Beaufort, South Carolina
February 1863
Excitement spread to every corner of the First South Carolina Volunteers’ camp. Grady could feel it—the expectancy of change in the air. Their training was nearly complete, and the real business of fighting was about to begin. Every man was busy polishing his rifle, shining his boots, and brushing his uniform to look his very best. Grady took extra care shaving and combing his hair, primping the way he used to do before going courting. The memory brought Delia to mind, and with it the ache of loneliness.
He quickly drew a breath and exhaled, pushing the pain aside. Today was going to be an important day, not a sad one. Grady’s regiment of colored troops was marching into Beaufort in dress parade to be reviewed by General Saxton himself for the first time. A week ago Colonel Higginson had put them through their paces in preparation. At the end of the drill, he’d ordered them to hold up their right hands and pledge themselves to be faithful to those slaves who were still held in bondage. Grady had sworn by all that was in him to keep fighting until every last slave was free—or die trying.
Yes, change was coming … he could tell. Today the men would prove to General Saxton that they were ready. Then the army would finally let them march and fight.
Grady glanced around at the other dark, proud faces as they lined up, nearly a thousand soldiers in straight, even ranks. The color-sergeant, Prince Rivers, came forward to address the men before they marched. The former slave had been a coachman in Beaufort, like Grady, and they had met before the war. Now Sergeant Rivers stood before them, more than six feet tall, as noble and dignified as any white officer.
“Listen, boys—” he began.
“Call us men!” Grady shouted. Sergeant Rivers paused, glancing around to see who had spoken. “Excuse me, sir,” Grady said. “But call us men. And keep calling us that until we believe it.” He heard shouts of agreement all through the ranks. The sergeant smiled slightly and began again.
“Listen, men … don’t be gawking all over the place when you march through town. Keep your eyes looking straight ahead of you. You’re gonna be marching past white soldiers and officers who ain’t never seen the likes of us before. They been drilling a whole month for every week that we have. Let’s show them what we can do … men.”
There was a roar of approval and the drums began to pound. Grady’s heart thumped with the beat as they set off on the threemile march to Beaufort. The Eighth Maine Regimental Band stood waiting for them at the edge of town and led them down Bay Street with a brisk march. The blood-stirring music coursed through Grady’s veins like a rush of fire. He knew they looked extraordinary, every chin lifted with pride, every foot in perfect step. He risked a glimpse without turning his head and saw the white soldiers staring in amazement as the First South Carolina Volunteers marched through Beaufort in disciplined ranks. These were slaves—ignorant slaves—looking as fine as any white regiment ever looked.
The troops reached the eastern edge of town, turned, and marched back through Beaufort once again. Grady knew they had done well, but it still wasn’t enough. He wanted a chance to prove he could fight, to earn the respect he deserved. They halted at the parade ground and drilled for an hour for the officers’ review. Then they marched back to camp singing John Brown’s song and dozens of others. Grady felt dizzy with exhilaration.
“I’m proud of you, men,” Colonel Higginson announced before dismissing them. “I’m going to speak with General Hunter and tell him we’re ready to fight.”
An enormous cheer followed his words. Grady lifted his fist high in the air and shouted until his throat ached. At last! The time had finally come for him to avenge his life of bondage. He would fight for his dignity, fight to reclaim what had long been denied him as a slave.
Four days later Grady stood onboard the John Adams, steaming down the Beaufort River on his regiment’s first mission. General Hunter had authorized an expedition along the Georgia coast into Confederate-held territory. Their orders were to confiscate cotton crops, to acquire much-needed lumber for the Union army, and best of all, to liberate slaves. Any able-bodied men they freed would be welcomed into their ranks as recruits.
Grady stood near the rail as the ship reached the mouth of the Beaufort River and headed out into the open sea. It was the first time he’d been on a ship since his years of traveling up and down the Atlantic coast with Coop. The air was brisk up on deck, the salt spray cold on his face, the winter seas rough and choppy. But Grady didn’t want to go down below where Coop had always confined him. It was well worth the chill to experience this exhilarating sense of freedom.
