October 1859
When my cousin Rosalie turned nineteen, she decided she must get married at once or risk being labeled an old maid. After a great deal of fuss and deliberation, she finally made her choice—the oldest son of a wealthy Philadelphia banking family. Her wedding was the premier social event of the season.
Cousin Robert arrived home from West Point and served as my escort. He had lost a good deal of his baby fat after one year at the academy, and he now sported a shadow of soft, dark fuzz on his upper lip that was supposed to be a mustache. But he still made an unconvincing soldier, even in uniform. Now he looked like a mournful Spanish poet dressed up for a costume ball. He walked and stood with his shoulders hunched, hanging his head as if he was about to apologize for some grave error. Julia made fun of him behind his back, but I was grateful for his arm to cling to at the wedding. He helped me thwart unwelcome advances from several of the groom’s relatives.
Rosalie’s wedding was the kind every girl dreams of—a gown like a fairy-tale princess’s, a church fragrant with jasmine and roses, a glittering champagne reception, a wedding trip to Saratoga with a brand-new trousseau. Julia and I couldn’t help being envious. When it was all over that night, our bedroom seemed very quiet and empty without Rosalie. Julia and I had the mirrored dressing table all to ourselves, but neither one of us could bear to sit there in Rosalie’s place.
After we were both in bed with the lights out, I heard Julia sniffling. “Are you crying?” I asked.
“No!”
But when I tiptoed across the room and climbed into bed with her, I knew that she had been. “There must be a leak in the roof, then,” I said. “Your pillow is all wet.”
Julia’s tears turned to giggles. We lay in the dark for a while, whispering about the day’s events. Then Julia said, “Rosalie was so caught up in the wedding, I’ll bet she never once remembered that she’d have to share a bed with a man tonight, dressed in only her chemise.”
“Julia!” I was shocked. She laughed.
“Well, it’s part of life, isn’t it? And it’s certainly part of marriage. Where do you think babies come from?”
“You shouldn’t talk about such things. It isn’t proper.”
“Phooey! Who cares about being proper? Do you think Rosalie is in love with her new husband?”
“I never heard her say that she loves him. Just that she thought he’d make a good husband.”
Julia sighed dramatically. “I could never marry a man I wasn’t in love with, could you, Caroline? It would be awful to share a bed with him otherwise.”
“I wish you would stop talking about . . . that.”
“What? Sharing a bed with my husband?” She laughed at me again. “I sometimes pretend that my pillow is Nathaniel Greene and I hug it tightly all night. Who do you pretend yours is?”
“I . . . I’ve never done that.”
“Haven’t you ever been in love, Carrie?”
Hadn’t I? I recalled the excitement of my infatuation with my cousin Jonathan years ago, how I’d wanted to spend every minute with him, how I’d thrilled to his touch. But I had long since outgrown those feelings. And I had felt nothing close to them since— certainly not with Robert, nor with any of the other men I’d danced with. I’d once heard love in Tessie’s joyful laughter when she was with Josiah. I’d seen love in Julia’s eyes when she gazed at Nathaniel. But I had never known it firsthand.
“I’ve never been in love,” I said at last.
“Oh, poor you!”
Later, when I was back in my own bed, I tried hugging my pillow, pretending it was my husband. But the pillow had no face, and it seemed wrong, somehow, to even imagine such a thing.
The next day, Robert insisted on accompanying Julia, Rev. Greene, and me to our regular abolition meeting. As soon as we entered the assembly hall, we saw that it was not only packed, but also cloaked in an atmosphere of secrecy and danger. The guest speaker was a young Negro man named Peter Sullivan, a newly escaped slave. He was on his way to freedom in Canada, but he could be arrested and sent back to Mississippi if he was discovered speaking to us. Peter was a quiet, sullen young man whose smoldering resentment reminded me of Josiah. He had never spoken in public before, so the society’s president interviewed him about his escape.
After a few preliminary questions the president asked, “What made you decide to take the risk and escape, Peter?”
“I leave after I find out who my father is.” He stared at his feet, as if to hide his shame. “He a white man. . . . I find out Massa Sullivan my father.”
I heard a collective gasp in the meeting hall. All the usual rustling and shuffling stilled.
“How did you find this out, Peter?”
