FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE THE WAR BEGAN, Atlanta could hear the sound of
battle. In the early morning hours before the noises of the town awoke, the
cannon at Kennesaw Mountain could be heard faintly, far away, a low dim
booming that might have passed for summer thunder. Occasionally it was
loud enough to be heard even above the rattle of traffic at noon. People
tried not to listen to it, tried to talk, to laugh, to carry on their business,
just as though the Yankees were not there, twenty-two miles away, but
always no matter what occupied their hands, all were listening, listening,
their hearts leaping suddenly a hundred times a day. Was the booming
louder? Or did they only think it was louder? Would General Johnston hold
them this time? Would he?
Panic lay just beneath the surface. Nerves which had been stretched
tighter and tighter each day of the retreat began to reach the breaking
point. No one spoke of fears. That subject was taboo, but strained nerves
found expression in loud criticism of the General. Public feeling was at
fever heat. Sherman was at the very doors of Atlanta. Another retreat
might bring the Confederates into the town.
Give us a general who won’t retreat! Give us a man who will stand and
fight!
With the far-off rumbling of cannon in their ears, the state militia, “Joe
Brown’s Pets,” and the Home Guard marched out of Atlanta, to defend the
bridges and ferries of the Chattahoochee River at Johnston’s back. It was a
gray, overcast day and, as they marched through Five Points and out the
Marietta road, a fine rain began to fall. The whole town had turned out to
see them off and they stood, close packed, under the wooden awnings of
the stores on Peachtree Street and tried to cheer.
Scarlett and Maybelle Merriwether Picard had been given permission to
leave the hospital and watch the men go out, because Uncle Henry
Hamilton and Grandpa Merriwether were in the Home Guard, and they
stood with Mrs. Meade, pressing in the crowd, tiptoeing to get a better
view. Scarlett, though filled with the universal Southern desire to believe
only the pleasantest and most reassuring things about the progress of the
fighting, felt cold as she watched the motley ranks go by. Surely, things
must be in a desperate pass if this rabble of bombproofers, old men and
little boys were being called out! To be sure there were young and able-
bodied men in the passing lines, tricked out in the bright uniforms of
socially select militia units, plumes waving, sashes dancing. But there were
so many old men and young boys, and the sight of them made her heart
contract with pity and with fear. There were graybeards older than her
father trying to step jauntily along in the needle-fine rain to the rhythm of
the fife and drum corps. Grandpa Merriwether, with Mrs. Merriwether’s
best plaid shawl laid across his shoulders to keep out the rain, was in the
first rank and he saluted the girls with a grin. They waved their
handkerchiefs and cried gay good-bys to him; but Maybelle, gripping
Scarlett’s arm, whispered: “Oh, the poor old darling! A real good rainstorm
will just about finish him! His lumbago—”
Uncle Henry Hamilton marched in the rank behind Grandpa
Merriwether, the collar of his long black coat turned up about his ears, two
Mexican War pistols in his belt and a small carpetbag in his hand. Beside
him marched his black valet who was nearly as old as Uncle Henry, with an
open umbrella held over them both. Shoulder to shoulder with their elders
came the young boys, none of them looking over sixteen. Many of them
had run away from school to join the army, and here and there were clumps
of them in the cadet uniforms of military academies, the black cock
feathers on their tight gray caps wet with rain, the clean white canvas
straps crossing their chests sodden. Phil Meade was among them, proudly
wearing his dead brother’s saber and horse pistols, his hat bravely pinned up
on one side. Mrs. Meade managed to smile and wave until he had passed
and then she leaned her head on the back of Scarlett’s shoulder for a
moment as though her strength had suddenly left her.
Many of the men were totally unarmed, for the Confederacy had neither
rifles nor ammunition to issue to them. These men hoped to equip
themselves from killed and captured Yankees. Many carried bowie knives
in their boots and bore in their hands long thick poles with iron-pointed
tips known as “Joe Brown pikes.” The lucky ones had old flintlock muskets
slung over their shoulders and powder horns at their belts.
