CRAIG SAVOYE

CHAPTER EIGHT

I decided early on to set chapters 8 and 9 in the Civil War and to make Addy a spy in chapter 8. I also congratulated myself on my originality: I couldn’t recall reading any Civil War spy fiction, and in my recreational non-fiction reading over a half-century, which included a few Civil War books, I didn’t recall mention of, or at least any chapters devoted to, spying. I was quickly educated. The very beginnings of my Civil War research uncovered dozens of volumes on espionage. Much of the literature focused on the eastern theatre, which dovetailed with my original concept of stretching the geography of Addison True from coast-to-coast. But three factors worked against an eastern seaboard setting for chapter 8:

• Richmond was the epicenter of Union spying, which made it the subject of a number of post-war books. Indeed, the city struck me as too-well-trod ground in terms of the historical record. I felt more comfortable with the idea of a fresh canvas.

• Addy is basically a westerner. I concluded the organic option was to abandon my transcontinental aspirations and keep A.T. west of the Appalachians. 

• I had early envisioned chapter 9 as an Addison-Samuel trek north, so trying to bodily transport Addy from the Richmond area to northern Mississippi at the end of chapter 8 would have required a blatant narrative contrivance I wasn’t prepared to stoop to. 

Section 1

Forcing a chained slave to run behind a wagon is not, unfortunately, a unique idea; indeed it strikes me as an almost iconic image of slavery. But the first time I read such an account was in Bordewich [66]. Levi Coffin, a future figure in the Underground Railroad, came upon a runaway slave tailing (several miles back) an emigrant party in North Carolina. The slave’s family had been sold separately from him and he was following the train they were attached to, hoping to perhaps settle near his family—wherever it was the emigrants were bound. But he was caught, arrested, and held for his master. Coffin later saw him in a blacksmith shop being fitted with a chain collar. His master arrived and said, “Now you’ll know what slavery is. Just wait till I get you back home.” The other end of the chain was fitted to the axle of the master’s buggy. He took off at a trot. The captured runaway had to run full speed to stay upright or fall and be dragged by his neck. The reader likely can see why I adapted the story to incite Addison’s hair-trigger sense of justice. 

Sprague [90] provided some useful background on Quakers and the Underground Railroad in Cincinnati. 

Section 2

In the first three paragraphs of this section the narrator provides a synthesized history of the beginnings of the Civil War in the western theatre. The facts mentioned are well established in terms of the historical record, and so is the strategic nature of the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers as related in paragraph 3. Nevertheless, Horn [74] was my source for the latter. The Sixth Ohio was an actual regiment. I volunteered Addy for that particular unit by working backwards from Shiloh. That is, I wanted Addison to re-connect with his regiment and Bird Morton, and on the second day of the battle Sixth Ohio did indeed advance at the time and place where I have Addy single-handedly man a cannon. The regiment formed in Cincinnati at the outbreak of war when Addison was present there.

The description of occupied Nashville derives mostly from Horn [101-104] and Sarmiento [91-93]. While the Burns Flush character was conceived while writing chapter 6, from the outset I planned to subsequently transpose him to the Civil War chapters. But that formulation pre-dated my research on confederate raiders such as John Hunt Morgan. Burns Flush’s Civil War self is not patterned on Morgan; it is rather a composite of various confederate guerrilla leaders. I did specifically adopt use of Morgan’s McMinnville hideout [Horan 13] since it worked well with the geography of my narrative. (More on Morgan in the notes for chapter 9.)

