwhile, though-"
The powder mill lay by the Augusta Canal, a couple of furlongs west of the
Savannah River. The road ran past underground powder magazines, each
separated from its neighbors by thick brick traverses. "Is that tin sheathing
on the roofs of the magazines?" Lee asked.
"Zinc," Rains answered. "It happened to be more readily available at the
time. Sooner than wait for tin to appear, I went ahead with what I had. That
was what I had to do all through the war, if I wanted to accomplish
anything. Pharaoh made the Israelites make bricks without straw. Looking
back on all my contrivances here, I sometimes think I could have made
bricks without clay." Young Georgia soldiers had stood sentry around the
magazines. More guarded the big wooden shed that housed the powder mill.
They stared and pointed and lost almost any semblance of military
discipline when they saw Robert E. Lee. Colonel Rains coughed drily.
"They all wish theyb been bold in battle like you, General. The life of a
soldier far from the cannon's roar has little glamour to it." Lee thought
Rains was speaking for himself as well as for his men. Raising his voice so
the Georgia lads could hear along with their commander, he said, "Without
your labor, Colonel, and that of your garrison, the cannon never could have
roared.
How much gunpowder did you produce for the Confederacy here at
Augusta?"
"Just over two million pounds," Rains answered. "Of that total, about three
fourths was sent north to Richmond for use by the Army of Northern
Virginia. The balance went to the big guns in the fortifications around
Charleston, Wilmington, and Mobile. Still more would have gone north to
you had the infantry and cavalry not suddenly reequipped themselves with
these newfangled AK-47s."
"Indeed," Lee said. "That reequipment and its consequences are the reason I
have come to Augusta."
"So you intimated in your telegram from Louisville." A horse with a
uniformed rider came trotting up to the powder mill. "Ah, good," Rains
said. "Here is Captain Bob Finney, who is superintendent of the Page 222
arsenal a couple of miles outside of town and thus responsible for the
production of small-arms ammunition, percussion caps, and other such
military materiel. Between the two of us, we should display a truly
staggering amount of ignorance for you."
Finney arrived in time to hear that last remark. He was a cheerful-looking,
round-faced man in his middle twenties who wore a close-trimmed reddish
beard like that of the Federal general Sherman. "Yes, indeed, General Lee,
if it's ignorance you want, you've come to the proper place," he said gaily as
he dismounted. "We turn out more of it than munitions these days, as a
matter of fact." Rains smiled, plainly used to the captain's forward tongue.
"If you gentlemen will step into my office"-a small hut next to the powder
mill-"we shall see how much ignorance we can produce today." One of the
chairs in the ramshackle office did not match the other three, which made
Lee suspect Rains had borrowed it for the occasion. Charles Marshall said,
"Colonel, does not the thought of working so close beside a place where so
much gunpowder is produced ever weigh on your mind?"
"Not a bit, Major," Rains answered at once. "In a fifteen-hour day, we can
manufacture close to ten thousand pounds. If by unhappy accident such an
amount went up, 1 should be translated to my heavenly reward before I had
the chance to notice the explosion. Under those circumstances, what point
to worrying?"
"Put that way, none, I suppose," Marshall admitted. Even so, he could not
help sneaking a glance out the window toward the powder mill.
"To business, then," Rains said. "General, I gather from your telegram and
from the correspondence I have had with Colonel Gorgas in Richmond that
you are aware the powder which propels the bullet from the cartridge of an
AK-47 is not, properly speaking, gunpowder at all."
"Yes, I am aware of that," Lee said, remembering the tiny cylindrical grains
of powder Gorgas had shown him at the Confederate Armory more than a
year before. "I decided to come here before returning to the capital for two
reasons: first, to leam what progress if any you have made toward
duplicating that powder, and, second, if your progress has been small, to
find out whether these cartridges may be reloaded with powder and bullets
of our own manufacture."
"Captain Finney and I have pursued these investigations on parallel tracks,"
Rains said. "If I may, I would prefer that he speak to your second question
first, as his results have been less problematical than mine."
"However would prove most convenient for you, of course." Lee turned to
Finney. "Captain?"
"I've never been handed a more interesting problem, sir," the arsenal
superintendent said. He sounded enthusiastic at facing such a challenge,
which made Lee nod in approval. Enthusiastic still, Finney continued, "I
can't tell you how much I admire the Rivington men, either. They must have
forgotten more about gunsmithing than any twelve gunsmiths know."
That might be nothing but literal truth, Lee thought. Aloud, he said, "I also
admire their ability with firearms, Captain." What he thought of them in
other respects was irrelevant to the issue at hand. "Please carry on."
"Yes, sir. I gather you know these AK-47 cartridges have their percussion
primers on the inside, not in separate caps the way, say, Minie" balls do."
Finney waited for Lee to nod again. "You may not know that all the primers
have the same shape, to ignite the powder in just the same way every timereally
Page 223
marvelously clever."
"I did not know that," Lee admitted. "I've not been able to duplicate the
effect, either," Finney said. "By replacing the expended primer with a dab
of the mixture of fulminate of mercury and the other substances used in
percussion caps, then inserting rather less gunpowder into the case than the
powder previously found there, 1 have achieved by trial and error a load
that will fire from the AK-47." "Excellent, Captain," Lee breathed. Colonel
Rains said, "He makes light of the danger he underwent in what he so
casually calls 'trial and error,' General. He would allow no one but himself