Union's Daughter by Sabra Waldfogel

Author:Sabra Waldfogel [Waldfogel, Sabra]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780991396481
Publisher: Sabra Waldfogel
Published: 2020-03-02T22:00:00+00:00

It was after dusk by the time the great engine rumbled to life, and Middleton turned the wheel to ease the boat into to St. Helena Sound. She had been on this route—when her father visited his place in Colleton County, they had taken a steamboat up the Combahee—but they had never made the trip at night. Caro gazed into the darkness and failed to orient herself. Both the night and the fog of her memory foiled her.

The boat’s lights shone bright, illuminating the water, but the banks were velvety with darkness. “Quarter moon,” Middleton said. “Won’t rise until near dawn.”

“How can you pilot like this?”

He grinned. “Know the river like I know my own hand,” he said.

As they left the coast, the smell of seawater gave way to the smell of freshwater marsh, the soggy, weedy soil that rice plants liked to grow in. Trees grew down to the waterline, forming a dense thicket in soggy ground. The sound of the steamboat, the thrumming engines, the rush of the paddlewheel in the water, drowned out any bird or animal sounds. A dark, humped shape raised its head in the water, and as it scrambled to safety, she remembered that alligators liked the river, too.

“Where will we stop?” she asked.

Mrs. Tubman said, “The Nicholls place. How far is it, Mr. Middleton?”

“A ways yet. We get there near dawn. Have our first round in daylight.”

Caro asked, “May I go below? Talk to the men?”

“Don’t advise it,” Middleton said. “You in the way if we meet any secesh pickets.”

Caro stared at the close-twined trees, barely distinguishable in the dark. “Are there pickets? Do we know?”

“If they shoot at us, we know,” Middleton said.

They moved slowly up the river. Ahead were bluffs. “Field Point,” Middleton said. “Just the place for pickets to stand.”

Caro strained to see what might be on the riverbank. She had begged for this. She had hoped for battle. But it burdened her nerves to wait for rifle fire.

But none came, and they continued upriver as dawn broke. As the sun rose, mist smoked over the water. The roar of the engines drowned out every other sound. Caro could see the birds among the trees on the bank, but she couldn’t hear them. She wondered how the men would be able to hear gunshots.

They continued, and it became full daylight. They approached a break where the forest gave way to rice plants that grew like grasses in the water. Caro asked, “Are we close?”

“Look,” Middleton said, and beyond the rice fields sat the plantation house, expanded over the decades as the rice fortune increased. “Nicholls place.”

Despite the early hour, slaves worked in the fields, and behind them mounted overseers watched them. At the sight of the boats, the slaves straightened and stared. And to Caro’s astonishment, the overseers spurred their horses and rode away. Were they frightened by the sight of the Union’s boats? Or were they going to warn of an enemy’s approach?

Middleton steered the boat to the landing, and once the boat ground to a halt, the skirmishers began to gather on the landing.

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