About the Author
Valerie Horne Sumner, a former resident of Hertford County who attended school in Ahoskie, works as a nurse in Northern California. She also writes. This short story is a condensation of the first chapter of a novel-in-progress, about nurses in the Civil War.~~~~~~~~~
'TOMORROW, I LEAVE FOR PETERSBURG'
From 'Confederate Nurse'
© 2001 Valerie Horne Sumner
"Anna Maria, are you sure you won't reconsider?"
"Mama, I know you're worried, and I am so sorry to put you through this. But I have to go on with it. I couldn't live with myself if I didn't."
Hettie Esther's voice faltered, and she dabbed her eyes with the corner of her apron. "First Daniel, then Ben. I just couldn't take something happening to you, too.
"I look out that window and see your brothers' fresh graves next to your daddy's.
"I look out there and I see good farm land that the menfolk worked so hard ~ gone.
"The barn, the fields, our horses, our chickens......all gone.
"All gone. All sold to the highest bidder." Hettie again lifted her apron to her eyes.
Anna Maria wrapped the silver spoons in a soft cloth and placed them in the open trunk. They had been her grandmother's, left to her through Hettie.
She moved to stand with her mother at the window.
"Mama, you and the children will be safer at Tarborough. Aunt Marie and Uncle Alex can help you there.
"This place is too dangerous, with the Yankees taking over the whole coast.
"People are getting hungry, and deserters and slaves are hiding in the swamps."
A moth, suspended in a dusty sunbeam, fluttered against the window pane. The two women looked past it, onto a world that had become unfamiliar and frightening.
Maria placed her hand on her mother's arm. "Papa would not want you on this farm by yourself."
"May the good Lord forgive me, but I still am angry that your papa is not here with us," said Hettie. "One day, I'm mad at the horse that threw him. The next day, I'm mad with him that he tried to ride that horse to start with. The next day, I get angry with God Himself. May He forgive me."
"My two big boys have been cut down in the prime of their lives ~ two sweet boys who had only love and goodness in their hearts.
"And here we are, you and I, down here trying to get by in a world that has gone crazy.
"Well, if I am going to be left by the Lord to carry the load by myself, he must have a reason.
"But Matthew will never enlist. I will not give up another son to......"
She sighed. "And here is my daughter, leaving to follow in her brothers' footsteps.
"Promise me, daughter, that you will come back home. Safely.
"You won't change your mind?
"No. Stubborn like your daddy." Hettie touched a handkerchief to her face. "Well, I had better finish packing.
"Do you have everything you need? Where is that $300? Do you have it in a safe place? Don't let anyone know that you are carrying that money. People have been knocked in the head for a lot less......"
~~~~~~~~~
Maria stood by the window, marveling at how quickly life could change. Her world, once as steadfast as the North Star ~ her home, once a sheltering harbor from the roiling seas of life ~ now seemed little more than small shells tossed by turbulent waves that showed no signs of abating.
Hettie had sold the farm to a plantation owner from Bertie County, Zebulon Culpepper. Culpepper had several plantations to run in northeastern North Carolina, and he had many slaves to oversee. It had been said that he was not above using bribery with Union officials to keep his property above the fray.
Culpepper was exempt from the draft under the "20-Slave Law," which held that he could better serve at home, keeping his two-legged property out of mischief and at work in the fields. He had paid $300 to hire a substitute to take his son's place in Confederate gray.
Culpepper had wanted the Parker land for some time. Lying next to the wide Chowan River, the rich bottomland encompassed many miles of Wiccacon Creek, was teeming with wildlife, and was full of prime timber.
Ironic. Unfair, mused Maria. Her brothers had been killed and their inheritance sold so men like Zeb Culpepper could keep his slaves working and his plantations thriving. And the $300, which her mother had given her from the proceeds of the sale of the farm, now would be used to help her in helping those who had helped the likes of Culpepper.
Anna Maria, after a lot of thought and a lot of prayer, had decided to become a nurse for the Confederate Army.
And now she was packed and ready for her trip to Petersburg, in southeastern Virginia, where a military hospital had been established for North Carolina troops.
Tomorrow she would say goodbye to all she had known, and begin her journey, first by horse and carriage and then by train, to a different life in a different state ~ in a different world.
~~~~~~~~~
This was the last night that Maria would sleep in her old bed.
She turned from the window.
"Mama, I'm going to take a walk before it gets dark."
She took her coat and walked toward the family burial ground, where the remains and memories of grandparents, aunts, uncles, baby sister, father and two brothers were at rest.
She knelt at the two dirt mounds that represented her brothers.
Tears poured down her face and fell upon crumbling autumn leaves. Since the war had begun, Maria felt she had cried an ocean of tears.
Daniel was the oldest, known for his strong arms and his quick wit. He had enlisted at the age of 19, in May 1861. He was captured at Fort Hatteras, in August the same year, and shipped to Fort Columbus, New York harbor, as a prisoner of war. They said he died of typhus.
His grave held no body. As best the family knew, he had been buried at Fort Columbus.
But his mother had insisted on a grave for Daniel. And after Pastor Terrell read the scripture and prayed, family and friends buried a small pine box filled with poems, mementos and Daniel's slingshot ~ the one he had made when he was a small boy.
"His spirit is here," his mother had said.
Maria had written a letter of goodbye. Then she had copied a poem from one of her books, "Songs of Israel," written by William Knox, the Scottish poet, and attached it to the letter along with a lock of her hair.
~~~~~~~~~~
Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?
So the multitude goes, like the flower or the weed,
That withers away to let others succeed;
So the multitude comes, even those we behold,
To repeat every tale that has often been told.
