David Poyer
The Shiloh Project
For all my Tidewater friends
"As a historian, my daydreams often take characteristic shapes; and often they return to that fatal day in July, 1863, when Lee faced Longstreet across the ramparts of the Pennsylvania hills.
"What, I ask myself, would have happened if that heroic and nearly disastrous charge of Pickett and Pettigrew had failed? Might not a Southern defeat at Gettysburg have postponed or even cancelled British recognition in August, the Palmerston Alliance, and the large-scale Empire aid that later turned the tide? I shudder at the thought that the South might now be, instead of a proud and solid Confederacy, merely the downtrodden stepchild of a victorious and vengeful Union.
"Futile such daydreams may be… but it is fascinating indeed to speculate on what might have been.…"
ONE
"Riot, looting, arson," said Colonel Earl Sawyer softly, staring out as the Bentley's tires crunched on shattered glass. "Even rape — though not white women yet, they say. They've learned that lesson, at least."
Major Aubrey Quidley, sitting erect beside him, nodded, without words. He was staring down at his hands, seeing them, yet not really there. The colonel's words had illuminated, like a suddenly lit and frozen single frame of film, a horrific picture within his normally unimaginative mind. An image of Miss Sharon's slender legs, naked under her torn-open dress, spread wide in his vision to allow… he caught Sawyer looking at him and recalled himself to reality. "Yes, sir," he said.
"This is the worst I've seen since the riots in Alabama, back in sixty-eight. Those were some bad weeks, let me tell you. Took a full division of Regular Army to pacify Birmingham. There wasn't much left." Sawyer shifted his heavy body slightly in the seat, bringing his chest up; a small red decoration came into the edge of Quidley's view, and he knew what the colonel wanted him to ask.
"Is that where you picked up the wound badge, sir?"
"Only a scratch," said Sawyer modestly.
Quidley suppressed his initial urge to gag, murmured something polite, and then the two officers fell silent, looking out as the gray staff car crept along. The thick dark smells of smoke and plaster dust, quenched ashes and roasting meat filtered slowly in past the scents of leather and cologne and good tobacco. A pall of dark oily smoke rolled across the road as Sergeant Roberts, the darky driver, slowed at the corner of Hampton and Little Creek, and Quidley caught his breath and leaned over Sawyer to look.
Their own neighborhood. Burned, all of it, the great tract of Richmond-subsidized housing, designed to move Norfolk's half-million coloreds from squalor to healthy, if spartan, accommodations. The first of the great Renewed Colored Areas, four years in the building. Destroyed in one night. He leaned back, feeling sick. Flakes of soot blew across the road as Roberts accelerated, sounding the siren as they swerved to the right to pass a squat gray Johnston tank.
"That's Railroad work, burning those houses," said Sawyer.
"Do you think so?" said Quidley, looking at him curiously. The colonel, just in from Richmond, outranked him; but the man's rumpled, obviously off-the-rack uniform, the cheap cigar he puffed, the shocking way he had run to fat, all made him conscious of the fact that Sawyer was a social inferior. After all, he was from Mississippi.
"Hell, yes, I think so. Who but niggers would've done this? They don't value decent housing the way whites do. Why, I always said all this fancy new housing was a waste of good Confederate tax dollars. More police, that's what we need for those conditionally emancipated loafers — not fancy-ass bathrooms and hot runnin' water." He waved toward the sky with the cigar. "Hadn't been for this rain your whole downtown would've gone up."
"We've got a good fire service, Colonel."
"Loyal? Or niggers?"
"There are Negroes, yes, sir, but with white officers. Like the police. They'd have done just as well." Quidley raised his voice a trifle, though he knew that Roberts, in front, could hear every word they exchanged. "Sergeant, can you go a little faster? The colonel was delayed at the station, and we'd like to arrive on time."
"Yes, sir." The Bentley's motor purred instead of whispering; the Stars and Bars, fixed at either side of the grille, began to flutter in the breeze. Shattered storefronts, broken street signs, burned-out hulks of cars streamed by them. Most of the stores had been looted, with glass and scattered, dirtied merchandise littering the sidewalks. Looting — despite curfews, patrols, and orders to the police to shoot lawbreakers on sight.
Something out of place (even in that desolation of ruined homes and hopes) caught his eye and he frowned. Men — white men — lounged in front of a block of broken-in storefronts. Each carried a weapon — rifle, shotgun, or at the least a length of pipe. Guards? But they wore no uniforms. "Who are they, I wonder," he murmured, and felt Sawyer turn his head beside him.
"Who? Them? Look like patrollers."
"Don't look like them. And I don't think they patrol out here."
"Aren't they—"
But he'd seen it too, at the same time Sawyer had. One of the men had turned, and the white armband with its red flaming-cross symbol came into view. "Kuklos," he said, finishing Sawyer's sentence. As the speeding car left the block behind he saw another armbanded man step from the gape of a broken window, lugging something heavy in both hands.
"How much longer, Major?" said Sawyer, shooting his cuff to expose a large gold English watch.
"Half an hour to the beach. A little more to the fort."
"I see. Well, let's not waste the ride. Can you go over the local situation for me again? There was a briefing at the Castle before I left, but I understand you've been on the scene since it began."
"Yes, sir, I have." Quidley drew a breath, looking out of the window at destruction. "The first hint of trouble occurred about nine last night. The government and most of the private factories had let out for Secesh Day, and the city had some free entertainment and oratory laid on — the standard sort of thing. The centerpiece was a speech by the Mayor and a fireworks display down at Town Point, on the river. That drew a crowd of twenty thousand, mostly colored, but in good spirits — a holiday crowd. The fireworks started late and there was some booing, a few fights; nothing the city police weren't handling well.
"About nine-fifteen some of the pyrotechnics seemed too loud. People began falling, and those near them began to scream. Some alert police — Chief Mays' people, not Army — had been placed atop buildings nearby as security for the Mayor, who was down below, on an elevated grandstand over the river. They later reported that they saw figures on the roof of one of the warehouses along Waterfront Drive. They were armed and were firing on the crowd."
"On their own people?" Sawyer was incredulous.
"Correct. The police took them under fire, of course. Meanwhile the crowd panicked and began to stampede. Squad cars were unable to reach the scene. And then someone started to rock a parked car."
"Started that way in Alabam' too. Coloreds seem to hate them cars."
"Maybe because they can't own them," said Quidley. "The crowd turned ugly. Several policemen were beaten and their weapons taken."
"What about the snipers?"
"They disappeared in the midst of the uproar. And they're still at large. It all happened very quickly."
"Anyone killed? Whites, I mean?"
"No. Still, there was a lot of damage done in the business district."