After an hour or so at sea, Corporal Robert Sutton came up on deck to stand alongside him. “How come you ain’t getting seasick like a lot of the other men?” he asked Grady. “You must have a strong stomach for the sea.”
Grady liked the powerfully built corporal. The former slave loved to talk and could entertain the soldiers with his stories for hours.
“I spent four years on the sea,” Grady replied. “Guess I got used to it.”
“Was you working on a steamer or something?”
“No … my massa was a slave trader.” Grady decided to bring the bad memories out into the open in hopes it would finally drive them away. He knew that Sutton wouldn’t insult him with misplaced pity. “Massa Coop had me sailing with him from Richmond to New Orleans and back again, trading slaves. Never got to stand out here, though. Most of the time I was down in the hold with all the other cargo.”
“I’ll bet you seen more of the world than I ever did,” Sutton 303 said.
“Yeah, I reckon so. How come you ain’t sick?”
“Who says I ain’t?” Sutton chuckled and Grady laughed along with him. It felt good to laugh.
“Where you from, Corporal?” Grady asked.
“All the way down in Florida—right where we’re headed. Colonel Higginson asked me to pilot the boat up the St. Mary’s River for him, seeing as I know them waters so well. That’s the river dividing Florida from Georgia, you know. My old massa run a lumbering operation, so I told the colonel I know where there’s plenty of lumber. Told him it’s about time we went to work. I don’t believe in lying around camp eating rations.”
“I know. Me neither,” Grady said with a smile. “How’d you manage to escape from your massa?”
“I went down the river one night in a stolen dugout. I liked being free so much that I went back for my wife and child. Yes sir, I been up and down that river plenty of times. Gonna be a real pleasure steaming up there with all these guns, though.” Sutton gestured to one of the cannons mounted behind them.
“You know a lot about ships?” Grady asked.
“No, but I know that the one we’re on used to be a ferryboat up in Boston, until the army turned it into a gunboat. Now she’s armed with a thirty-pound Parrott gun, two ten-pounders, and an eight-inch howitzer. She’s ready for a fight, I’ll tell you. And so are the other two ships we’re sailing with—the colonel’s flagship, the Ben DeFord, and the Planter. You ever hear the story of the Planter?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Oh, it’s a good one!” Sutton leaned against the rail, his face animated as he told Grady the story. “A slave from Beaufort named Robert Smalls captured that steamer right out from under the Rebels’ noses! He was a first-class pilot, you see. Knew all these waters like the back of his hand. So he ended up aboard the Planter, working for a Confederate captain named Relyea who was known for always wearing a beat-up straw hat. Well, last spring while they was stopping in Charleston, Smalls and six other slaves hid themselves on board, waited until three o’clock in the morning, then fired up the engines and cast off.
“First they sailed upriver where their wives and children was waiting. Then they turned around and headed out to sea. It was real dangerous sailing past Fort Sumter, don’t you know. If they went too fast, the Rebels would figure something’s up—and sink her straight to the bottom. So Smalls put on Captain Relyea’s straw hat and stood on deck so the watchman up at the fort could see him. Smalls even knew which signal to give with the ship’s whistle.
“Now, usually the Planter would be turning and heading for Morris Island once she was past the fort. Instead, Smalls opened her up and headed for the Union blockade fleet a few miles out. On the way, he took down the Rebel flag and raised a white one. Not only did Smalls and his men and their families all escape, but the Union got herself a fine ship, perfect for navigating these shallow coastal rivers.”
Grady smiled when Sutton finished. He imagined Delia telling that story over and over to crowds of eager listeners. “You’re right, Corporal,” he said. “That’s a great story.”
The journey to St. Simons Island off the coast of Georgia proved uneventful. The John Adams soon lay anchored with several other naval vessels in the calm waters of St. Simons Sound, waiting for the slower-moving Planter to catch up. Grady felt restless and ready for action as he stood gazing at the distant beach and abandoned plantation houses. When Colonel Higginson began assembling a team to go ashore, he quickly volunteered.