For we are the same our fathers have been,
We see the same sights our fathers have seen;
We drink the same streams and see the same sun
And run the same course our fathers have run.
They loved; but the story we cannot unfold;
They scorned, but the heart of the haughty is cold;
They grieved, but no wail from their slumbers will come,
They joyed, but the tongue of their gladness is dumb.
They died! Aye, they died; we things that are now;
That work on the turf that lies on their brow,
And make in their dwellings a transient abode,
Meet the things that they met on their pilgrimage road.
Yea! hope and despondency, pleasure and pain,
Are mingled together in sunshine and rain;
And the smile and the tear, and the song and the dirge,
Still follow each other, like surge upon surge.
'Tis the wink of an eye, 'tis the draught of a breath,
From the blossoms of health to the paleness of death,
From the gilded salon, to the bier and the shroud.
Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?~~~~~~~~~
Ben had enlisted at the age of 17, in March 1862. He was wounded in the left arm and captured by Union soldiers at Washington, N.C., in early September. He died September 15th, of "wounds ...... reported to have died while in the hands of the enemy."
Ben, my brother
gone forever are your sweet smile
and shy manner.
Gone, but not forgotten.~~~~~~~~~
Maria turned to her father's grave.
Dear Papa.
I wish you were here. I need you.
Am I making the right decision to be a nurse?
Will I do you proud?
Or will I put your name to shame as old Mrs. Goodall said?
Dear Papa. I'm so weary.~~~~~~~~~
Maria took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of fresh pine, and sat with her back against an old oak tree. The tears had stopped. And Maria relaxed with a grateful heart.
~~~~~~~~~
From atop the grassy knoll, the last resting place for most of her family, she glanced across the field along the well-worn path. The trail included a wooden foot-bridge, arching over a small creek.
On the other side of the creek, the setting sun cast a pinkish light on the two-story farmhouse where her mother was packing.
Maria paused again for a long look at what had been her life for 25 years. At her home, framed by tall pines, oaks and cedars.
She could see her grandfather in his favorite chair, pipe smoke weaving a wreath around his gray head while he tuned his banjo for a Saturday night hoe-down.
Those were the days.
And the nights of music.
Papa played the fiddle, Daniel the harp, Ben the guitar.
In the crowd were more fiddles, more guitars, and mandolins and accordions.
Aunt Becky was an artist with the dulcimer hammer.
Everyone sang, with the men and women harmonizing, and the very walls themselves came alive with the foot-stomping, hand-clapping and laughter.
Gospel music and hymns mingled with the funny old songs from the mountains and the seas.
~~~~~~~~~
Maria's role during the musical evenings had been that of appreciative audience. She had never learned to play a musical instrument and couldn't sing, no matter how badly she wanted. But she loved music as much as she loved her books.
Once at a church revival she had become inspired, and caterwauled "Bringing in the Sheaves" with gusto.
After the service, the visiting preacher stood at the door, shaking hands with the departing congregation.
When he took Maria's hand, he leaned forward and with a decidedly unChristian-like look in his eyes, asked, "Were you that frog I heard croaking during the singing?"
That night put an end to Maria's attempts at singing, and to any patience she might have had with traveling parsons.
She gazed again at her home. She remembered the many hours she and her brothers had played on and under the wide, wrap-around porch. She remembered hot summer nights, when her mother sat on the porch in a rocking chair and shelled butterbeans and watched the children chasing fireflies.
Junebugs and crickets had serenaded the stars, while nature's own potpourri ~ honeysuckle vines and magnolia trees ~ filled the air with a sweet southern fragrance.
She put up her hand, and felt the tiny scar on her chin that marked the moment she had fallen on the back stoop while running to fill a water bucket.
She saw the wooden porch swing, and felt the scar upon her heart where the only man she had ever loved had confessed his love for another.
~~~~~~~~~~
On the sun-kissed side of the house was Maria's garden, her pride and joy. Many were the hours spent digging in the rich soil, burying old hopes and old dreams along with new seed, tending young shoots and watching the flowers and vegetables flourish each spring, promising new life and new hope to all who could see, and who would listen.
Her eyes traced the path that led to where she was sitting. Wildflowers marked the way, straining to offer their brightest colors before the first frost.
Maria watched a bee, buzzing around a trumpet-blossom. A squirrel, cheeks bulging with acorns, was digging his pantry near the rose bush her mother had planted at the head of her grandfather's grave.
The sound of honking geese drew her eyes to the sky, and she watched the V-formation head south. She wouldn't be the only one starting a long journey.
The fading sun was painting high cirrus clouds with varying shades of pink, blue and indigo. And as the earth moved, and a pink faded into a blue, and an indigo melted into a pink, she watched in awe, as through a slow-moving kaleidoscope.
She laughed when a spiraling leaf hit the back of the squirrel's head, and he jumped, startled.
Scolding loudly, he raced up a tree.
Maria pulled a journal from the deep pocket of her skirt, and began writing:
October 20, 1862
Dear Heavenly Father:
I hold out my hands to you, Lord. I turn myself over to you. I am weary and my heart hangs heavy.
Tomorrow, I will leave for Petersburg, too tired at this point to be afraid.
Shine your light through me onto those I meet.
And please be with mama and my brothers and sisters.
Mama has been through so much.
Wrap your loving arms around them, and keep them safe from all harm.
I ask all this in Jesus' name.
Your servant, Anna Maria
~~~~~~~~~
the author
Valerie Horne Sumner
with son Jacob, c. 1975
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click here to email Valerie Horne Sumner
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