When I began to research Civil War spying I quickly discovered some of the most effective espionage agents were women. There were five leading female Civil War spies. Indeed, Varon [62] labels them the “Big Five:” Belle Boyd, Elizabeth Van Lew, Pauline Cushman, Rose O’Neal Greenhow, and Antonia Ford. I knew early on I wanted Addy to interact with a femme fatale spy. That preconception turned into the Isabelle Chevalier character. She is a composite of the Big Five. That said, I unashamedly filch Pauline Cushman’s back story (from Sarmiento) and make it Isabelle’s: born in New Orleans of mixed European heritage [20], moved to and raised in frontier Michigan [24-26], New York actress [35], and the infamous Louisville theater declaration for the South—a ruse aimed at establishing her espionage bona fides [58-62]. But the two scenes in which Addison visits Isabelle in Nashville—one time with Grant in attendance—are wholly fictitious and have no connection to Cushman, although she was in Nashville at a later date. Sarmiento [89] references Allen’s New Theatre, although I have no idea if it was still in operation after Union forces occupied the city in February 1862. Indeed, while borrowing almost all of Cushman’s backstory, I use virtually none of her “front” story; that is, her spying career was short and the telling of it overwrought and highly romanticized. Cushman was not in Vicksburg before, during, or after the siege. In terms of the composite nature of the Isabelle’s character, she has Greenhow’s “social abilities” [Fishel 59], Van Lew’s nerve when it comes to working behind enemy lines [Varon], and Belle Boyd’s charm [Boyd], although Belle exhibited a brashness I don’t attach to Isabelle. 

   Addy and Bird’s scout east of Nashville is my creation. My objective was to begin to slowly evolve Addison from foot soldier to scout to spy, and his and Bird’s initial expedition is part of that sequencing. I read several personal narratives by scouts that provided invaluable background, not only in regard to this section and chapter, but for chapter 9 as well: Benson, Downs, DEllis, and Estabrooks. Although I ended up spinning only a few anecdotes from Who Goes There?, Benson’s volume was nevertheless a critical aid because the author succeeds in putting his reader’s on the ground behind Rebel lines. His narrative taught me how to think, feel, and react the way a Union operative might. It also provided specifics about such things as how pickets were placed, the pass system [65], and how spies slipped through enemy lines and infiltrated their camps. Downs [74,201] also provides good background on the pass system.

   It became clear early in my research on Civil War espionage that a key source of intelligence for the federals were African-Americans: freed/escaped slaves, or even the servants of Confederate officers [Varon 165; Fishel 120]. Historian Herbert Aptheker wrote: “The greatest single source of military and naval intelligence, particularly on the tactical level, for the Federal government during the war was the Negro” [Markle 55]. My desire to exemplify that aspect of Civil War spy history led to creation of the “slave banquet” scene. The specific intelligence the elderly slave servant imparts to Addy, about Johnston’s movement and strategy, is from Horn [107]. Would Johnston have talked strategy freely in front of a slave-servant? Benson [70] wrote that Confederate officers had favorite slaves as camp servants “whom they thought so attached to them as to be trustworthy.” 

   I’m not quite sure how U.S. Grant became a co-star of this chapter. I enjoyed creating Kit Carson’s cameo in chapter 4, and that’s what I originally imagined here for Hiram Ulysses. The general’s repeated appearances simply aligned with the unfolding storytelling and I saw no need to limit his role. Grant’s unauthorized trip to Nashville is historical fact, yet it is still cloaked in a bit in mystery—although I imagine plenty of historians would argue that Ulysses was simply there to confer with Buell. Grant’s enemies portrayed it as a drunken detour, but there is little evidence he was there to “recreate,” as I have Addison categorize it. But this is a novel, so I chose to exploit the unknown and imply a Nashville debauch. While Grant was indeed drummed out of the service for drunkenness in the 1850s, my cursory reading of the record indicates he held his alcoholism in check for the most part during the Civil War, though his history of alcohol abuse certainly provided gossipy fodder for his rivals and enemies. 

   I dislike suggesting married Grant was unfaithful since I did not read of any such proclivity, but I wanted to introduce him in a surprising way while also layering Isabel’s character. (I finished writing this chapter shortly before Ron Chernow’s well-regarded biography of Grant was published and I did not consult it.) Besides fictional infidelity, the date of Addison’s meeting with Grant is later than it could have been. I have it take place around March 5 or 6 (I don’t specify a date) while Grant actually returned to Fort Henry from Nashville on February 28 [Cunningham 72] after an overnight trip [Daniel 58]. I had Addy and Ulysses meet on March 5 or 6 for the simple reason that Addison needed to arrive in Savannah, Tennessee on the afternoon of March 14 (so he could just miss Sherman who left there that same day, in the morning) [Cunningham 79; Horn 116; Daniel 81], and it seemed unrealistic for A.T’s horseback journey from Nashville to Savannah to take longer than a week. Although Grant was not present in Nashville on March 5 or 6, he did in fact receive the telegram from St. Louis-based Halleck, relieving him of duty, on March 4. The reading of that wire took place at Fort Henry [Daniel 53; Sword 16].  