Johnston had lost around ten thousand men in his retreat. He needed
ten thousand more fresh troops. “And this,” thought Scarlett frightened, “is
what he is getting!”
As the artillery rumbled by, splashing mud into the watching crowds, a
negro on a mule, riding close to a cannon caught her eye. He was a young,
saddle-colored negro with a serious face, and when Scarlett saw him she
cried: “It’s Mose! Ashley’s Mose! Whatever is he doing here?” She fought
her way through the crowd to the curb and called: “Mose! Stop!”
The boy seeing her, drew rein, smiled delightedly and started to
dismount. A soaking sergeant, riding behind him, called: “Stay on that
mule, boy, or I’ll light a fire under you! We got to git to the mountain some
time.”
Uncertainly, Mose looked from the sergeant to Scarlett and she,
splashing through the mud, close to the passing wheels, caught at Mose’s
stirrup strap.
“Oh, just a minute, Sergeant! Don’t get down, Mose. What on earth are
you doing here?”
“Ah’s off ter de war, agin, Miss Scarlett. Dis time wid Ole Mist’ John
’stead ob Mist’ Ashley.”
“Mr. Wilkes!” Scarlett was stunned. Mr. Wilkes was nearly seventy.
“Where is he?”
“Back wid de las’ cannon, Miss Scarlett. Back dar!”
“Sorry, lady. Move on, boy!”
Scarlett stood for a moment, ankle deep in mud as the guns lurched by.
“Oh, no!” she thought. “It can’t be. He’s too old. And he doesn’t like war
any more than Ashley did!” She retreated back a few paces toward the curb
and scanned each face that passed. Then, as the last cannon and limber
chest came groaning and splashing up, she saw him, slender, erect, his long
silver hair upon his neck, riding easily upon a little strawberry mare that
picked her way as daintily through the mud holes as a lady in a satin dress.
Why—that mare was Nellie! Mrs. Tarleton’s Nellie! Beatrice Tarleton’s
treasured darling!
When he saw her standing in the mud, Mr. Wilkes drew rein with a
smile of pleasure and, dismounting, came toward her.
“I had hoped to see you, Scarlett. I was charged with so many messages
from your people. But there was no time. We just got in this morning and
they are rushing us out immediately, as you see.”
“Oh, Mr. Wilkes,” she cried desperately, holding his hand. “Don’t go!
Why must you go?”
“Ah, so you think I’m too old!” He smiled, and it was Ashley’s smile in
an older face. “Perhaps I am too old to march but not to ride and to shoot.
And Mrs. Tarleton so kindly lent me Nellie, so I am well mounted. I hope
nothing happens to Nellie, for if something should happen to her, I could
never go home and face Mrs. Tarleton. Nellie was the last horse she had
left.” He was laughing now, turning away her fears. “Your mother and
father and the girls are well and they sent you their love. Your father nearly
came up with us today!”
“Oh, not Pa!” cried Scarlett in terror. “Not Pa! He isn’t going to the
war, is he?”
“No, but he was. Of course, he can’t walk far with his stiff knee, but he
was all for riding away with us. Your mother agreed, providing he was able
to jump the pasture fence, for, she said, there would be a lot of rough riding
to be done in the army. Your father thought that easy, but—would you
believe it? When his horse came to the fence, he stopped dead and over his
head went your father! It’s a wonder it didn’t break his neck! You know
how obstinate he is. He got right up and tried it again. Well, Scarlett, he
came off three times before Mrs. O’Hara and Pork assisted him to bed. He
was in a taking about it, swearing that your mother had ‘spoken a wee word
in the beast’s ear.’ He just isn’t up to active service, Scarlett. You need have
no shame about it. After all, someone must stay home and raise crops for
the army.”
Scarlett had no shame at all, only an active feeling of relief.
“I’ve sent India and Honey to Macon to stay with the Burrs and Mr.
O’Hara is looking after Twelve Oaks as well as Tara…. I must go, my dear.
Let me kiss your pretty face.”
Scarlett turned up her lips and there was a choking in her throat. She
was so fond of Mr. Wilkes. Once, long ago, she had hoped to be his
daughter-in-law.