“The Rebels have abandoned all their forts on St. Simons Island,” the colonel explained, to Grady’s great disappointment. “But some of the men from our regiment were forced to help build those batteries while they were still slaves. They said that the Rebels used brand-new railroad iron to reinforce their magazines and bomb-proofs. Those iron bars would be worth their weight in gold to the Union if we could dig them out of the sand.”
It wasn’t what Grady had imagined himself doing when he’d enlisted, but he figured anything was better than standing around on a ship all day. He boarded a large flatboat with the other men, and once ashore, the Georgia slaves easily guided them to the buried treasure. The sun beat down on the exposed beach, forcing Grady to shed his uniform jacket as he and the others shoveled through nearly twelve feet of sand. His fellow soldiers seemed to thoroughly enjoy this demolition work, and Grady couldn’t understand their laughter and high spirits. Weren’t they tired of such backbreaking tasks after all these years? Didn’t the fire of revenge burn as hotly in their souls as it did in his? What good was a gun if he couldn’t kill anyone with it?
After unearthing nearly one hundred iron rails, the men set off across the island to forage for farm animals and to rescue any remaining slaves. Grady enjoyed rifling through the white folks’ plantations. He and his fellow slaves deserved a portion of the food and livestock they had labored to produce. And he loved seeing the expressions of joy on the former slaves’ faces when he offered them their freedom.
The ships set sail the next morning, dropping off the freed slaves in the town of Fernandina, and reaching Fort Clinch at the mouth of the St. Mary’s River by late afternoon. “I’m assembling a corps of troops for another mission,” Colonel Higginson announced after dinner.
Most of the men quickly volunteered, eager to join him. But Grady held back this time, waiting to hear what the mission entailed. He was willing to fight, but he would no longer break his back for the white men. When the colonel said, “We’ll be conducting a nighttime raid on a Rebel camp,” Grady caught his breath. This was it: the chance he’d waited for all his life.
“Corporal Sutton is going to guide us up the St. Mary’s as far as Township Landing, fifteen miles upriver,” the colonel continued. “We’ll go ashore there and pay a surprise visit to Captain Clark’s Rebel cavalry, camped nearby. We’ll likely come under fire, so your courage will be tested for the first time. But it’s a chance to apply what we’ve learned in training camp.”
So many men volunteered that there wasn’t room for them all on the two ships making the run. Grady was grateful for his good health when Colonel Higginson decided to winnow out all of the men who were coughing and might spoil a surprise attack. Grady’s tentmate, Joseph, was just recovering from a cold and was devastated at the thought of being left behind. Grady overheard him begging at the colonel’s feet.
“Please let me come, sir! I’ll throw myself on the ground and scrape a little hole to cough into before I’ll ever make a sound! Please, sir!”
Higginson smiled, evidently amused by Joseph’s zeal. He allowed him to come.
They waited until after dark to begin the trip upriver so that the plume from the ship’s smokestack wouldn’t give them away. The colonel addressed the volunteers one last time before they cast off, offering anyone who wanted it a chance to change his mind.
“The Rebels have heard all about our regiment,” he told them. “They’ve heard that we have freed slaves fighting against them now, and they’re all in an uproar about it. Before you volunteer for this mission, you need to know that the Rebels will show you no mercy. They won’t be taking any prisoners of war. If you’re captured, they’ll either shoot you outright or return you to slavery.”
The news didn’t deter Grady in the least—or anyone else. He stood beside Joseph at the bow of the ship as the journey began, his rifle loaded, his body tensed and ready to kill. “I ain’t showing them no mercy, either,” he murmured. “The more white men I kill, the better I’ll feel.”
Joseph turned to face him, studying him in the darkness. “Killing in battle is one thing. After all, we’re trying to win a war. But hating people … Hating ain’t good, Grady.”
He remembered Delia trying to preach him the same sermon and it made him angry. “Why don’t you go talk to the white men, then? Seems like they’re hating us as much as I’m hating them.”