   I had a vague notion, at the start of writing and conceiving Addison True, that Addy would meet up with one of his brothers along the way. Author Hobbs reunited with his long lost brother during the War with Mexico [126-27]. In general the dislocations of war seemed to create conditions whereby Addison and Gideon might “naturally” (rather than purely coincidentally) come together; thus their Civil War reunion.

Section 3  

The Shiloh section exists for three primary reasons:

• To establish Addy’s scout-cum-spy credentials and thereby set-up his Vicksburg adventure.

• Reveal Gideon’s reticent nature while nevertheless forging brotherly bonds.

• Have a battle scene. It seemed to me my two chapters on the Civil War would lack fundamental credibility if Addison failed to participate in a major battle.

I will cite specific references in this section when it comes to Shiloh particulars, but Addy’s weaving journey through the first day of fighting is such a mash-up of fiction and the historical record that the twinning can’t be fully disentangled. I drew primarily from three books about the battle: Sword, Daniel, and Cunningham.

In regard to timing, I did try to hew my Shiloh chronology as close to history as possible—starting with Addison’s late March 14 arrival in Savannah. (Recall Sherman left the city and moved upriver that morning.) Hurlbut did indeed start upriver the next day [Sword 14], but waited offshore and didn’t disembark at Pittsburg Landing until the seventeenth [Daniel 102; Sword 26]. Sherman stopped briefly at Pittsburg on the fifteenth, and then returned there after a one-day foray on the sixteenth [Cunningham 82-83]. I have Addy waiting at Pittsburg Landing for his brother and Sherman on the morning of March 16, as if Hurlbut had already disembarked the day before and established camp. The whole time period covered by sections 3 and 4 (March 14-April 7) was indeed a period of wet weather, boggy ground, and flooded rivers and tributaries. The strategic nature of Pittsburg Landing is well-established history, but I first learned of it from (and reflected back to the reader) Horn’s description [116-17].

Soldier-diarist Oldroyd [11] wrote “The tin cup or coffee can is generally tied to the canteen or else to the blanket or haversack, and it rattles along the road, reminding one of the sound of the old cow coming home.” That became “…tin cups tied-on clinking agin canteens with every step. Sounded like so many bell cows plodding home at dusk.” The idea for the southern loyalist farmer Addison buys a horse and tries to garner intelligence from—who is likely informing the rebels about Union troop movement—was inspired by this line in Horan [10] describing confederate cavalryman and spy Thomas Hines: “He…had learned to cultivate Confederate sympathizers and recruit them as listening posts for his underground.” The near universal sympathy of local farmers (around Pittsburg Landing) for the southern cause is documented by Sword [117]. Union espionage chiefs routinely provided Confederate currency to their spies operating behind rebel lines [Fishel 296].

   Sherman did indeed lead a reconnaissance in the direction of Corinth on March 17 [Sword 15; Daniel 102] where he encountered Confederate cavalry before turning back [Horn 117]. There was a famous peach orchard on the Shiloh battlefield, so I arbitrarily made the orchard Gideon and Addy cross—to disguise their approach to Confederate cavalry—of the apple variety to avoid history-buff confusion. 

   Climbing a tree to spy must be as old as spies and timber, but I got the idea from Fishel [178]. The specific intelligence Addison hears while up in the tree, regarding Confederate troop strength and reorganized brigade commands, is from Horn [119]. I have never resided in rural America so I had never heard the term barn sour prior to interviewing a cowboy by the name Riley Bradstreet in panhandle Texas in 2010. I was reminded of the phrase, and phenomenon, while reading Benson [148], and decided a barn sour horse should make an appearance somewhere in Addison True.   

