Chapter 1:
In the haziness of dawn common to Shenandoah Valley summer mornings, Lieutenant John Pelham scanned the horizon from behind the battery of four smoothbore six-pounder artillery pieces. All were aimed, as they had been for a month, to the northeast, at the eighteen thousand Union troops commanded by General Robert Patterson. As part of General Joseph Johnston’s Army of the Shenandoah, which numbered twelve thousand, Pelham’s mission was to deny Union movement toward Richmond, where the Confederacy had just moved its capital and where Provisional President Jefferson Davis was still scrambling to put his government in place. As acting commander of the Alburtis Battery, Pelham was providing direct support for Colonel Francis Bartow’s brigade. His second in command and the only other officer in the battery was Jason Findley, a militia second lieutenant who a month earlier had been teaching math in a school in Lynchburg.
Chapter 2:
On Sunday, August 12, 1860, following Holy Communion, the organist played “Onward Christian Soldiers,” and John Pelham sang with strength and emotion, catching many in the congregation by surprise. Flanked by his parents, Atkinson and Martha Pelham, and six siblings in a pew bearing a brass plate honoring his maternal grandparents, he was different from what any of them remembered. In four years, Pelham had been home only once before. He, too, realized he bore little resemblance to the seventeen-year-old who had journeyed alone to West Point, New York, in 1856 to take the qualifying examinations for entrance into the United States Military Academy. In the time away from Benton County, recently renamed Calhoun County in honor of the former vice president and South Carolinian, his mind, body, and spirit had been much altered by the Academy’s discipline and training, and by the rigor that had reduced the Class of 1861 from ninety-three to fifty. He was grateful for this unexpected second furlough. The coming year would be his fifth and last at the school, located some forty miles up the Hudson River from New York City and a thousand miles from Jacksonville.
...As was his habit when entering upon a subject, the judge pursed his lips, and Pelham prepared for words spent frugally.
“If the election goes badly and Alabama and other Southern states were to exercise their option, to strike out on their own, try something different, a different form of government, and between them a looser federation with less centralized power and greater respect of the individuality and needs of a state, would you favor Alabama joining such a federation?”
“You talked to Father about this, sir?”
“I suggested to your father that there will be mass secessions if Lincoln is elected, though quite frankly he thinks me wrong, and I suppose there is some chance he’s right.” The judge glanced across the lawn at the older Pelham, who was speaking to Bettie’s friend. “Your father believes compromise is still the best wisdom, and that it will prevail as it has in the past. And beyond that, he is dead set against secession no matter what the circumstance. He even vowed to stump with Stephen Douglas to fight it.”
“And you’re wondering where I am on the subject, sir?”
“Knowing that would be useful, yes.”
…The carriage made good time along the valley road that traversed the Alabama hill country, the air humid and flavored with cut hay and honeysuckle. Cottonwoods, magnolias, and sprawling oaks lined the road. Pelham feverishly stored images of home that would have to last a year: the rolling landscape, the woods, bottomlands, and dark-water creeks; the fields of cotton, wheat, and corn; the laborers in the fields; the houses, barns, and slave shanties; the daily wash hung out to dry; the fences of wood, stone, and wire; the horses, cattle, and hogs grazing dumbly; the cats and dogs lazing in the afternoon sun; and chickens clucking about as if they owned the world.
Chapter 14
Charlie Hazlett, the night’s head hop manager and a good friend of Pelham’s, stuck his head out of the door.
“We’re about to begin, mates.”
Pelham offered Clara his arm. The main dining room had been cleared, so that it had every appearance of a ballroom. Hazlett, short but handsome, with dark hair and deep blue eyes, rang the dance bell that signaled the start of the evening, and then raised a hand to the expectant crowd.
“Welcome one and all to tonight’s hop. Let’s hear it for the band, for if they are encouraged, they will indeed play better.” Laughter filled the room as the ladies clapped gloved hands, producing little effect. In contrast, the cadets stomped their feet on the wood floor, whistled, and made catcalls, drawing smiles from the fourteen uniformed members of the dance band. “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Our first dance is a waltz by Johann Strauss. Enjoy your evening!”
Hardly had Hazlett finished, when Pelham slipped Clara past Patterson and Alice Paine onto the dance floor. Seconds later, the floor was packed as the bandleader’s baton twitched to life.
Clara expressed unveiled surprise. “You, John Pelham, are an excellent dancer.”
Too soon the first dance was over, followed by applause and more foot stomping.
Eva Taylor, with Rosser towering beside her, touched Clara’s arm. “And don’t you two make a fine couple.”
Clara glanced at Pelham, who appeared not to have heard.
As Pelham escorted Clara off the floor, he gently squeezed her hand.
“Thank you, my lady. I would not have thought that Quakers cottoned to dancing.”
“Cottoned?”
Pelham smiled. “Never mind.”
“You flatter me, John, but get me for a lancers and you might change your mind.”
“Doubtful, my lady.”
…By the time Pelham approached Clara for the thirteenth dance, her face, like that of every girl in the room, had been re-powdered and her hands clad in fresh gloves.
“You are flushed, my lady.” He offered Clara his arm.
“And you are shiny.”
She drew a scented handkerchief from her sleeve and wiped his brow,letting her fingers linger on his cheek.
“Thank goodness for another waltz,” she said. “And do be gentle, for I think I shall really need that fresh air.”
They were again swallowed up on the dance floor.
“Enjoying yourself?” Pelham asked.
“Oh, John, how could I not! And to think, you do this three times a week, three months a year. Do you know how lucky you are?”
“Lest you forget, my lady, there are twelve months in a year, and for nine months the hotel is empty of any reason to come to it. We are veritable monks. I have but Rosser to look at—can you imagine?”