Searching for General Lee: A Civil War Novel

By Barrett Dowell

In this fast-paced and engaging novel for young adults, Barrett Dowell captures the drama of the pivotal Second Battle of Manassas from the point of view of a Virginia youth who travels from his home outside Warrenton with an important message for General Robert E. Lee. Chadwick Curtis is not a soldier, and he has yet to make up his mind on what it means for a state to secede from the Union. Like many members of plantation families, he values his way of life and resists the Unions impulse to change it. But he also grapples with moral questions: Slavery, his father said on his deathbed, is wrong; freeing the family slaves is the moral thing to do. War, Chadwick comes to believe, is also wrong, for the costs are to grave and the spoils to hard won. In the week it takes him to ride north in search of the famed general, Chadwick is witness to the brutality of war, to the courage of those who fight it, and the growth of his own character and that of his companion, his eleven -year- old brother Brett.


Carole Sargent

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Oct 11, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477224274

Barrett Dowell

For Barrett Dowell, the discovery of a handful of Civil War Bullets in the backyard of her antebellum home in Warrenton, Virginia, sparked an interest in local history that led her to research and write Searching For General Lee. Dowell’s residence, in Old Town Warrenton regularly sheltered casualties from both Armies throughout the war. Occupied more than fifty times by either Union or Confederate troops, the town still maintains its historic character today and is a tourist destination among Civil War enthusiasts. Dowell’s commitment to education is another reason she chose to write this novel for young adults. A former Fauquier County librarian, she pioneered one of the Warrenton area’s first after-school programs, serving as its director for 20 years. Her personal experiences include Community services: Dowell is currently with the Fauquier County Head Start program, The Virginia Preschool Initiative, and The Steering Committee for Early Childhood Educators’ Professional Development. As an Alexandria, Virginia, native she pursued a medical technology degree attending Stratford College and interning at George Washington University.

Book preview

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

PROLOGUE

DAY 1: SATURDAY, AUGUST 23, 1862

DAY 2: SUNDAY, AUGUST 24, 1862

DAY 3: MONDAY, AUGUST 25, 1862

DAY 4: TUESDAY AUGUST 26, 1862

DAY 5: WEDNESDAY AUGUST 27, 1862

DAY 6, THURSDAY AUGUST 28, 1862

DAY 7, FRIDAY AUGUST 29, 1862

DAY 8, SATURDAY AUGUST 30, 1862

DAY 9: SUNDAY AUGUST 31, 1862

DAY 10: MONDAY SEPTEMBER 1, 1862

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

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To my husband Tommy with incredible visualization and advice of the mounted cavalry and artillery horses’ roles who served in the Civil War: of how they were fed and outfitted, their spirit and stamina, their ammunition conduct in the turmoil of battle, and the mutual respect of the rider and horse.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In a novel that I began researching longer ago then I can remember, and started writing seven years ago, now in its completed form represents many debts. It’s my pleasure to thank those people who have made helpful contributions. It is impossible to acknowledge all the support I have received from librarians, editors, Civil War lecturers and museums. There you listen to men speak as well as read soldier’s yellowed letters, diaries, and newspapers. I am capable of simply mentioning a few whom I’ve found especially accommodating. It is not surprising that my first investigative stop was Fort Sumter National Monument in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. This experience took me back to August 12, 1861 where I relived Sumter’s 85 man garrison firing back nobly as their supplies dwindled away; American fighting American. Historical Fort Moultrie’s guides also on Charleston Harbor were most helpful. The Museum in Charleston and Charleston’s Civil War historians Gary W.Gallagher, Joseph T. Clatthaar and Robert K. Krick’s 2001 examination of Southern military leadership gave me new phrases, sentences and insights into the war. To the guides and historians of The Manassas National Battlefield Park, Manassas, Virginia, I express unfailing gratefulness for helping me to appreciate the significance of battlefields; sometimes carefully selected but more often the result of random encounters.

I can only hope to mention a few libraries, which I found most productive. Of a more personal nature, as a librarian in the past at The Fauquier County Public Library in Warrenton Virginia, I would like to thank Ava Lee. I have through the years spent endless pleasant research hours in the Library’s Virginiana Room with its’ remarkably good Historical collections. There I have met and lent a hand to numerous local authors and visitors on research sabbaticals. To the efficient staff at The Alexandria Public Library in Alexandria, Virginia many thanks for unfailing courtesy in answering all my questions despite being flooded with historians in town that day. Also, I want to acknowledge The University of Virginia Library in Charlottesville Virginia and friends that I most especially would like to thank. Among them are, Amy Lemley, Hoke Perkins, and Karin Wittenborg. To all I am eternally grateful. They’ll each know why. Also, I would like to thank Elizabeth Scullins. She’ll know why as well. And I want to thank my long time friend Lyle Minter, Section Head of Foreign Affairs, Defense and Trade, and Congressional Research, at the Library of Congress. He, too, will know why.

