Out of destruction and chaos, come love and hope.
Excerpt
CHAPTER ONE
December 20, 1860 was the twelfth birthday of Little Jedediah Stanton. As the family gathered in their parlor to present him his birthday presents, an impatient hammering of the door interrupted their gaiety. A servant quieted their celebration by going to the father and whispering, “It’s yo bruthah Justin, suh.”
Jed’s father, Jason, rose and followed the servant to another room, where he met a man, a few years older but not as heavy, gray flecks in his hair and about the temples and his moustache. Jason extended his hand, saying, “It’s good to see you Justin. What brings you to the city so early?”
Justin Stanton, taller and angrier than his brother, fists clenched at his sides, growled, “What in the name of common sense are they doing over there?”
The “over there” was at the small Baptist Church across town where a decision was being made that was going to affect their lives, the lives of their families, and indeed the life of every citizen of the United States.
Jason smiled, “You mean at the church? Why, Justin, they are declaring these eleven states as the Confederate States of America. We’ll have our own government, our own military and navy. We’ll no longer be subject to, or under the shackles of, Washington and that heartless, ignorant bunch.”
“And are you going to support that insane decision?”
“I told the men I would throw my weight and money with them, if it came to that.”
Justin just stared. He shook his head and spoke in compassion, “You are a fool, Jason. This will cost you your family and everything you have worked so hard for. And it will cost the South for two generations. I’ll not be a part of it.” He seemed close to tears as he walked out the door without saying another word.
Back in the parlor, Jason answered his wife with a whisper and then continued the party.
After decades of contention arising from slave and non-slave issues, legislation by the Federal Congress, which the southern states felt conspired against them, and the election of Abraham Lincoln, the men met that day feeling they had no choice but to withdraw from the Union.
The father, Jason, banker, church member, patriarch, and authoritarian head of the family, spoke. “Little Jed, you know that your brothers and sister each received a horse from your mother and me for their twelfth birthday. Now, each member of the family has a present for you before we go to get your horse.”
In the gathering that day were Jason Stanton, father, Ellie Mae, the mother, Adam, tall and handsome, the eldest son at eighteen, Aaron, sixteen, dour and complaining, the second son, Dahlia, fourteen, considered by her friends to be the prize of Columbia, and Little Jed, called that because of his size. Their servants waited outside the parlor.
Jason spoke, “Daniel, you may start.”
Daniel, Jedediah’s personal servant, stood in the doorway of the parlor. “Massa Jed, suh, I bin servin’ yo’ for twe’ve years an’ I want to give yo’ this.” He dragged a package into the door opening.
“Go ahead, Little Jed,” his father said, “open it.”
Jed rushed across the open floor to claim the package. He tore open the wrapping, revealing a blanket to put under the saddle of the horse. From his kneeling position on the floor, he hugged the black man’s legs, shocking everyone.
“Jedediah!” his father exclaimed, “this isn’t done! Daniel, you may go.”
“Why, Daddy? Why can’t I do that when I like the present and I like him? The last time we went out to see Uncle Justin, he walked with his arm around one of his slaves.”
“My brother Justin is not of the same opinion as I am about his slaves. He freed them a few years ago, and people now look at him as a ‘nigger lover’. Now, we no longer use that term, but we recognize the traditional and accepted method of caring for our people. Daniel is your servant, not your friend.”
Aaron butted in. “The South should follow Uncle Justin’s ideas to keep us from destroying ourselves.”
His father paused, then said, “Aaron, you are too young to know about these things. The way things are now, they are our servants.”
Jed accepted that and pushed his gift toward his chair. His father spoke again, “Dahlia, why don’t we start with you?”
Dahlia was two years older than Jed and, because of her brother’s diminutive size, had been more his protector than his sister. “Here, Jedediah. I bought you this.” She handed him a square box, which he grabbed as greedily as a thirsty man takes a glass of water. Inside was a pair of black riding boots.
Aaron, sitting next to Dahlia, muttered, “Where did you get them? Off some toy soldier?”
“Aaron!” his father barked.
Aaron gloomily looked at the floor.
His father said in a condescending voice, “All right, son, give him your present.”
“Why?” he growled. “He already got one from his man.”
“Is it the same? Why don’t you let him see it?”