“And you must deliver this kiss to Pittypat and this to Melanie,” he said,
kissing her lightly two more times. “And how is Melanie?”
“She is well.”
“Ah!” His eyes looked at her but through her, past her as Ashley’s had
done, remote gray eyes looking on another world. “I should have liked to
see my first grandchild. Good-by, my dear.”
He swung onto Nellie and cantered off, his hat in his hand, his silver
hair bare to the rain. Scarlett had rejoined Maybelle and Mrs. Meade
before the import of his last words broke upon her. Then in superstitious
terror she crossed herself and tried to say a prayer. He had spoken of death,
just as Ashley had done, and now Ashley—No one should ever speak of
death! It was tempting Providence to mention death. As the three women
started silently back to the hospital in the rain, Scarlett was praying: “Not
him, too, God. Not him and Ashley, too!”
The retreat from Dalton to Kennesaw Mountain had taken from early
May to mid-June and as the hot rainy days of June passed and Sherman
failed to dislodge the Confederates from the steep slippery slopes, hope
again raised its head. Everyone grew more cheerful and spoke more kindly
of General Johnston. As wet June days passed into a wetter July and the
Confederates, fighting desperately around the entrenched heights, still held
Sherman at bay, a wild gaiety took hold of Atlanta. Hope went to their
heads like champagne. Hurrah! Hurrah! We’re holding them! An epidemic
of parties and dances broke out. Whenever groups of men from the fighting
were in town for the night, dinners were given for them and afterwards
there was dancing and the girls, outnumbering the men ten to one, made
much of them and fought to dance with them.
Atlanta was crowded with visitors, refugees, families of wounded men in
the hospitals, wives and mothers of soldiers fighting at the mountain who
wished to be near them in case of wounds. In addition, bevies of belles from
the country districts, where all remaining men were under sixteen or over
sixty, descended upon the town. Aunt Pitty disapproved highly of these
last, for she felt they had come to Atlanta for no reason at all except to
catch husbands, and the shamelessness of it made her wonder what the
world was coming to. Scarlett disapproved, too. She did not care for the
eager competition furnished by the sixteen-year-olds whose fresh cheeks
and bright smiles made one forget their twice-turned frocks and patched
shoes. Her own clothes were prettier and newer than most, thanks to the
material Rhett Butler had brought her on the last boat he ran in, but, after
all, she was nineteen and getting along and men had a way of chasing silly
young things.
A widow with a child was at a disadvantage with these pretty minxes,
she thought. But in these exciting days her widowhood and her
motherhood weighed less heavily upon her than ever before. Between
hospital duties in the day time and parties at night, she hardly ever saw
Wade. Sometimes she actually forgot, for long stretches, that she had a
child.
In the warm wet summer nights, Atlanta’s homes stood open to the
soldiers, the town’s defenders. The big houses from Washington Street to
Peachtree Street blazed with lights, as the muddy fighters in from the rifle
pits were entertained, and the sound of banjo and fiddle and the scrape of
dancing feet and light laughter carried far on the night air. Groups hung
over pianos and voices sang lustily the sad words of “Your Letter Came but
Came Too Late” while ragged gallants looked meaningly at girls who
laughed from behind turkey-tail fans, begging them not to wait until it was
too late. None of the girls waited, if they could help it. With the tide of
hysterical gaiety and excitement flooding the city, they rushed into
matrimony. There were so many marriages that month while Johnston was
holding the enemy at Kennesaw Mountain, marriages with the bride turned
out in blushing happiness and the hastily borrowed finery of a dozen friends
and the groom with saber banging at patched knees. So much excitement,
so many parties, so many thrills! Hurrah! Johnston is holding the Yanks
twenty-two miles away!