He lifted his head, gazing out at the sea of white faces. But it was as if he was looking through all of us. “My mama tell me so. Ain’t nothing she can do about him, either. Any time he want her, she have no choice.”
I was certain that I wasn’t the only woman who was blushing. Julia stared at the man, her mouth hanging open. Robert wiped his sweating palms on his thighs. I didn’t dare look at Rev. Greene.
“Peter,” the president said quietly, “I think the audience should know that your story is by no means unique. White masters have the right to use slave women for their own purposes any time they please, and many of these unions have produced mixed-race children.”
A memory stirred from long ago—the old Negro granny at Hilltop, asking which heaven the little black children with white daddies would go to when they died. I hadn’t understood the question at the time, but now that I did, I felt another rush of heat to my face. Surely not my Uncle William . . . surely not.
“So for most of your life, Peter, you didn’t know who your father was?”
“Mama scared to tell me. She say a Negro woman be killed for telling.”
I finally understood Eli’s fear when I’d asked him about Grady’s father. “Never ask . . . They kill a gal if she tell.” I hadn’t thought about Grady for a long time, but I let my mind wander away from this embarrassing subject and allowed myself to think about him now. The deep grief I felt at losing my friend was still there after more than six years. I missed him. He would be fifteen now and nearly grown. He’d been my only friend as I was growing up, except for Jonathan. I smiled to myself when I remembered how alike they were, the same sparkling dark eyes, the same mischievous grin.
“My skin nearly as light as Massa’s white sons,” I heard Peter say. “I know I can pass for white. That’s how I escape.”
Grady had been a very light-skinned Negro, too. A shade lighter than Tessie, several shades lighter than his ebony-skinned father, Josiah.
“. . . child cannot be lighter-skinned than his parents,” the interviewer said. “And so a lighter skin shade, like Peter’s, is an indication of mixed race. . . .”
His words hit me with the force of a physical blow. How could Grady be Josiah’s son if his skin was so much lighter? As I struggled to work out a logical explanation, another thought forced its way into my dazed mind. My cousin Jonathan resembled my father. What if the reason Jonathan reminded me so much of Grady was because . . . because . . .
Cold dread rose up inside me. I began to tremble as if my entire body was trying to reject the thought. It couldn’t be true. My daddy would never do such a terrible thing.
“. . . and so Peter’s very own white father kept his son bound in the chains of slavery. . . .”
I couldn’t breathe. I needed air. I
stood to leave, to run out of the meeting hall, but when I took the
first step I felt as if all the blood had drained from my body. The
world went black.
I woke up outside in Robert’s arms. He was sitting on the grass with me, frantically repeating my name. “Caroline! Caroline! . . . Please, God . . . Darling Caroline! What’s wrong?”
I couldn’t tell him what I feared. I could never tell anyone. The horror, the shame of it! Could Grady really be my half brother? Had Daddy sold Josiah to Hilltop so he could have my Negro mammy all to himself? I remembered how Tessie had blamed my mother for sending Grady away—my mother, who couldn’t give Daddy a son of her own. I remembered Eli saying that Daddy would never sell Tessie, “And you know the reason why.”
But worst of all was the horror of wondering if my father had sold his very own son—my brother—to the slave auction.
“No . . .” I murmured. “It can’t be true. . . .”
“She’s coming around,” I heard Julia say. She was fanning my face with her handkerchief.
“Caroline, thank God! Are you all right?” Robert asked. I opened my eyes and gazed up at his worried face. Above us the tree branches flamed with fall colors.
“I’m okay,” I whispered. But I wanted to weep.
Robert held my hand in his. “Dear one, what happened? You’re trembling.”
“It . . . it was warm in there. I needed air. I guess I fainted.”
“I’ll hail a cab,” Rev. Greene said. “We’d better take Caroline home right away.”
No one said much on the ride home, but when Robert and Julia hurried into the house ahead of us, calling for my aunt, Rev. Greene turned to me. “Do you need to talk to someone about this, Miss Fletcher?” he asked softly. “I will gladly listen and keep whatever you say in strictest confidence.” I could tell by the pity in his eyes that he knew. Young Nathaniel Greene knew that it was the subject of the lecture that had upset me. I don’t know why, but I felt compelled to lie to him. I needed to protect the people I loved—Tessie and Grady, and yes, even my daddy.