Aaron kicked the bundle at his feet in Jed’s direction. Jed looked at it, then at his father as if asking permission. His father nodded and Jed dropped to his knees next to the package. Once opened, it revealed another saddle blanket. Where Daniel’s gift was blue, this one was red and gray. Jed smiled and looked up at Aaron to thank him, but was surprised by the scowl on Aaron’s face.
“Jedediah?” his father said.
“Oh yes, thank you Aaron. This is pretty.”
Still sullen, Aaron said, “I hope the horse likes it.”
“Come on, Aaron,” Dahlia urged, “this is his birthday.” Aaron made no response.
Jason turned to his oldest son, “Your turn.”
Adam reached out and handed Jed a long thin box. Jed opened it and let out a gleeful whoop. “A bridle! Oh boy, it’s nice. Thank you Adam.” He held in his hand a braided leather bridle with a silver bit and conches on each end.
“Daniel,” the elder Stanton shouted. The servant immediately stood in the doorway. “Take these gifts out to the barn and put them in the stall reserved for the new horse.” As Daniel came into the room to retrieve the presents, Jason said, “Wear a coat. This seems to be the coldest day of the year.”
The entrance to the servants’ quarters was next to the back door. A covered walkway guarded against rain and a giant wood stove provided them heat. Beyond the quarters another covered walk led to the barn. Inside the barn, harness and bridle gear was hung neatly and on strong wood pegs. The barn was cleaned daily and the refuse hauled away by a servant. Jason Stanton demanded that everything be kept clean and in order.
Jason Stanton looked around the group gathered there, and smiled. He was the proud owner of a bank, a house on the most exclusive street in the city, and a family to be respected by all. He was considered benevolent to his slaves, never whipping any of them. His rules were to be followed to the letter! If there was an infraction, a “committee” of the three who had served the longest, heard the defense and counseled the slave. A second infraction and the slave was shipped out the next day without a hearing.
He looked at Jedediah and said, “Little Jed, the time has come for the big event. Go upstairs and get your warm clothes on.”
Jed rushed up the stairs to his room as fast as he could. Daniel had returned and was waiting for him.
Jason then spoke to his wife, Ellie Mae. “Mother, will you be all right while we’re gone?”
“Of course, dear,” she said.
“We won’t be gone long. I just want you to be comfortable.”
“I’ll be all right, dear. You take Jedediah and get the horse. I have Dahlia here.”
Jason turned and left the room. He paused just a moment at the foot of the stairs. Her health had not been good and the extreme cold concerned him. If anything should happen to the fire, but his slaves took good care of the family. He turned and followed Jed upstairs. As Jason entered the room where his son was getting dressed, Jason looked at Daniel and frowned, but said nothing.
As they came down the stairs, Jason said, “Little Jed, you go get into the carriage. I must speak to your mother before we leave.”
Still in the parlor, Ellie Mae had taken up her knitting. Jason came in and said, “I received another note from the school. They wrote, ‘Almost morose, he doesn’t pay attention and has no interest in school’. More than that, they are concerned about his friends.”
Quietly knitting, his wife said, “Be patient, Jason. He’ll grow out of it. You expect him to be like Adam, and he isn’t.”
“I know that, but morose? No interest in school? Where did that come from? We have given him everything.”
“Aaron’s a different child, Jason. Be patient with him. He’ll change.”
Jedediah waited by the iron grillwork that surrounded their yard when Aaron came out the window of his room onto the upper patio and called, “Little Jed Bo-ree-gard, Pee Wee Bo-ree-gard.”
“Stop calling me that! That’s not my name! Why do you keep calling me that?”
“Yes, it is,” Aaron countered, “Little Jed Bo-ree-gard.”
Daniel, who was coming from the back of the house, heard the last comment and motioned to Jed. “You can’t hide, Little Jed Bo-ree-gard, I’ll find you,” Aaron continued. When he heard the front door open, he scurried back into his room.
Jason Stanton, erect and starchy as always, called, “Little Jed, are you ready?”
Daniel pushed Jed forward. Jed’s enthusiasm was somewhat subdued because of Aaron, but his interest soon revived.
The closer they got to the Tobin farm, the more Jed’s interest picked up. He began asking questions about his new horse. His father explained, ”When the Turks over-ran all of North Africa and then into Spain, they took their Arabian horses with them. By the time they were driven out of Spain, some of those horses had been captured. It turned out that there were some horse lovers at a Catholic Carthusian Monastery, who mated them with a local stock, producing the Andalusian. It’s more sturdy than a full blooded Arabian.”