I am grateful to my family, my mother, Viola, who knew

me better then any other and my sister and brother, Bruce and Bob who love me no matter what I do.

Many books and Civil War magazines from historians, soldiers’ memoirs and professional military historians were useful. Among these: The Civil war: A Narrative, Rebel Private: Front and Rear, I Rode with Stonewall, The Civil War in Fauquier, Jeb Stuart the Last Cavalier, My Heart Is So Rebellious, and Ben Ames Williams’s book House Divided: a book that has meant so much to me, that I have read it many times. It was particularly helpful in this endeavor.

Finally I’m especially thankful to Carole Sargent for her expert advice and assistance during my final year with this book.

In all respects, every word of this novel is as accurate as reality and concern could make it. Mostly I have done this for my own approval; I would not falsify facts dug out of a valid document anymore than I would be false to a discovered fact or written line of my own. Also I like accuracy because I have never known a historical occurrence where the truth was not superior to a fabricated story, by any standard.

Prologue

April 12, 1861

Chadwick would always remember Friday, April 12, 1861, as the day the war began and the day his papa was stricken, a day when everyone in the family, particularly Chadwick, the oldest son, was filled with despair. During the following year, thoughts of that day, and all that had changed then, were forever on his mind.

On Sullivan’s Island at four-thirty Friday morning a mortar shell from the South Carolina militia arched across the sky and exploded over the solitary Union Garrison at Fort Sumter. That was the first shot of a war that would span five years and take six hundred thousand lives, changing the history of Chadwick’s young country forever. Fort Sumter fought back gallantly with only eighty-five men. Limited supplies meant, at best, the infrequent return of fire throughout a relentless bombardment that continued all day Friday and into Saturday. All the while Papa lay on a cot at Woodsedge, near Jeffersonton, Virginia, barely clinging to life, his wife and son standing by, focused only on his fevered brow and the look of pain his eyes couldn’t disguise. In that moment, the world was within Papa’s sickroom, and his recovery their only prayer.

The broad front door slammed open, as heavy footsteps seemed to shake the floorboards. It was Big John. It happ’n, Master Chadwick, he said, his face shining with excitement and fear. Dey’s fight’n in South Carolina!" And that, for Chadwick, is when the war began.

As the last days of peace vanished, Chadwick craved a bulletin from Charleston as though the news could ease his grief. In the end the Federal Commander, Major Robert Anderson and his garrison evacuated Fort Sumter.

Papa had died without ever envisioning the scope or the glory and horror of the battle that was to come. With Papa gone, the sixteen-year-old Chadwick felt duty-bound, as man of the house, to understand the conflict. Eventually, he learned that the Federal Commander, Major Robert Anderson, and his garrison had evacuated Fort Sumter on April 14, and an uprising soon became a war.

DAY 1: SATURDAY, AUGUST 23, 1862

1 p.m.

Chadwick was tall for sixteen. He had a slender, muscular body that revealed a manliness that made him appear older than his years. Since boyhood, his magnetism had attracted many admirers, and with these friends he explored and mapped out all the landmarks, passes, and streams for miles around his farm. You must be brave, his grandfather had counseled him. And he was. With boundless energy he crawled, unafraid, inside caves, his friend clambering behind him. He climbed hills more quickly, jumped a horse higher, and swam faster and farther than any of his peers. Yet now, cantering alone across a stone bridge, he felt unsure. Today was one of those days when he wished his papa were here to talk to.

Each morning when Chadwick awoke, his first thought was of Woodsedge. He leaped up, dressed, and rode out on Small Package into the peace and tranquility of the woods. Nothing meant as much to him as the fresh new morning smells or a bird’s call from the hills or the hammering of a woodpecker. These sounds multiplied the marvel of nature going to work on a new day, which made his heart glad, for that meant to him that all was right with his special world at Woodsedge. He often rode beside the dry-stacked that outlined the farm’s boundaries. His mind recalled the twenty-four Negroes who hauled creaking wooden carts filled with stones from the quarry on the other side of the woods, assembling the wall stone by stone. Every stone has character, his papa explained as they watched, and you fit it individually. Those old fellows can choose the right stone while it’s still in the cart. The craftsmen fascinated Chadwick, who would study one particular Negro as he rubbed and turned a stone, looking for its best placement. The wall had no mortar, so it relied on the stones’ position in the wall to hold it securely. Somewhere in the dense gray-green of that meandering wall, his father had stashed a tin box that contained a copy of the deed for Woodsedge, a miniature oil painting of Ma and Papa, a luck piece his grandpa had always carried, and the names of all his family and the Negroes who had lived at Woodsedge. Chadwick felt secure knowing it was there, as though the land bore his family’s signature and was truly a part of them.

Each morning, Chadwick’s plantation rounds had taken on just about the same route his papa once rode, a ritual he cherished. That horse and Master Chadwick, they is always together, Big John would say, wagging his finger at Small Package and his master. And it was so, because the two would often be gone until sunset, having spent the day together sharpening their senses and skills within the wooded surroundings. They were hardly ever at home.