“There’s nothing to talk about,” I said, smiling weakly. “I’ve fainted before . . . usually when I haven’t eaten, and I skipped lunch today. . . .”
Robert wanted to hover over me, but I sent him away and went to bed. I told Aunt Martha it was my time of the month. Julia knew it wasn’t. She heard me weeping that night in the dark, unable to stop. She crawled into bed beside me and stroked my hair, the way Tessie used to do.
“Please tell me what’s wrong, Caroline. It was something they said at the meeting, wasn’t it? I confess I wasn’t listening, I was watching Nathaniel. But won’t you please tell me?”
“I can’t. I can’t explain it.”
“Did talking about the South make you homesick?”
“Yes . . . I guess that’s what’s wrong.” I clung to the lie as an easy way out, and Julia accepted it without question. When I finally managed to stop crying, she quickly changed the subject, probably hoping to take my mind off of home.
“I noticed something today,” she said. “When you fainted, Robert nearly fainted, too. You should have seen his face, Carrie. He was so worried about you. And you probably don’t remember what he was saying to you.”
“No. I really don’t remember anything.”
“He’s in love with you.”
“No. Oh, Julia, no . . . that can’t be true.” I couldn’t handle any more revelations.
“He is. Maybe he doesn’t even realize it himself, but he is. Would you marry him if he asked you?”
“Julia, please . . . my head is throbbing.”
“If you did, then you would be Caroline Hoffman. And you could live here in Philadelphia forever, and when I marry Nathaniel we could visit each other. Maybe we could even live next door to each other.”
My fears about Grady were too much to handle. I didn’t think I could deal with Robert’s feelings, too. But it turned out I had to. Robert was waiting to see me in our parlor the first thing next morning.
“Caroline, I . . . I must speak with you. Alone.” I felt sorry for him. He was stammering, flushed, terrified. If he barely had the courage to face a woman, how in the world would he ever face an invading army? “Darling, I’ve been so worried about you. . . .”
“I’m fine now, Robert. Honest, I am. It was very silly of me to faint like that.”
He wasn’t listening. I could see that he’d prepared a little speech and he would forge ahead with it to the end, a soldier charging uphill into battle. “I realized the depth of my feelings for you yesterday, and I can’t go back to West Point tomorrow until I’ve talked to you about them. I can’t . . . I can’t bear the thought of you entertaining other suitors while I’m gone. This Rev. Greene—”
“I think you’ve misunderstood, Robert. I don’t have romantic feelings toward him or anyone else. Julia is interested in Nathaniel Greene, not me. I go places with them as a chaperone.”
“You’re so beautiful, Caroline. You could have any man in Philadelphia, but . . . but you once asked to dance only with me, remember? And at Rosalie’s wedding you let me monopolize all your time. Dare I hope that you share my feelings?”
Did I have feelings for him? Clumsy, boring Robert? He was well-meaning and pitifully sweet, my island of safety, my refuge. And after what I’d learned yesterday, I needed a safe place to hide more than ever before.
“Of course I’m fond of you, Robert.”
“Would you . . . could you consider . . . a-an understanding while I’m away?”
I frowned. “An understanding?”
“I know that we can’t make any formal announcements until I receive my army commission, but will you wait for me, darling?”
I saw a way out. I could stay in Philadelphia if I married Robert. I wouldn’t have to face my father. Or Tessie.
“I’ll think about it.”
“May I write to your father concerning my intentions?”
“If you wish,” I mumbled.
Robert lifted my hand to his lips and kissed it. “Thank you. Thank you, darling Caroline.”
It was only after he’d sailed for New York that I recalled Julia’s words and shuddered. If Robert was my husband I would have to share a bed with him, dressed in only my chemise.
On a cool autumn Sunday, midway through October, a subdued Nathaniel Greene stood in the pulpit of our church. “As you know,” he began, “I’ve been very outspoken about the need for all of us to join in the fight to abolish slavery. That need hasn’t changed. I still believe that God wants each one of us to decide what we should do to help. But a few months ago, a young woman asked me a simple question . . . and it has haunted me ever since. This morning I will ask all of you the same question: ‘Do you even know any Negroes?’ ”
Julia elbowed me in the ribs. “He’s talking about you, Caroline. You asked him that.” I held my fingers to my lips to shush her. I wanted to listen.