“Not all of them hate us, and not all white men are bad. There’s good ones and bad ones, just like us colored folks.”
“Yeah, well I’ve seen more than my fair share of bad ones,” Grady said. “I ain’t no worse than any of them.”
“If you’re comparing yourself to other men, then you’re using the wrong measure. You need to be comparing yourself to God’s standard—”
“Don’t preach to me,” Grady warned.
Joseph paused for a long moment, then asked, “What about Colonel Higginson? And Captain Metcalf and Captain Trowbridge and all the other white officers?”
“What about them?”
“Are you hating them, too, just because their skin’s white?”
Grady didn’t answer. The truth was that he avoided them as much as possible, wishing his race knew enough about warfare to go into battle without any white men. It was only because of the white man’s prejudice that Negroes had never studied to be army officers. And there was no doubt in his mind that with the proper training, a black man could be a four-star general.
“Colonel Higginson and the others could be with a white regiment right now instead of with us,” Joseph continued. “But they’re volunteering to lead us—even though they’re all knowing that they won’t be sent to a prisoner-of-war camp, either, if they’re captured. The truth is, the Rebels plan on killing the white officers right along with us.”
Grady looked at Joseph for the first time. “Why would they do that? They’re white men.”
“That’s their punishment for working with us. The Rebels are saying that any white officer they catch leading a troop of Negroes is gonna be treated just the same as a Negro and killed on the spot.”
“Is that true?” Grady glanced up at the darkened pilothouse where Colonel Higginson stood in the shadows beside Corporal Sutton.
“Yes, sir, I swear it’s true,” Joseph replied. “Not all white men are like our massas, you know. A good many of them are wanting to see us set free—and that includes Colonel Higginson and all the men who’re volunteering to lead us.”
Grady still didn’t understand why they would do that. But he had a new respect for these white officers who willingly shared his race’s scorn and the Rebels’ hatred.
“You know, Jesus done the same thing,” Joseph said softly. And for some reason Grady didn’t interrupt him or walk away. “Jesus was God’s Son. He never had to live on earth or suffer and die. But He became a man, just like us. He took on our shame and sin and was willing to die for us.”
His words sent a shiver of unease through Grady. “Why?” he asked.
“Same reason,” Joseph said with a shrug. “He wanted to set us free.”
Grady did walk away then, unwilling to allow any disquieting thoughts to disturb his plans for revenge. The moon shone dully off the swiftly flowing water as he stared into the darkness ahead. They rounded each bend in the river never knowing what lay ahead, heightening his sense of danger. He gazed up at the hills and meadows on shore and knew that he was heading deep into Rebel territory for the first time since his escape. He imagined thousands of Confederates waiting in ambush around the next bend in the river, and he felt alert, tense, and fully alive. Every light on the ship had been darkened, every voice whispered like the lapping of waves against the hull. He walked over to a group of soldiers standing beside one of the heavy guns.
“They say the Rebels will let ships go upriver,” he heard one of them say, “but it’s a trap. They’ll build snags so they can attack us from their batteries on the way back.”
“Yeah? Let them try it!” Grady said, his rage building again, along with his tension. “I’ve got plenty of ammunition.”
The ships finally halted just below their destination of Township Landing, and Corporal Sutton went ashore with a small advance force. By the time Grady’s ship rounded the point and docked at the landing, Sutton’s men had silently surrounded the sleeping inhabitants’ homes.
“Ain’t nobody running off to tell the Rebels we’re here, Colonel,” Sutton reported to Higginson with a proud grin. “We can take them by surprise. They’re camping about five miles from here, down a logging road through them woods.”
It was after midnight by the time Grady and the others started down the path behind a small advance guard. The sense of wariness and danger he’d felt on board ship was heightened tenfold as he crept through the silent forest. His rifle was loaded and ready, his bayonet fixed. They would catch these white boys by surprise and kill them while they slept.