   Grant did indeed arrive March 17 at Savannah and assume command of the Army of Tennessee [Cunningham 84]. He made the Cherry mansion his headquarters, as did General CF Smith before him [Sword 116]. The definition of spy versus scout, as it pertains to the civil war—which I put in Addy’s mouth during his private conversation with Grant (a scout becomes a spy when he crosses over no man’s land into enemy territory)—is fairly common knowledge, but I first saw it spelled out in Fishel [331]. Union General Halleck was more specific. He issued an edict that someone crossing onto the federal side attempting to elicit information without disguise or false pretenses was not a spy. It was the use of subterfuge to gain information that made one a spy and subject to summary execution [Fishel 245]. By that definition Addison was indubitably a spy.

I make the point in the text, at least twice, that the best Union spies during the Civil War were southern citizens with northern allegiance. They knew the territory, often knew useful people that trusted them (but thought they were southern sympathizers), spoke with an authentic accent, and didn’t have to create a southern backstory. While the life-threatening problems a lack of southern roots created for most Northern spies might seem obvious, one of the first books I read on Civil War spying alerted me to the challenge [Fishel 295]—and it was indeed an issue I couldn’t ignore vis-à-vis Addy. I have him acknowledge his problematic “Yankee-ness” in a conversation with Grant, including the statement that he doesn’t “speak Dixie,” which is from Markle [8]. 

Section 4 

   The numbers regarding Union troop strength at Pittsburg Landing are from Daniel [106]. Reference to Addison’s tortured “infernal regions” is from Delano [115].

   The scene in which Addy meets with pickets that spot Confederate troops in the woods is adapted from Sword [136], who wrote that pickets stationed only 300 yards from their own camp had, on the eve of Shiloh, become “accustomed to seeing Confederate cavalry in the woods nearby.” The Irishman impressed into rebel service in New Orleans, who deserts while on picket duty, was born from multiple references in Fishel. The author mentions that the most fruitful informants were often deserters, especially impressed Europeans [115]. My Irishman’s backstory includes parts of the biography of an actual Emerald Isle deserter mentioned by Fishel [116]. Fishel also noted that the Confederates often used “pseudo-deserters” to convey disinformation [5], an element I brought into the story to explain why Sherman and Grant doubted the veracity of the intelligence they were receiving.

   Addison just missing Grant aboard the Tigress at Pittsburg Landing jives with the historical record. According to Sword [133], the Tigress departed for Savannah at 11 p.m. on April 5 and Grant was up with his officers “to a very late hour.” The telegram from Sherman that Grant reads to Addy is historically accurate [Sword 128-29]. There is no question Shiloh is one of Grant’s early low points (along with being relieved of his command after his jaunt to Nashville). As with Sherman, history clearly shows he ignored warnings of Confederate troops moving into position to attack.

   The reference to General “Bopp” reporting the capture of 10,000 prisoners when in reality only two hundred injured rebels were seized is essentially true [Horn 152]. The true-life incident occurred two months after Shiloh, so I felt compelled to change the general’s name and the location of the “battle.” General Pope is the culprit who grossly inflated the estimate of captured prisoners and the incident took place at Booneville, Mississippi, but otherwise the story is factual as related, including a false report sent to Halleck who relayed it to Lincoln. 

Addison surmising, while alone, that Grant was waiting on Buell to arrive before attacking (on Halleck’s orders), and then Grant, aboard the Tigress, bellowing the same line of reasoning at Addy, in defense of his inaction, derives from Daniel [105].

My description of the earliest fighting, near Spain field, in which I involve Addison and Gideon, is drawn from Daniel [147; 150-56] and Sword [151-57]. I wanted to communicate how raw most of the troops were at Shiloh—literally off the boat and into battle in some cases. The snippet about Wisconsin recruits having never fired their weapons except for shooting at stumps along the Mississippi River on their voyage south is from Daniel [153], though it was birds and logs they targeted. The spectral detail about panicked rabbits racing at Union lines ahead of advancing confederate troops is also adapted from Daniel [150]. There is not a consensus among historians on the spelling of Rea/Rhea field. 

I was shocked at the extent of cowardice reported at Shiloh. It was noted frequently in the histories I read and was evident on both sides. I would have imagined a few score of cases but it was several thousand. Sword describes masses huddled under the bank of the Tennessee River by Pittsburg Landing [340]. I wanted to contrast Gideon’s personality with Addy’s and thus made him a “coward,” but I also wanted to make a statement about the nature of bravery and cowardice. Gideon’s dash across a battlefield to provide water to a badly injured soldier was inspired by a similar story in Loughborough [102]. 