“The young woman wanted to know why—if we believe all men are created equal—why we segregate Negroes into separate neighborhoods? Separate schools? And, God forgive us, separate church pews? In this City of Brotherly Love, why aren’t these Christian brothers and sisters our schoolmates? Our neighbors? Our friends?”
Julia grabbed the back of my arm, unseen, and pinched. “You’re not going to steal him away from me! He’s mine!”
“Ow! I’m not interested in him, Julia.”
“Well, he certainly sounds interested in you.”
“Shh!” Aunt Martha’s frown was stern. I rubbed my arm and tried to slide away from Julia.
“We’ve outlawed slavery here in the North, thank God. But as my friend so keenly pointed out, the things that have replaced slavery aren’t any better. I’m talking about bigotry. And racism. Do you know any Negroes?”
As I glanced around at some of the faces in the congregation, I expected to see uneasiness, discomfort. But it surprised me to see anger. And opposition. Nathaniel must have seen them, too, but he courageously spoke his heart.
“The text for my sermon is found in the book of Isaiah, chapter fifty-eight. It says, ‘If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke . . . and if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noon day.’
“We’ve done away with the yoke of oppression here in Philadelphia. And many of you seated before me this morning have generously opened your purses and your wallets to support the cause of abolition. Why, then, does the shadow of bigotry and racism still darken our city?
“I believe it’s because we’ve spent our money and not ourselves. I believe it’s because we’ve served a cause and not the needs of the oppressed. Those needs include the need for fellowship, for friendship, for love.” He gripped the pulpit and leaned forward, staring fearlessly at his disgruntled congregation. “If we want the light of Christ to shine in our darkness, then we must remember one thing: Our Negro brothers and sisters are not a cause. They are people!”
The next day at breakfast, Uncle Philip opened his newspaper and read aloud to us the shocking events that had occurred the day before, on that beautiful autumn Sunday, October 16, 1859. “ ‘The following dispatch has been received from Frederick, Maryland, but as it seems very improbable, it should be received with great caution until confirmed. . . . An insurrection has broken out at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia. A band of armed abolitionists have full possession of the U.S. Arsenal. . . . The band is composed of about 250 whites, followed by a band of Negroes who are fighting with them. . . . The telegraph wires have been cut. . . . It is reported that there has been a general stampede of Negroes from Maryland. . . . Many wild rumors are afloat, but we have nothing authentic at this time. . . .’ ”
A chill went through me. My cousin Jonathan and the other plantation owners had always feared another slave insurrection like Nat Turner’s. But this time white abolitionists had led it. And now they had an arsenal full of weapons.
“Did you say Virginia, Daddy?” Julia asked.
“Yes. Harper’s Ferry, Virginia.”
She turned to me. “Is that close to where you used to live in Richmond?”
“I don’t know where it is,” I replied. My heart had begun to race as I did the arithmetic; my uncle and the overseer were the only white men left to defend the isolated plantation against more than fifty slaves.
The next day, the news was only slightly more reassuring. It wasn’t a widespread rebellion as people had feared, but a small band of five Negroes and thirteen white men, led by a fanatical abolitionist named John Brown. They had seized the federal armory, the arsenal, and the engine house in Harper’s Ferry, taking several hostages. The first man to be killed by Brown and his followers had been a free Negro; the first rebel to die had also been a Negro, a former slave who’d hoped to win freedom for his wife and children.
By Tuesday morning the insurrection was over. Ninety U.S. Marines, under the command of Colonel Robert E. Lee of Virginia, arrested Brown and the others and turned them over to the Virginia authorities to stand trial. I breathed a little easier knowing that all those weapons had been returned to the arsenal. But what continued to make me uneasy was the way the abolitionists praised John Brown for his courage and zeal. One newspaper called the incident “a great day in our history, a new revolution.” Brown himself was called “an angel of light.” I recalled what Rev. Greene had once told me about the abolition movement’s nonviolent principles, and I wondered what he had to say about these unsettling events. I never had a chance to ask him.