The pine woods were damp and fragrant, the bed of needles soft beneath his feet. The only sounds were the quiet tramp of feet, the glug of frogs in a nearby marsh, the distant yelp of a dog on some small farm hidden deep in the woods. The moon barely penetrated the thick forest, and Grady squinted into the darkness as his eyes tried to adjust to the scant light. They marched for more than two miles, hearing nothing, seeing nothing.
Suddenly the advance guard halted. They motioned for Grady and the others not to make a sound as they came to a halt behind them. Grady strained to see into the blackness, every nerve stretched tightly. Then he heard it—the distant sound of galloping horses. He remembered hearing those thudding hooves on the darkened road the night the white paddyrollers had caught him. He’d been defenseless against them back then. They’d captured him and tied him up and flogged all the flesh off his back, simply because they could. But tonight Grady had a gun. Tonight he would have his revenge.
Before he and the others could react, a rider on a white horse appeared out of the gloom on the shadowy path, leading a pack of cavalry. The two forces saw each other at the same moment, and the surprised Rebel in the lead reined his horse to a halt. He drew his pistol and fired just as the advance guard raised their rifles and fired. A volley of shots echoed through the silent woods like thunder as Grady and the others quickly took cover in the bushes. His heart pounded wildly, but he knew exactly what to do. Kneeling behind a bush, Grady calmly lifted his rifle and aimed at a target he couldn’t see. He heard the whiz of bullets overhead, the deafening roar of hundreds of rifles all around him, but he waited until he spotted a burst of fire in the darkness from a Rebel rifle. Then he carefully took aim where he’d seen the flash—and fired. His ears rang from the discharge.
Grady ducked his head and quickly reloaded, cursing his fumbling fingers, wishing he could reload and fire faster. Voices cried out as bullets struck their mark on both sides, but Grady aimed, fired, reloaded—over and over again, his hearing deadened by the noise.
How long had they been fighting? He lost all track of time. In a way it seemed as if he’d been marching through the silent woods only a moment ago, yet it also seemed as if he’d been firing into the night for an eternity. Gradually, the enemy fire slackened, then stopped. He heard Colonel Higginson call, “Cease fire!”
Grady lowered his rifle and glanced around. Every man was in an offensive position, bravely standing up to the enemy. Not a single one of them cowered in the bushes. But the Confederates were gone. They were the ones who’d turned tail and run. Grady’s company had experienced their first fight and they’d been victorious. He wanted to cheer.
“Let’s keep going and finish this,” Corporal Sutton said. Grady and the others agreed. But Colonel Higginson shook his head.
“All hope of surprise is lost. We won this round. The Rebels are the ones who fled in defeat. Let’s fix some stretchers and attend to the wounded.”
One of Grady’s fellow soldiers had been killed. Seven others lay wounded and bleeding—some of them dying. The first sight of these casualties left Grady shaken. He had come to kill white men, not to be wounded or killed by them. Grady had taken an oath to help free his fellow slaves or die trying, but until this moment he hadn’t truly faced what that meant. He didn’t want to die. Death wasn’t in his plans. But as he looked at his dead and wounded comrades, he realized that it hadn’t been in their plans, either.
“It’s okay, Colonel,” he heard one of the wounded men say, when Higginson knelt to console him. “Freedom is sweeter than life.”
Grady felt a moment of stomach-churning fear as he glanced around for Joseph and couldn’t find him. Then his gangly tentmate stood from where he’d been kneeling in prayer beside the dead man. Grady exhaled in relief. As skinny as Joseph was, those Rebels probably couldn’t hit him on a clear day with the sun shining.
Grady helped load the wounded onto stretchers and carry them back through the woods to the landing. They marched with their weapons loaded, their eyes and ears alert, fully expecting a counter-attack at any moment. When it didn’t happen, Colonel Higginson assured them that it meant complete victory. “We must have hit them pretty hard,” he said. “No decent cavalry would let a small infantry force like ours march through their territory without a fight.”
