"Of course he wrote an official report of the action, but he never admitted to the First Army Corps what really happened, and most of those men who had inside knowledge were killed that night, or at Spotsylvania, or Appomattox, or else they refused to discuss it and took what they knew to their graves."
She untied the papers and spread them out. They smelled vinegary, like all old papers, but they had another smell, too, which reminded Decker of dried lavender that has almost lost its fragrance. "Here it is, over ninety pages of it, a firsthand account of the Devil's Brigade. It's amazing. Over the years there must have been scores of rumors and myths about it."
She picked up a photocopy of the front page of a Civil War newspaper. "The Memphis Daily Appeal, June 1864. This is the first public mention of what could have been the Devil's Brigade. A young soldier named Josiah Billings was sent home after he lost his left forearm in the Battle of the Wilderness. He said that during the evening of May sixth he and his fellows had been trying to reach the unfinished railroad from Gordonsville to Fredericksburg when they became lost in the thick undergrowth behind enemy lines. All of a sudden they were surrounded by 'crackling bolts of lightning, not solid shot,' and he saw a Union soldier 'riven by a lightning flash from his head to his groin, so that he
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looked like a split-open side of beef.' He saw another Yankee turned inside out—'easy as a pulled-off glove.'
"Then he said that 'fires started all around us, spontaneous, and the woods were burning so fierce that hundreds of men were trapped and burned alive."
Decker nodded. "Billy Joe Bennett told me a similar story. You know Billy Joe Bennett? He runs a Civil War memorabilia store on Cary Street."
"Oh, sure, the Rebel Yell. Known Billy Joe for years. He's absolutely obsessed with the Civil War, isn't he? But he often turns up original maps and diaries and rare Civil War artifacts and he always brings them down to us to take a look. About a month ago he brought me a tiny square of silk . . . it was part of the battle flag of the Second Company Howitzers. After the Confederate army had surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse, the company's guidon cut it up into pieces and handed them out to the artillerymen as keepsakes. Only a tiny square of silk, but what history it represented. What emotion."
Decker scooped up a handful of nuts. "This stuff really means something to you, doesn't it?"
"Of course it does. It's real. And so are these documents. Think about it. The first account of the Devil's Brigade by the man who actually formed it."
Decker picked up the first page. The writing was in faded purple ink—a scratchy, sloping script he could barely decipher, except for one or two odd words.
"You can read this?" he asked.
"You get used to it. The trick is to tilt the page at an angle." "Hmm," Decker said, trying it. "Still can't work out more than one word in ten. What's 'paffage'?"
" 'Passage.' His double Ss always look like Fs. Here . . . I've done a transcript for you."
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Decker took the thick sheaf of double-spaced print. "Thanks. But why don't you tell me the bare bones of it yourself? You have the time, don't you?"
"Well, okay . . . I don't have to be at the Berkeley Hotel till eight."
"You really have to go? I don't often have the opportunity to go out with a woman who's dressed as fancy as you."
"It's an American Legion fund-raiser, and, yes, I do have to go. But thank you for the compliment anyhow."
She opened her purse and took out a pair of gold-framed half-glasses. She leafed quickly through the transcript of Lieutenant General Longstreet's diary, and then she said, "Here it is.
"On April eleventh, I received orders at Bristol from the adjutant and inspector general to report with the original portion of the First Corps (Kershaw's and Field's divisions and Alexander's battalion of artillery) to General R.E. Lee, commanding army of northern Virginia. On the twenty-second I marched my command to Mechanicsville, and encamped in the near neighborhood thereof. I was advised by the commanding general that a portion of the enemy was advancing swiftly and had reached the Culpeper Mine Ford on the Rapidan River and were preparing to cross into Orange County.
"During the night of June twenty-ninth I was unexpectedly approached by Colonel Frederick Meldrum from Heth's division, who was accompanied by his Negro servant, a man known only as John. Colonel Meldrum in civilian life was a wealthy tobacco planter and a man of considerable presence and intelligence. He said that he understood that our military situation was now parlous, and that General Grant was on the point of breaking through
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our Confederate lines and driving us all the way back to Richmond herself.
"He asked if he could speak to me further in the conditions of greatest secrecy, to which I agreed. He informed me that his servant John was an adherent of a magical religion from West Africa called Lucumi , or Santeria, or sometimes voodoo. Being a man with a greatly inquiring mind, Colonel Meldrum had taken the trouble to learn the religious beliefs of his servant, and had persuaded him to demonstrate some of its rituals and spells.
"You may understand that I was very tired and preoccupied with all manner of other considerations, in particular the late arrival of my reinforcements, which was occasioned by want of transportation on the railroad. Yet Colonel Mel-drum asked me to witness one Santerla spell to demonstrate its effectiveness. John produced some stones from the pockets of his vest, as well as strings of black and green beads, and proceeded to chant monotonously and at some length. I was beginning to grow impatient when before my eyes his skin appeared to melt away, like brown butter melting in a hot skillet, and he became a skeleton, a man of bones, still dressed, still animated, but completely fleshless. To say that I was horrified and frightened would be an understatement. For a moment I doubted my sanity, and thought that the pressures and conditions of war must have turned my mind.
"But the skeletal John rose from his chair, and approached the mockingbird which I always keep caged in my quarters as a mascot. He raised both of his bony hands and it was plain that the poor bird was highly agitated. It screamed and screeched and dashed itself wildly against the bars of its cage. John spoke no more than two words to it, and these were instantly followed by a sharp rapping sound not unlike a musketball hitting a cartwheel. The bird in‑