I came home from an afternoon tea on Friday to find my father waiting in the parlor for me. He had arrived in Philadelphia unannounced. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw him.
“Daddy? What are you doing here?”
“I’ve come to bring you home, Caroline.” He opened his arms to me for a rare embrace, then rested his cheek against my hair. “I’ve missed you, Sugar. Two years is a long time.”
“I’ve missed you, too, Daddy.” I realized that it was true. I’d especially missed the sound of his voice, his gentle drawl. He looked so much better than he had when I’d left home, even though he’d lost weight and his hair had turned steely gray. But his gentle dignity and handsome face were unchanged.
“My, you’re beautiful,” he said, pulling back to gaze at me. “You look so much like your mother.” His love for me shone in his eyes, and I remembered the loving way he used to look at my mother, the tender way he’d treated her. I always knew that his love for her was very deep, which was why his grief after she’d died had been so profound.
As I looked into my daddy’s eyes I wondered how I ever could have believed that he’d been unfaithful to her. The idea seemed preposterous now. Daddy never paid any attention at all to Tessie. He and Grady looked nothing alike. It simply wasn’t true. I must have been out of my mind.
At dinner that night, Daddy told my aunt and uncle that he planned to take me home right away. Uncle Philip laid down his silverware and stared at Daddy.
“This seems a bit sudden, doesn’t it, George? Caroline has put down roots during the two years she’s spent with us. She’s flourished here. Do you really think it’s wise to uproot her so suddenly like this?”
“Please understand that I’m very grateful for all that you’ve done for her,” Daddy said, spreading his hands. “You’ve helped her—and me—through a very difficult time in our lives. But we’re both past that now. She’s my daughter. She belongs in her own home, in Richmond.”
“Is it safe to go back there?” Aunt Martha asked. “I mean, with all the awful goings-on at that place . . . Harper’s Ferry. . . ?”
Daddy frowned. “Of course it’s safe. That was the work of fanatical outsiders, not native Virginians. Living in peace with our Negroes is a long-established way of life for us—you know that, Martha. Take your sister’s servant, Ruby, for instance. You’re aware of the bond of loyalty and love that existed between her and my wife. Can you honestly imagine our Ruby taking part in such a rebellion? It’s the troublemakers from the North who threaten to upset that balance.”
“We are not all fanatics like John Brown,” Uncle Philip said, “any more than all slave owners are like Simon Legree.”
Their voices had been gradually growing louder, harsher. Daddy took a moment to stop and carefully cut his meat. When he looked up at Uncle Philip again, I heard cold anger in his tone. “I’ve read some of the headlines that appeared in your Northern newspapers after this incident. The entire South is horrified that you would express sympathy and praise for a fanatic who tried to cause a slave insurrection. How can any thinking man endorse such an outrage?”
“So, that’s why you’ve come for her, then.”
“Yes. I don’t want my only child influenced by that ungodly way of thinking. You’re calling that maniac Brown a hero!”
“I’ve never called him that, George.”
Daddy raised his hand in apology. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to accuse any of you. But if even one person in the North defends that man, then it’s time Caroline came home.”
“Why not wait a bit and see what happens?” Aunt Martha said. “Maybe this will all blow over.”
Daddy leaned back in his chair and gravely shook his head. “To the people in the North, John Brown is a hero. To the South, he’s a murderous villain. Our differences are much too great, Martha. The dividing line between us is too clearly drawn. This won’t blow over.”
“You may be right,” Uncle Philip said quietly. “But there is something we’re all forgetting to consider—what would Caroline herself like to do?”
My uncle knew all about the anti-slavery meetings I’d been attending for the past year. He knew from the fervor of Rev. Greene’s sermons what attitudes I’d been exposed to at those meetings. He turned to me.
“What would you like to do, Caroline?”
If it hadn’t been for Nathaniel’s courageous sermon, I may have drawn back at the thought of facing the darkness of slavery again. But then I recalled the verse he’d read from Isaiah: “If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke . . . thy darkness will be as the noon day.” I was tired of simply listening to anti-slavery speeches, tired of merely supporting a cause. My own words came back to haunt me—Tessie and Eli were not a cause, they were people.
I looked up at my daddy and said, “I want to go home.”