Grady volunteered to stay onshore with the colonel and a small squadron to guard the settlement until morning. He remained alert all night, waiting for another fight, eager for it, but the attack never came. Filled with unspent fury, he watched his fellow soldiers load a piano from the plantation house onto the ship the next morning to deliver to the Negro children’s school in Fernandina. Then at the colonel’s signal, Grady helped set the house on fire to prevent the Rebels from using it again.
On the return journey down river, Grady’s ship docked at another small town to retrieve a much-needed load of lumber. Three white-haired Southern ladies waited to greet them, waving white handkerchiefs.
“They gonna tell you they’s on our side,” Corporal Sutton warned the colonel, “but they’s really Rebel spies. You wait and see—as soon as we’re on our way again, their menfolk will be waiting round the first bend to ambush us.”
Colonel Higginson greeted the women politely—too politely, Grady thought. He knew the women were lying when they insisted that they weren’t Rebel sympathizers or spies. He gritted his teeth when he saw how they addressed only the colonel and the other white officers, casting cold, disdainful glances at any Negroes who ventured near them. Grady easily recognized their racism for what it was, having experienced it all his life. He worried that the colonel had fallen for their flattery until he overheard him say, “If our ships are ambushed as we’re leaving, I can promise you ladies that we will return and torch your town.”
Higginson ordered some of the soldiers to spread out and guard the town from a surprise attack while the rest of the men quickly loaded the lumber onboard. Grady and two others climbed up the cupola of one of the houses to stand watch. It was still early morning, and the feathery mist rising from the river and the distant fields looked like fairy smoke. He thought of Anna and wished he could share the view with her. Then, as he scanned the woods for signs of Rebels, he wondered how long it would take to forget her.
When the colonel finally signaled to reboard the ship, Grady felt bitterly disappointed that there hadn’t been a fight. He was ready for one after his first taste of combat last night. But shortly after the vessels got underway, a sudden volley of explosions rocked the ship. Everyone dove for cover, dodging a rain of shrapnel and splintering wood and bullets. The gunners ran to their weapons to return fire, but the attack ended as quickly as it began.
Grady’s heart thudded with excitement and readiness as the colonel made good on his threat and returned to shore to set the town on fire. Something deep inside him found immense satisfaction as he listened to those white ladies begging for mercy … and he watched their pleas go unheeded.
The ships returned safely to Fernandina with no further Rebel attacks. But rather than soothing Grady’s need for action, the night’s work left him feeling very unsatisfied. He’d savored only one tantalizing taste of combat, and he hungered for more. Enemy troops still roamed the woods along that river, and he longed to hunt them down and kill them all. Even after staying up all night, he felt much too edgy to sleep. So when the colonel announced a second nightlong mission, Grady quickly volunteered again. They would venture further upriver this time, to the town of Woodstock, deep in Rebel-held territory, to acquire a supply of new bricks to repair Fort Clinch.
The expedition sailed up the St. Mary’s River after dark, just as they had the night before, with Corporal Sutton piloting the ship by moonlight. The river was calm as Grady stood watching from the bow, the tide flowing with them. Conversation onboard was subdued as everyone prepared for action, wondering if they’d be attacked from the shore batteries again. They sailed past the old ladies’ town that they had burned the previous night, then past Township Landing, where they’d fought the Rebel cavalry. But there was no sign of the enemy.
The riverbanks loomed steeply on either side of them as they steamed farther upstream, and the current grew swifter and more treacherous. Branches and snags littered their path, and the ship grounded eight times as the captain tried to navigate the river’s sharp bends. When they lay stranded on one sandbar for half an hour, the colonel put everyone on alert, fearing a Rebel attack. Grady knew that one well-placed cannonball would sink the ship and doom them all. But the enemy seemed not to be expecting a second foray into their territory so soon after the first, and Grady’s ship finally reached the sleeping town of Woodstock just before daybreak.