* * *
Yes, the lines around Kennesaw Mountain were impregnable. After twenty-
five days of fighting, even General Sherman was convinced of this, for his
losses were enormous. Instead of continuing the direct assault, he swung his
army in a wide circle again and tried to come between the Confederates
and Atlanta. Again, the strategy worked. Johnston was forced to abandon
the heights he had held so well, in order to protect his rear. He had lost a
third of his men in that fight and the remainder slogged tiredly through the
rain across the country toward the Chattahoochee River. The Confederates
could expect no more reinforcements, whereas the railroad, which the
Yankees now held from Tennessee south to the battle line, brought
Sherman fresh troops and supplies daily. So the gray lines went back
through the muddy fields, back toward Atlanta.
With the loss of the supposedly unconquerable position, a fresh wave of
terror swept the town. For twenty-five wild, happy days, everyone had
assured everyone else that this could not possibly happen. And now it had
happened! But surely the General would hold the Yankees on the opposite
bank of the river. Though God knows the river was close enough, only
seven miles away!
But Sherman flanked them again, crossing the stream above them, and
the weary gray files were forced to hurry across the yellow water and throw
themselves again between the invaders and Atlanta. They dug in hastily in
shallow pits to the north of the town in the valley of Peachtree Creek.
Atlanta was in agony and panic.
Fight and fall back! Fight and fall back! And every retreat was bringing
the Yankees closer to the town. Peachtree Creek was only five miles away!
What was the General thinking about?
The cries of “Give us a man who will stand and fight!” penetrated even
to Richmond. Richmond knew that if Atlanta was lost, the war was lost,
and after the army had crossed the Chattahoochee, General Johnston was
removed from command. General Hood, one of his corps commanders,
took over the army, and the town breathed a little easier. Hood wouldn’t
retreat. Not that tall Kentuckian, with his flowing beard and flashing eye!
He had the reputation of a bulldog. He’d drive the Yankees back from the
creek, yes, back across the river and on up the road every step of the way
back to Dalton. But the army cried: “Give us back Old Joe!” for they had
been with Old Joe all the weary miles from Dalton and they knew, as the
civilians could not know, the odds that opposed them.
Sherman did not wait for Hood to get himself in readiness to attack. On
the day after the change in command, the Yankee general struck swiftly at
the little town of Decatur, six miles beyond Atlanta, captured it and cut
the railroad there. This was the railroad connecting Atlanta with Augusta,
with Charleston, with Wilmington and with Virginia. Sherman had dealt
the Confederacy a crippling blow. The time had come for action! Atlanta
screamed for action!
Then, on a July afternoon of steaming heat, Atlanta had its wish.
General Hood did more than stand and fight. He assaulted the Yankees
fiercely at Peachtree Creek, hurling his men from their rifle pits against the
blue lines where Sherman’s men outnumbered him more than two to one.
Frightened, praying that Hood’s attack would drive the Yankees back,
everyone listened to the sound of booming cannon and the crackling of
thousands of rifles, which, though five miles away from the center of town,
were so loud as to seem almost in the next block. They could hear the
rumbling of the batteries, see the smoke which rolled like low-hanging
clouds above the trees, but for hours no one knew how the battle was
going.
By late afternoon the first news came, but it was uncertain,
contradictory, frightening, brought as it was by men wounded in the early
hours of the battle. These men began straggling in, singly and in groups,
the less seriously wounded supporting those who limped and staggered.
Soon a steady stream of them was established, making their painful way
into town toward the hospitals, their faces black as negroes’ from powder
stains, dust and sweat, their wounds unbandaged, blood drying, flies
swarming about them.
Aunt Pitty’s was one of the first houses which the wounded reached as
they struggled in from the north of the town, and one after another, they
tottered to the gate, sank down on the green lawn and croaked:
“Water!”
All that burning afternoon, Aunt Pitty and her family, black and white,
stood in the sun with buckets of water and bandages, ladling drinks,
binding wounds until the bandages gave out and even the torn sheets and
towels were exhausted. Aunt Pitty completely forgot that the sight of blood
always made her faint and she worked until her little feet in their too small
shoes swelled and would no longer support her. Even Melanie, now great
with child, forgot her modesty and worked feverishly side by side with
Prissy, Cookie and Scarlett, her face as tense as any of the wounded. When
at last she fainted, there was no place to lay her except on the kitchen
table, as every bed, chair and sofa in the house was filled with wounded.