As Small Package trotted across a field, Chadwick’s drifting thoughts rode with him. He gave Package a pat on the neck as he said aloud, I don’t ever want to leave Woodsedge. Like generations of Curtises before him, Woodsedge was the only home he had ever known. That was true for Big John and his forefathers, too, and it was Chadwick’s perception that Big John loved Woodsedge as much as he did.

Big John did a little bit of everything around Woodsedge. He had been born a slave on the Curtis plantation just as his father and grandfather had. Chadwick knew countless stories about Big John and Papa and how they’d virtually grown up together, but he knew little about Big John’s own boyhood, except that he was left an orphan when he was four years old. He was now well into his sixties, and even with his salt-and-pepper hair and beard, his tall, strong body and unlined deep brown skin belied his age.

As he rode along, Chadwick reflected on the stories his papa used to tell about Big John. Almost all of Big John’s life his work had been to be alongside Papa. He was not quite ten years old that first day on the job when he taught Papa how to walk. Papa would say, Every time I fell, Big John put me back on my feet. Chadwick knew the two grew up fond of each other, in truth, as best friends.

Big John was the one who really taught Chadwick all he knew about horses: how to break them, to care for their hooves, to shoe them, to let them graze without foundering, and to exercise them and to cool them down with a walk. Like this, Big John would say as he showed Chadwick how to currycomb the dirt from Small Packages’ coat with a dry corncob, or thin out his bushy mane. You learn quick, he often said, like your Papa.

Papa was eager for his young son to be well grounded in handling all types of horses. But don’t neglect your schooling. Figures mean a lot to me. And to you, too, he said. Chadwick had a head for business. Now that Papa was dead he continued to keep records for Woodsedge, carefully documenting income and outlay in the heavy ledgers Papa had set up. With careful calculation he discovered wastefulness and vowed to end it. But not yet, he said one day to Ma. For now it’s better to have too much than too little.

Ma often said, Chadwick, I want you to go back to school. But Chadwick didn’t want to go, not just now; he felt he must help Ma. His plan was to stay and care for everyone on the plantation until this war was over.

‘It couldn’t last much longer, he told Ma. Papa said it wouldn’t last long."

2 p.m.

The horseman trotting far ahead was not distinguishable in the blinding sunlight. More curious than frightened by the unexpected traveler, Chadwick urged Package to a gallop. The rider must have heard the hoofbeats, since he stopped and waited for Chadwick to ride to him. Chadwick reined in beside the man. He thought the soldier was about to say something, so he hesitated for a moment, training his eyes hard on the cavalryman. He’s a Confederate and something is amiss, Chadwick surmised. He gave the soldier a smile and very deliberately placed his reins on his horse’s neck. Then he met the soldier’s eyes. May I help you?

The cavalryman frowned. Are you speaking for your father?

I am speaking for myself. My papa is dead.

I’m sorry, the cavalryman said.

Chadwick waited, for the cavalryman to speak further. He watched the Confederate silently sweep his eyes over fields of tobacco, wheat and corn. I am sorry about your Pa, he said again. One can see you have a big responsibility here.

Chadwick smiled contentedly. This is Woodsedge.

I remember passing apple and peach trees, grape trellises, and livestock as I rode by the spring. Is it all part of your papa’s plantation?

"Yes. This place is more than Papa. It’s four generations of Curtises. I’m the fourth Chadwick Curtis. The first, Great Grandpa, bought land north of here, thousands of acres in Jeffersonton.

The Curtis farm was situated on gently sloping land. Much of it was cleared for farming, allowing the breeze to bring the sweetest smell of olive blossoms. Laurel covered every hill in bright blooms. The crops were planted, whenever possible in the valleys, where the rains washed down the enriched topsoil and promoted vigorous growth. At any given season, many fields were resting: growing clover to fertilize the ground and to be turned under at year’s end, when planting could begin again. The property was well conceived and thought out: all the Curtises took pride in the foresight, which had enabled each of the Chadwick Curtises to improve the estate’s crop yield. Of course, once he took over the control of the farm, each Chadwick Curtis showed off his own particular capabilities. The second Curtis was a tobacco farmer, and the third a Cotton farmer, while young Chadwick’s papa planted mostly corn. In the beginning he got about eight bushels out of each acre. A cousin in coastal Tappahannock told him lime was good for corn. So Papa began the practice of hauling hundreds of cartloads of oyster shells and fossils from his cousin’s marl beds to turn into the cornfields. The very first year, he doubled his crop.

I guess when so many people have put their lives into something to make it a success, it becomes very important to them, Chadwick said. "I know it’s important to me.

Chadwick hadn’t talked so much about his papa since his death. He had talked so long that the cavalryman, drowsy in the sun, no longer heard him.

He turned to the soldier. Where are you headed?

The cavalryman looked long and hard at Chadwick then