I sought to capture the chaos of the Crossroads mid-morning on the first day of battle as portrayed in Daniel [182-85] and Cunningham [219-246]. Obviously action on the battlefield shifted constantly over two days and a broad area, but for an hour or so that morning the Crossroads was the hellish geo-center of the battle of Shiloh and I wanted Addison in the middle of it. There was also heavy action midday April 6 along Sunken Road, which came to be known as the Hornet’s Nest (for the sound of innumerable and uninterrupted whizzing bullets). Again, I wanted Addy there. Accounts in Daniel [202-09] and Cunningham [240-263] were most helpful in setting the stage at that location.

The timing of Addison’s movement around 2:00 p.m. along Sunken Road to the edge of Sarah Bell Field roughly matches the timing of the Confederate assault there following two hours of stalemate [Cunningham 271]. One inaccuracy: I don’t believe there was a federal encampment, prior to the start of the battle, on the northwest corner of Sarah Bell field. For narrative purposes I created one on that spot.  

   Two specific details in the scene by Sarah Bell field—at the end of Addy’s first day of fighting and the start of his second—derive from Loughborough, and both are transposed from Vicksburg to Shiloh. Her “…I can see the turf turned up, from the shells that have gone ploughing into the earth” [116] became my “Couldn’t believe the ground all about. Looked like a farm field ploughed irregular, the way shells by the score had turned the turf.” And my aside about the battlefield littered with minie balls: “And hundreds of still-round balls, everywhere, like an enormous necklace—made of ammunition instead of pearls—had been torn asunder…” is my metaphor but Loughborough’s description [138]. 

   Whereas my recounting of the first day of Shiloh is fairly accurate, I truncated the second day in a way sure to annoy Civil War aficionados. (I simply had to cap the word count in this section.) Confederate forces did advance past Sarah Bell field to within a quarter-mile of Pittsburg Landing by the end of the first day of battle, but then many dropped back at dusk and some even camped on Sarah Bell field the night of April 6, whereas I have Addison alone on the field overnight. The Sixth Ohio did indeed come down Hamburg-Savannah Road, where the Sunken Road intersects, on the morning of April 7, but it was more like 10 a.m. and they stalled there for upwards of two hours. The rebels did counterattack [Daniel 269, 273]. Colonel Jacob Ammen commanded the Tenth Brigade, of which Sixth Ohio was a regiment. I was able to track the movement of the Sixth Ohio the morning of April 7 by tracing the movements of Ammen in Cunningham [345-51].

   Addy manning the Napoleon and single-handedly repulsing a confederate charge was inspired by three separate reports. Captain William R. Terrill manned a cannon at the time and location of my narrative [Cunningham 350-51]. Sword [393-94] says his “gallantry turned the tide.” Separately, an unknown artilleryman on the morning of Day 1 of the battle also remained at his post despite heavy losses in close proximity and single-handedly (a typical crew is five) fired double canister three times. A reporter later counted 30 dead men and 32 dead horses within an area of 50 square yards around the anonymous artilleryman’s battery [Daniel 169]. And Oldroyd [23] described a rebel charge out of the woods at the siege of Vicksburg where the graycoats had to scale a pasture fence. A Union gun opened on them with grape and canister that “completely annihilated men and fence, and forced the enemy to fall back.”

   I worry that Bird Morton’s graphic death may be viewed as gratuitous violence. It is precisely the opposite. It was a measured attempt to symbolize the overall savagery of war, the heavy casualty toll at Shiloh, and specifically, the horror of sudden adjacent death. For example, as fighting wound down late afternoon April 6, Grant was standing on the bluff at Pittsburg Landing conferring with Buell and another General when a six-pound cannon ball suddenly decapitated one of Grant’s aides and splattered the general with his brains [Daniel 248]. War isn’t pretty and I didn’t want this scene to be.