Forgotten in the tumult, little Wade crouched behind the banisters on
the front porch, peering out onto the lawn like a caged, frightened rabbit,
his eyes wide with terror, sucking his thumb and hiccoughing. Once
Scarlett saw him and cried sharply: “Go play in the back yard, Wade
Hampton!” but he was too terrified, too fascinated by the mad scene before
him to obey.
The lawn was covered with prostrate men, too tired to walk farther, too
weak from wounds to move. These Uncle Peter loaded into the carriage
and drove to the hospital, making trip after trip until the old horse was
lathered. Mrs. Meade and Mrs. Merriwether sent their carriages and they,
too, drove off, springs sagging beneath the weight of wounded.
Later, in the long, hot summer twilight, the ambulances came rumbling
down the road from the battle field and commissary wagons, covered with
muddy canvas. Then farm wagons, ox carts and even private carriages
commandeered by the medical corps. They passed Aunt Pitty’s house,
jolting over the bumpy road, packed with wounded and dying men,
dripping blood into the red dust. At the sight of the women with buckets
and dippers, the conveyances halted and the chorus went up in cries, in
whispers:
“Water!”
Scarlett held wobbling heads that parched lips might drink, poured
buckets of water over dusty, feverish bodies and into open wounds that the
men might enjoy a brief moment’s relief. She tiptoed to hand dippers to
ambulance drivers and of each she questioned, her heart in her throat:
“What news? What news?”
From all came back the answer: “Don’t know fer sartin, lady. It’s too
soon to tell.”
Night came and it was sultry. No air moved and the flaring pine knots
the negroes held made the air hotter. Dust clogged Scarlett’s nostrils and
dried her lips. Her lavender calico dress, so freshly clean and starched that
morning, was streaked with blood, dirt and sweat. This, then, was what
Ashley had meant when he wrote that war was not glory but dirt and
misery.
Fatigue gave an unreal, nightmarish cast to the whole scene. It couldn’t
be real—or if it was real, then the world had gone mad. If not, why should
she be standing here in Aunt Pitty’s peaceful front yard, amid wavering
lights, pouring water over dying beaux? For so many of them were her
beaux and they tried to smile when they saw her. There were so many men
jolting down this dark, dusty road whom she knew so well, so many men
dying here before her eyes, mosquitoes and gnats swarming their bloody
faces, men with whom she had danced and laughed, for whom she had
played music and sung songs, teased, comforted and loved—a little.
She found Carey Ashburn on the bottom layer of wounded in an ox
cart, barely alive from a bullet wound in his head. But she could not
extricate him without disturbing six other wounded men, so she let him go
on to the hospital. Later she heard he had died before a doctor ever saw
him and was buried somewhere, no one knew exactly. So many men had
been buried that month, in shallow, hastily dug graves at Oakland
Cemetery. Melanie felt it keenly that they had not been able to get a lock
of Carey’s hair to send to his mother in Alabama.
As the hot night wore on and their backs were aching and their knees
buckling from weariness, Scarlett and Pitty cried to man after man: “What
news? What news?”
And as the long hours dragged past, they had their answer, an answer
that made them look whitely into each other’s eyes.
“We’re falling back.” “We’ve got to fall back.” “They outnumber us by
thousands.” “The Yankees have got Wheeler’s cavalry cut off near Decatur.
We got to reinforce them.” “Our boys will all be in town soon.”
Scarlett and Pitty clutched each other’s arms for support.
“Are—are the Yankees coming?”
“Yes’m, they’re comin’ all right but they ain’t goin’ ter git fer, lady.”
“Don’t fret, Miss, they can’t take Atlanta.” “No, Ma’m, we got a million
miles of breastworks ’round this town.” “I heard Old Joe say it myself: ‘I can
hold Atlanta forever.’” “But we ain’t got Old Joe. We got—” “Shut up, you
fool! Do you want to scare the ladies?” “The Yankees will never take this
place, Ma’m.” “Whyn’t you ladies go ter Macon or somewheres that’s safer?