Jed didn’t say anything, so his father continued, “Mr. Tobin tells me that it is the most intelligent horse. It was a favored horse for European Noblemen and women, its usual colors are white and light gray. You are getting a very special horse, you’ll see when we get there.”
“How did they get from Spain to here?”
“When the Spanish conquest of Florida began, they brought their horses, along with their military equipment, into this country, Cortez, for example. Through the years there has been an attempt to keep the bloodlines pure. Mr. Tobin assures me that this is a pure blooded animal.”
When they arrived at the Tobin farm they were directed to a long building across the yard from the house. Mr. Tobin met them there. He wore tan riding pants tucked into mid-calf length boots, shined bright black. He wore an open military jacket, a scarf around his neck and a military hat, that of a Union officer.
Tobin opened the door to the long building and Jed and his father entered with him. They saw a wide center aisle with slaves working feverishly on carriages, animals and cleaning. Jed guessed there were thirty or more. Mr. Tobin led them to a stall with a closed door, and said, “Well, Jed, here she is.” He opened the stall door displaying a totally black horse. “For obvious reasons, we called her Blacky.”
Jed could do nothing but jump up and down, and clap his hands. Both men laughed at this small child, so overwhelmed with joy. Jed’s father asked, “Did the saddle come too?”
“Yes. It’s in that box over there. We haven’t yet treated it. I’ll do that before bringing it in to town.”
The saddle was a Western style. Jed was so short he would have to jump to catch the saddle horn, then find the stirrups for his feet, before pulling himself up to riding position. “This means you are going to have to get stronger in your arms and shoulders,” his father counseled.
The transaction done, Jed and his father rode back into Columbia. As they neared their home, there were hundreds of people along the street, in small groups, waving, shouting and drinking. Jed asked, “What happened, Daddy, to make everyone so happy?”
“I’m afraid to guess. I know there has been talk about leaving the Union, but I didn’t think they would do it so soon.”
“What do you mean, ‘leaving the Union’? You mean we’re going to leave the United States and be our own country?”
“Well, yes, with others who think like we do. It isn’t anything you will have to worry about.”
As they rode up to their stable, Adam came bursting out the back door, shouting, “Daddy, did you hear about it? We did it. We voted to secede!”
Aaron followed, silently, and stood apart with his arms crossed. Four months past his sixteenth birthday, he rebelled at the idea of going into the bank with his father and older brother. He rebelled at every family gathering, agreeing only to sit at the table for the family meal. His countenance was glum, and he spoke not a word. Soon, he turned and went back into the house.
At supper that evening, Mrs. Stanton asked, “What do you think it means, Jason? Will there be war?”
“From what I’ve heard, yes. I’m going to talk to Wade in the morning and see what he has heard.”
“Mr. Hampton will probably be made a general,” an excited Adam predicted. “His grandfather was a general in the Revolutionary War. If he joins, I’m going to join with him.”
His mother was horrified at the thought. “Adam, this isn’t going to be a county fair. War is where people get shot and die!”
“Dad’s going to join, aren’t you Dad,” Adam pressed.
“I’m going to talk to Wade in the morning. I can see him before I go to the bank. Enough of this. Let’s finish our meal.” At that directive, there was no more conversation about the war, only about the new addition to the family, a coal black mare.
The next day, the whole city was exploding with talk of war. Mrs. Stanton was sick with nerves at the thought of the war, and Dahlia stayed with her. Jason, after talking to Wade Hampton, went on to the bank. Jed found some playmates to fight against the Yankees and Adam tried to find where to enlist in some cavalry outfit.
No one paid any attention to what Aaron was doing, and when the family came together at the evening meal, Aaron was missing. Jason sent the servants to look for him. When he wasn’t found in the house, they were sent into the neighborhood, but without success. Aaron left a note, which said, in part, “I’m sick and tired of the way you treat Little Jed at the expense of the rest of us. He got an Andalusian; I got an old plow horse. Dahlia’s is better than mine. And I’m not going to fight against our country. Goodbye.” He didn’t sign his name.
With the threat of war, and losing one of her sons, Mrs. Stanton was near a nervous breakdown. One of the servants was sent to get the doctor. When he arrived at the house, he was shown into Ellie Mae’s room. Dahlia was there, taking care of her mother. The doctor greeted her with, “Good evening, Dahlia. Thank you for taking care of your mother until I got here. But I really need to talk to her alone. Will you excuse us, please?”