Section 5

Although Vicksburg in 1863 was fortified for several miles north and south of town, and clearly there would have been Confederate pickets as well—if not small clusters of forces—for many miles up and down the east side of the river, it is plausible Addison and a foraging team could have snuck across the Mississippi because Woolworth in fact did it [7-8]. Foraging was indeed a concerted strategy for feeding Union troops [Shea & Winschel 45]. 

There are conflicting reports as to where General Grant established his headquarters in Arkansas, west of Vicksburg, January-March 1863. Woolworth [5] reports it as being on the steamer Magnolia. I went with that. 

Integrating fiction and history has its challenges. Chronology, geography, the movement of people, and other factors, must be carefully sorted, arranged, and orchestrated by the storyteller, whereas history is typically a jumbled mess. Then again, sometimes you get lucky. After some initial fumbling with the outline of chapter 10, I decided to have Addy return to the Plains after the war and aid in construction of the transcontinental railroad, in part because that endeavor symbolized the “closing” of the west and therefore dovetailed with the close of my narrative. I knew Grenville Dodge was in charge of construction, so Addison would likely encounter him in the final chapter. What I didn’t know was that Dodge was Grant’s intelligence chief at Vicksburg [JPerkins 105]. It was beyond perfect. (Thank you, history.) Dodge would be Addy’s “boss” in this chapter even as their wartime collaboration set up their chapter 10 association. Dodge did indeed live in Council Bluffs and own a freighting company there in the late 1850s [JPerkins 45], so it is credible he would have known fictitious Eldredge, a (former) freighter and high profile merchant residing in the next major town south on the Missouri river. 

The strategic situation around Vicksburg in which I insert Addison is generally accurate. Grant originally considered capturing the city in a cross-river assault from the west (the Arkansas side). Most agree Sherman’s probe and failure at Chickasaw Bluffs provided prima facie evidence that a large-scale attack from the west would have ended in disaster. Indeed, Shea & Winschel [62] say Grant decided early on to move his army across the river and attack from the east, but such movement was impossible before spring. Yet the Yazoo River and Steele’s Bayou forays did in fact take place, creating fictitious latitude for me to suggest that if those operations had been successful, Grant might have seriously considered a cross-river assault. Virtually all factual information that made its way into Addison True having to do with the Yazoo River and Steele’s Bayou expeditions derives from Shea & Winschel [71-75].

In the first Grant/Dodge/Addy conversation, I have Ulysses indicate conditions there in low-lying Arkansas are so bad he simply can’t keep his forces camped there for long. Soldiers cutting down logs for “beds” in order to sleep above the mud, and 50 men dying a day, are facts derived from Woolworth [3], although he actually reported 60-70 deaths per day (a case of reality seeming too exaggerated; I reduced the number for the sake of “credibility”). Shea & Winschel also detail the grim conditions [60]. 

Although I won’t be additionally specifically citing Solomon Woolworth’s slim volume [15 pages], his account of operating as a Union spy around Vicksburg was invaluable to me in terms of scene-setting and plotting Addison’s movements. I have Grant say he sent four “scouts” across the river into Vicksburg and none returned. Downs [214] puts the number at six.

Also in the first meeting with Grant I have Addy suggest he (Addison) deliver to Confederate General Pemberton what will appear to Pemberton to be useful intelligence when in fact it is recently outdated information—in order to establish Addy’s bona fides. This is a familiar stratagem in modern espionage, but was also an actual trick favored by Grenville Dodge during the war [Markle 127].

Dodge was very discrete. He refused to reveal information or relate anecdotes about his spies to post-war authors—right up to his passing in 1916—for fear any such revelations might imperil his ex-operatives still living in the south 50 years later, or their descendants [JPerkins 105]. Thus his real-life secret service exploits were never chronicled. A loss to history, but an omission that perhaps worked to my selfish advantage in that Dodge’s prudence created an historical vacuum that gave me narrative free rein in Vicksburg. I filled it by modeling Addison’s exploits after those of real-life spy Philip Henson. His “appearance” in my research was serendipitous. Henson was Dodge’s best spy. He had the kind of southern born-and-bred background I previously mentioned proved highly effective for northern spies. He hailed from Mississippi but was loyal to the Union. Not only did he “blend,” he was from near Vicksburg and knew the terrain. Moreover, given that his brother was a Confederate general, his own loyalty was basically unquestioned. Plus he had friends and other relatives in the rebel army who either inadvertently opened doors, or advertently vouched for him [Johns 31]. 