Ain’t you got no kinfolks there?” “The Yankees ain’t goin’ ter take Atlanta
but still it ain’t goin’ ter be so healthy for ladies whilst they’re tryin’ it.”
“There’s goin’ ter be a powerful lot of shellin’.”
In a warm steaming rain the next day, the defeated army poured through
Atlanta by thousands, exhausted by hunger and weariness, depleted by
seventy-six days of battle and retreat, their horses starved scarecrows, their
cannon and caissons harnessed with odds and ends of rope and strips of
rawhide. But they did not come in as a disorderly rabble, in full rout. They
marched in good order, jaunty for all their rags, their torn red battle flags
flying in the rain. They had learned retreating under Old Joe, who had
made it as great a feat of strategy as advancing. The bearded, shabby file
swung down Peachtree Street to the tune of “Maryland! My Maryland!”
and all the town turned out to cheer them. In victory or defeat, they were
their boys.
The state militia who had gone out so short a time before, resplendent
in new uniforms, could hardly be distinguished from the seasoned troops, so
dirty and unkempt were they. There was a new look in their eyes. Three
years of apologizing, of explaining why they were not at the front was
behind them now. They had traded security behind the lines for the
hardships of battle. Many of their number had traded easy living for hard
death. They were veterans now, veterans of brief service, but veterans just
the same, and they had acquitted themselves well. They searched out the
faces of friends in the crowd and stared at them proudly, defiantly. They
could hold up their heads now.
The old men and boys of the Home Guard marched by, the graybeards
almost too weary to lift their feet, the boys wearing the faces of tired
children, confronted too early with adult problems. Scarlett caught sight of
Phil Meade and hardly recognized him, so black was his face with powder
and grime, so taut with strain and weariness. Uncle Henry went limping by,
hatless in the rain, his head stuck through a hole in a piece of old oilcloth.
Grandpa Merriwether rode in on a gun carriage, his bare feet tied in quilt
scraps. But search though she might, she saw no sign of John Wilkes.
Johnston’s veterans, however, went by with the tireless, careless step
which had carried them for three years, and they still had the energy to
grin and wave at pretty girls and to call rude gibes to men not in uniform.
They were on their way to the entrenchments that ringed the town—no
shallow, hastily dug trenches, these, but earthworks, breast high, reinforced
with sandbags and tipped with sharpened staves of wood. For mile after
mile the trenches encircled the town, red gashes surmounted by red
mounds, waiting for the men who would fill them.
The crowd cheered the troops as they would have cheered them in
victory. There was fear in every heart but, now that they knew the truth,
now that the worst had happened, now that the war was in their front yard,
a change came over the town. There was no panic now, no hysteria.
Whatever lay in hearts did not show on faces. Everyone looked cheerful
even if the cheer was strained. Everyone tried to show brave, confident
faces to the troops. Everyone repeated what Old Joe had said, just before he
was relieved of command: “I can hold Atlanta forever.”
Now that Hood had had to retreat, quite a number wished, with the
soldiers, that they had Old Joe back, but they forbore saying it and took
courage from Old Joe’s remark:
“I can hold Atlanta forever!”
* * *
Not for Hood the cautious tactics of General Johnston. He assaulted the
Yankees on the east, he assaulted them on the west. Sherman was circling
the town like a wrestler seeking a fresh hold on an opponent’s body, and
Hood did not remain behind his rifle pits waiting for the Yankees to attack.
He went out boldly to meet them and savagely fell upon them. Within the
space of a few days the battles of Atlanta and of Ezra Church were fought,
and both of them were major engagements which made Peachtree Creek
seem like a skirmish.
But the Yankees kept coming back for more. They had suffered heavy
losses but they could afford to lose. And all the while their batteries poured
shells into Atlanta, killing people in their homes, ripping roofs off
buildings, tearing huge craters in the streets. The townsfolk sheltered as
best they could in cellars, in holes in the ground and in shallow tunnels dug
in railroad cuts. Atlanta was under siege.