Dahlia nodded and left the room.
The doctor pulled a straight back chair over by the bed, and sat. He spoke slowly, in a compassionate tone. “Ellie Mae, I have been your doctor for a long time, almost a lifetime, it seems. I brought all your children into the world, except Jedediah.” He hastened to add, “That was your privilege.”
He paused, then began again. “I have noticed these flare ups are getting more and more frequent, and I wonder, is there something you need to tell me?”
She lay quiet, staring at the ceiling.
He waited for her response and when none came, concluded with, “I’m going to give you a sedative powder. We’ll let Dahlia be responsible for the dosage.” He walked to the door and called for the daughter.
He explained, “Give your mother one spoon full of this powder in a glass of water, one in the morning after breakfast, and another in the evening after supper. Do this for a week, and I’ll be back one week from today.”
Dahlia nodded and escorted the doctor to the door.
On January 9, war became a reality when the Army of South Carolina fired upon a ship bringing supplies to Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor.
Mobilization for the South began immediately. In the month that followed, Jason Stanton, banker, church member, slave owner, leader in the community, felt compelled to enlist, and was granted a Captaincy in the Fourteenth South Carolina regiment. He made arrangements for his bank, selling his interest to an older brother-in-law, putting all the money into the Confederate cause.
After talking to Wade Hampton, Adam found out that George Edward Pickett, a General in the U. S. Army and veteran of the Mexican War, was resigning his commission to fight for the South, Adam left for Virginia with a note from Wade Hampton, to find Pickett and join him.
Dahlia, at nearly fifteen, understood about war, but she understood more about a sick mother. That was her major concern. Little Jed, still too small to mount his horse by himself, was too busy learning to ride and care for his horse to think much about war. He knew his mother was sick, but he was more concerned with Blacky.
In the first two years of the war, Ellie Mae Stanton lost her husband at the second battle of Bull Run and her oldest son at Gettysburg. Aaron’s disappearance the day South Carolina seceded added to her grief.
On Jed’s sixteenth birthday, December 20, 1864, Wade Hampton was in Columbia at the head of a retreating army. Everyone turned out to welcome him. As a neighbor, Jed had known the general all his life and he wanted to enlist.
“But General Wade,” he had argued, “with Sherman coming from Atlanta, the South needs every able-bodied man it can get.”
Wade Hampton had looked at him, holding back a smile. Looking at Jedediah, at five-six and barely one hundred thirty pounds, he almost said, ‘Yes, but we need men.’ What he did say was, “Jed, you are too small to even carry a musket.” The general paused. “Jed, I have known you all your life. You have never gotten into any military training groups. You have spent all your free time with your horse, entering fairs and competition. There is nothing wrong with that, but it has not prepared you for this kind of trouble.”
“I know that. But there must be something I can do. You know how I can ride, and with Blacky, I can surely do something.”
The General was quiet for what seemed to Jed, a very long time. Then he spoke. “Jed, I have known your parents longer than I have known you. Since the death of your father and Adam and then, Aaron running away, I know how frail your mother has been. If anything should happen to you, it might just be the end for her. Please understand.”
Jed had been crushed. To think that a Favorite Son of the South, his own neighbor, had turned him down from enlisting and helping defeat those Yankees. But just one week later he received a letter from General Hampton stating, “Meet me in Charleston in two weeks and I will introduce you to General Hardee. You will be courier between him and the other armies.” Jed was elated.
When he told his mother and sister, Dahlia exploded.
“What a stupid idea,” she had screamed. “You aren’t happy losing Daddy, Adam and Aaron. You want to go off and get killed too. Momma, tell him he can’t go!”
“Dahlia,” Jed had pleaded, “I’m sixteen. Lot’sa men my age are fighting. It’s the least I can do. You understand don’t you mother? This is something I have to do. General Wade has even sent me a personal invitation.”
“Yes,” Dahlia countered, “he’s sent you an invitation to get yourself killed. Well there’s one thing in your favor. You’re so skinny they’ll have to shoot right at you to hit you.” That last stung him. Dahlia had always been kind about referring to his size, until that moment.
Ellie Mae sat looking from Jed to Dahlia and back again. She clutched her hands to her breast and started to speak as big tears rolled down her cheek. Finally, unable to say anything, she closed her eyes and wept, completely distraught.
Read more about Stantons of Adams Hill and A. Russell Bailey HERE.
Copyright 2008 A. Russell Bailey. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.
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