The soldiers scrambled ashore with orders to surround the town and make certain that no one crept away to alert the Rebels of their arrival. Once all the roads were secured, Grady and the others went house-to-house, rounding up all the white men to hold as temporary prisoners and urging all the slaves to board the ships to freedom. He took great pleasure in rousing these white folks from their homes and beds, savoring their fear at being held at gunpoint by former slaves. Dogs barked and babies cried and roosters crowed in the pandemonium of rushing feet and shouted orders. But the loudest protests came from the white women who were outraged at being held captive by armed Negroes as they watched all their slaves go free.
The regiment’s orders had been to show restraint, using force only when absolutely necessary, and not a shot was fired throughout the entire operation. But Grady saw the loathing and disgust for his race in every white person’s eyes, and he longed for an excuse to shoot one of them. When his work was finished, he went to Colonel Higginson with a request.
“The slaves we’re setting free ain’t got a thing in the world, Colonel,” he said. “Can’t we rummage through town and maybe take some bedding and stuff that they might be needing? Ain’t it all their hard work that earned everything their massas have?”
Colonel Higginson shook his head. “I’m sorry, Private. We have permission to forage only for things we need ourselves.”
“What about that piano we took last night?” Grady asked.
Higginson looked embarrassed. “Well … that was against regulations. I’m afraid I got a little carried away. We’re not allowed to loot from civilians or burn a town unless there’s proof of collaboration with the Rebels.”
He must have seen Grady’s anger and frustration, because a moment later he added, “Come with me, son. Corporal Sutton and I are about to pay a visit on one of the town’s leading citizens—the proprietress of the sawmills and lumber wharves. Corporal Sutton was once her slave.”
Grady followed Sutton and Colonel Higginson to the town’s largest home, upset to realize that his natural inclination was to circle around to the servants’ entrance. Instead, he followed the colonel up the steps to the front door. Higginson introduced himself to the lady of the house adding, “And I’m sure you remember Corporal Robert Sutton, ma’am?”
She gave her former slave a look of utter contempt and said, “We called him Bob.”
Grady imagined himself facing his former mistress, Missus Fuller, and spitting in her face. His admiration for the corporal grew when he saw how the man maintained his poise and dignity.
When the colonel finished informing her that the Union was confiscating her lumber, Sutton turned to Higginson and said, “I’ll show you her slave jail now, sir.”
They walked around back to a small building that was no larger than a corncrib. Grady saw the bolt and chain in the middle of the floor, and his fury mounted as he recalled being shackled to the floor of the slave hut for three days at Missus Fuller’s orders. This slave jail also contained three pairs of stocks, including one that was small enough to confine women and children.
“Do they … do they use this on children?” Higginson asked in a hushed voice.
Corporal Sutton nodded. Grady knew that when he’d been a boy, Coop would have shackled him along with all the other slaves if the bonds had fit his wrists.
“What is this?” Higginson asked as he examined an odd metal contraption with chains and spikes.
“Massa use that to torture us slaves,” Sutton said quietly. “Once he’s putting us in that thing, we can’t sit, stand or lay down without suffering. We just have to balance ourselves as best we can till it’s over, sir.”
Grady saw the colonel’s horror. For several long moments Higginson was unable to speak as powerful emotions rocked through him. He took the set of keys that hung on a nail on the wall and handed them to Sutton. “You keep these, Corporal,” he said quietly. “You’ve earned them.”
When the lumber, bricks, and newly freed slaves were all loaded onboard, Higginson ordered his soldiers to take all of the town’s white men along as hostages. They would be transported to the mouth of the river before being released, he told them, in order to discourage the usual Rebel attacks on the voyage downstream.
The ship’s gun crews stood ready near their weapons as they left the wharf. Grady chafed when he and the other soldiers were ordered to remain belowdecks where it was safe. The hot, crowded hold brought back memories of all the years he’d spent traveling with load after load of slaves, bound for the auction block, and his stomach clenched like a fist. He had to remind himself that he was free now; that these slaves were heading toward freedom, too; and that the white men huddling in the corner were his prisoners.