Within eleven days after he had taken command, General Hood had
lost almost as many men as Johnston had lost in seventy-four days of battle
and retreat, and Atlanta was hemmed in on three sides.
The railroad from Atlanta to Tennessee was now in Sherman’s hands for
its full length. His army was across the railroad to the east and he had cut
the railroad running southwest to Alabama. Only the one railroad to the
south, to Macon and Savannah, was still open. The town was crowded with
soldiers, swamped with wounded, jammed with refugees, and this one line
was inadequate for the crying needs of the stricken city. But as long as this
railroad could be held, Atlanta could still stand.
Scarlett was terrified when she realized how important this line had
become, how fiercely Sherman would fight to take it, how desperately
Hood would fight to defend it. For this was the railroad which ran through
the County, through Jonesboro. And Tara was only five miles from
Jonesboro! Tara seemed like a haven of refuge by comparison with the
screaming hell of Atlanta, but Tara was only five miles from Jonesboro!
* * *
Scarlett and many other ladies sat on the flat roofs of stores, shaded by their
tiny parasols, and watched the fighting on the day of the battle of Atlanta.
But when shells began falling in the streets for the first time, they fled to
the cellars, and that night the exodus of women, children and old people
from the city began. Macon was their destination and many of those who
took the train that night had already refugeed five and six times before, as
Johnston fell back from Dalton. They were traveling lighter now than
when they arrived in Atlanta. Most of them carried only a carpetbag and a
scanty lunch done up in a bandana handkerchief. Here and there,
frightened servants carried silver pitchers, knives and forks and a family
portrait or two which had been salvaged in the first flight.
Mrs. Merriwether and Mrs. Elsing refused to leave. They were needed at
the hospital and furthermore, they said proudly, they weren’t afraid and no
Yankees were going to run them out of their homes. But Maybelle and her
baby and Fanny Elsing went to Macon. Mrs. Meade was disobedient for the
first time in her married life and flatly refused to yield to the doctor’s
command that she take the train to safety. The doctor needed her, she said.
Moreover, Phil was somewhere in the trenches and she wanted to be near
by in case…
But Mrs. Whiting went and many other ladies of Scarlett’s circle. Aunt
Pitty, who had been the first to denounce Old Joe for his policy of retreat,
was among the first to pack her trunks. Her nerves, she said, were delicate
and she could not endure noises. She feared she might faint at an explosion
and not be able to reach the cellar. No, she was not afraid. Her baby mouth
tried to set in martial lines but failed. She’d go to Macon and stay with her
cousin, Old Mrs. Burr, and the girls should come with her.
Scarlett did not want to go to Macon. Frightened as she was of the
shells, she’d rather stay in Atlanta than go to Macon, for she hated old
Mrs. Burr cordially. Years ago, Mrs. Burr had said she was “fast” after
catching her kissing her son Willie at one of the Wilkeses’ house parties.
No, she told Aunt Pitty, I’ll go home to Tara and Melly can go to Macon
with you.
At this Melanie began to cry in a frightened, heartbroken way. When
Aunt Pitty fled to get Dr. Meade, Melanie caught Scarlett’s hand in hers,
pleading:
“Dear, don’t go to Tara and leave me! I’ll be so lonely without you. Oh,
Scarlett, I’d just die if you weren’t with me when the baby came! Yes—Yes,
I know I’ve got Aunt Pitty and she is sweet. But after all, she’s never had a
baby, and sometimes she makes me so nervous I could scream. Don’t desert
me, darling. You’ve been just like a sister to me, and besides,” she smiled
wanly, “you promised Ashley you’d take care of me. He told me he was
going to ask you.”
Scarlett stared down at her in wonderment. With her own dislike of this
woman so strong she could barely conceal it, how could Melly love her so?
How could Melly be so stupid as not to guess the secret of her love of
Ashley? She had given herself away a hundred times during these months
of torment, waiting for news of him. But Melanie saw nothing. Melanie
who could see nothing but good in anyone she loved…. Yes, she had
promised Ashley she would look out for Melanie. Oh, Ashley! Ashley! you
must be dead, dead these many months! And now your promise reaches out
and clutches me!