Suddenly a volley of explosions shook the boat. Grady ducked instinctively. A soldier near one of the portholes shouted, “The Rebels are attacking from the bluffs!”
The cannons on the deck above them roared as the ship returned fire. The boom of rifles seemed deafening in the hold as the soldiers who crowded near the portholes fired their weapons. Grady felt trapped, imprisoned in the bowels of the ship with no way to fight back.
“Let me out!” he begged the soldier guarding the hatch. “Let me fight!” But the man shook his head, and the ship steamed downriver until the noise finally died away.
Grady exhaled in frustration. He rechecked his weapon to make sure it was still ready, then inspected his ammunition pouch. He had just convinced himself that it was safe to sit down and relax when he heard a cannon explode on the top on a nearby bluff. The ominous scream of a falling artillery shell followed, growing louder, coming closer, until it crashed into the river alongside the ship with a roar. He knew by the way the vessel rocked, and by the burst of water that sprayed the deck above him, that the shell had fallen very close to them. It would only take one to sink them. And if the ship grounded again or got entangled in a snag, it would make an easy target.
A hail of bullets hammered the deck above him, and he heard the sounds of splintering wood and shattering glass. Belowdecks, chaos reigned as the women and children wept and screamed, and his fellow soldiers begged for a chance to fight. Grady ran to the hatch again with his rifle. “Let us up on deck!” he shouted. “Give us a chance to fight back!” He could barely hear the reply above the din.
“The colonel says to stay below! Your rifles ain’t any good at this distance!” Bitterly disappointed, Grady could only hunker down with the others until the ship steamed out of range.
An hour passed, and the Rebels made no more attacks. Exhausted, Grady finally managed to doze for a few minutes. The hushed murmur of excited voices awakened him. He scrambled to his feet. “What is it? What’s going on?” he asked Joseph.
“The colonel’s just sending us the news,” he said somberly.“Mr. Clifton, the ship’s captain, was hit by a Rebel bullet in the first attack.”
“Is he okay?”
Joseph shook his head. “They killed him, Grady. He died standing right there at the helm.” He paused, then added, “He’s a white man, you know. And he gave his life to help free a boatload of slaves.”
Grady returned to where he’d been dozing and sank down. Joseph had tried to tell him that not all white men hated him, that the officers in his regiment were risking their lives for the slaves’ sakes. He remembered Colonel Higginson’s emotional reaction when he saw the slave jail, but Grady still couldn’t comprehend it. He’d never experienced anything but hatred between the two races, yet on this mission, white and black had fought together against a common enemy, facing death for the same cause. Before the war he would have called any man a liar if he had tried to tell him such an alliance was possible.
Later that afternoon, when all danger was past and the men were allowed up on deck again, Grady saw Joseph and a small group of soldiers kneeling in prayer by their dead captain. The man’s body was shrouded, the color of his skin hidden from view—and Grady was able to look past it for first time in his life and see the man beneath. Captain Clifton had earned Grady’s deep respect and admiration. This white man had taken upon himself the wrath of all those who hated the Negro race—and had died for their sakes.
Grady recalled what else Joseph had told him on their voyage upriver. It was the same thing Eli had taught him long ago in Richmond, and what Delia had tried to tell him back at Massa Fuller’s plantation: God’s Son took the scorn and sin of the human race upon himself and had died for their sakes.
But the old question quickly rose to taunt Grady: Why had Jesus deserted him, then? Why had He allowed him to suffer all these years? Delia had compared Grady’s life of slavery to that of Joseph’s in the Bible; she said Joseph’s suffering had made him strong so that God could use him to save his family. “Ever think that maybe the Lord’s preparing you to save your black brothers and sisters?” she had asked.
It had seemed inconceivable, back then. But that was exactly what Grady was doing right now.
He quickly turned and stumbled belowdecks to escape his disturbing thoughts. Over in one corner huddled a group of white men who would gladly kill him or enslave him again, if given the chance. Grady was still not sure he was willing to trust a white man as his friend. And he was certain that he wasn’t ready to trust Jesus again, either.