“Well,” she said shortly, “I did promise him that and I don’t go back on
my promises. But I won’t go to Macon and stay with that old Burr cat. I’d
claw her eyes out in five minutes. I’m going home to Tara and you can
come with me. Mother would love to have you.”
“Oh, I’d like that! Your mother is so sweet. But you know Auntie would
just die if she wasn’t with me when the baby came, and I know she won’t
go to Tara. It’s too close to the fighting, and Auntie wants to be safe.”
Dr. Meade, who had arrived out of breath, expecting to find Melanie in
premature labor at least, judging by Aunt Pitty’s alarmed summoning, was
indignant and said as much. And upon learning the cause of the upset, he
settled the matter with words that left no room for argument.
“It’s out of the question for you to go to Macon, Miss Melly. I won’t
answer for you if you move. The trains are crowded and uncertain and the
passengers are liable to be put off in the woods at any time, if the trains are
needed for the wounded or troops and supplies. In your condition—”
“But if I went to Tara with Scarlett—”
“I tell you I won’t have you moved. The train to Tara is the train to
Macon and the same conditions prevail. Moreover, no one knows just
where the Yankees are now, but they are all over everywhere. Your train
might even be captured. And even if you reached Jonesboro safely, there’d
be a five-mile ride over a rough road before you ever reached Tara. It’s no
trip for a woman in a delicate condition. Besides, there’s not a doctor in the
County since old Dr. Fontaine joined the army.”
“But there are midwives—”
“I said a doctor,” he answered brusquely and his eyes unconsciously went
over her tiny frame. “I won’t have you moved. It might be dangerous. You
don’t want to have the baby on the train or in a buggy, do you?”
This medical frankness reduced the ladies to embarrassed blushes and
silence.
“You’ve got to stay right here where I can watch you, and you must stay
in bed. No running up and down stairs to cellars. No, not even if shells
come right in the window. After all, there’s not so much danger here. We’ll
have the Yankees beaten back in no time…. Now, Miss Pitty, you go right
on to Macon and leave the young ladies here.”
“Unchaperoned?” she cried, aghast.
“They are matrons,” said the doctor testily. “And Mrs. Meade is just two
houses away. They won’t be receiving any male company anyway with Miss
Melly in her condition. Good Heavens, Miss Pitty! This is war time. We
can’t think of the proprieties now. We must think of Miss Melly.”
He stamped out of the room and waited on the front porch until
Scarlett joined him.
“I shall talk frankly to you, Miss Scarlett,” he began, jerking at his gray
beard. “You seem to be a young woman of common sense, so spare me your
blushes. I do not want to hear any further talk about Miss Melly being
moved. I doubt if she could stand the trip. She is going to have a difficult
time, even in the best of circumstances—very narrow in the hips, as you
know, and probably will need forceps for her delivery, so I don’t want any
ignorant darky midwife meddling with her. Women like her should never
have children, but—Anyway, you pack Miss Pitty’s trunk and send her to
Macon. She’s so scared she’ll upset Miss Melly and that won’t do any good.
And now, Miss,” he fixed her with a piercing glance, “I don’t want to hear
about you going home, either. You stay with Miss Melly till the baby comes.
Not afraid, are you?”
“Oh, no!” lied Scarlett, stoutly.
“That’s a brave girl. Mrs. Meade will give you whatever chaperonage you
need and I’ll send over old Betsy to cook for you, if Miss Pitty wants to take
her servants with her. It won’t be for long. The baby ought to be here in
another five weeks, but you never can tell with first babies and all this
shelling going on. It may come any day.”
So Aunt Pittypat went to Macon, in floods of tears, taking Uncle Peter
and Cookie with her. The carriage and horse she donated to the hospital in
a burst of patriotism which she immediately regretted and that brought on
more tears. And Scarlett and Melanie were left alone with Wade and Prissy
in a house that was much quieter, even though the cannonading
continued.