I had imagined Addy being a Civil War spy literally for decades before starting to research this chapter, but it was only a matter of days after plotting his infiltration of Vicksburg that I read in Kane [199] that Dodge, needing a spy to report on the city’s nearly impregnable defenses and the condition of troops, arms, and supplies inside the fortifications, sent in Phil Henson. I nearly fell out of my chair; Addison’s fictitious persona in Vicksburg had a real-life counterpart. I immediately began adapting parts of Henson’s exploits and making them Addy’s. For instance, Henson had a neighbor by the name of Jesse Johnsey, who became Boyd Tattersley. Johnsey had five sons in the Confederate army serving at Vicksburg. Johnsey was not blind—I added that part—but Henson did suggest to Johnsey they visit his boys, so that Henson could tag along and infiltrate the city [Johns 42-45]. 

Addison and Henson’s espionage chronologies do differ. I place Addy in and around Vicksburg in March 1863—prior to Grant moving across the Mississippi River and besieging the city from the east—because of the needs of my particular story construct (including Addison escaping on an intact Southern Railroad to confederate-held Jackson). Henson did his Vicksburg spying during the siege itself, in late spring and early summer 1863 [JPerkins 112; Markel 10-11], after Jackson and the railroad had both been captured. In addition to specific references in JPerkins and Markel, all of the 98-page Johns biography, plus Kane [193-212], were invaluable in my quest to cloak Addy in a bit of Henson mystique.

There were smugglers galore in the South during the Civil War. As I allude to in the text, the South had shortages of manufactured goods and other items, such as medical supplies. Smuggling filled the gap and also provided natural cover for Union spies [Markle 21-22; Fishel 291-92]. Confederate officers no doubt held their noses in the presence of such scabrous Yankee peddlers (a condescending attitude I attempt to ascribe to Pemberton during his interactions with one-armed “commercial agent” Addison), but the need for provisions was so great that uneasy co-dependence prevailed. Indeed, Jones [153] wrote that the Confederate Assistant Secretary of War gave instructions to graycoat officers to “wink” at smugglers. My narrative assumes that general attitude. The price I set for contraband quinine, $100 per ounce, also comes from Jones [284]. Downs [214] helped me compile a credible list of typical bootlegged items. 

Could Addy really have fooled Pemberton into giving him a pass? Fishel [35] tells the story of a Union spy in the Virginia theatre that spent three days in Confederate General Beauregard’s camp. Beauregard not only “refrained from arresting him,” he issued the unbeknownst Union spy a pass that enabled him to move about between rebel camps. Also, Henson was a double agent and for a time was on the payroll of Confederate General Polk [JPerkins 112]. Kane says four confederate generals paid Henson at one time or another [193] and therefore certainly provided him with passes. One other note on the Pemberton meeting: Fishel [295], in discussing the inherent problem of Union spies with northern roots trying to operate in the south (unlike southerner Phil Henson), makes the point that it was far better for Union spies to win acceptance of a counterfeit Southern allegiance than to devise a foolproof Southern identity [my emphasis]. That was the general idea behind Addison adopting smuggler cover; he could “freely” be a self-interested northerner and not have to attempt a southern identity.

My description of the defensive perimeter east of Vicksburg derives from Shea & Winschel [37], but once again there is time shifting involved in my portrayal. I am really describing the situation in and around the city when it was besieged; that is, Vicksburg two months later, in early summer 1863, rather than March. For instance, when Addy attempts to intercept the courier after his encounter with Bristol Cummins, he situates himself between the camps of Generals John Bowen and Carter Stevenson. Bowen was indeed positioned east of Vicksburg and Stevenson southeast during the summer siege. However, three months earlier, in March, when my story takes place, Stevenson and Bowen had both arrived in Vicksburg but neither was dug in east of the city. And Pemberton never had a field headquarters as far as I know. His headquarters in March was in Jackson [Shea & Winschel 94], and when he retreated to Vicksburg, he stayed in the city itself, not out among the troops in the field where Addison could wagon up to his tent.

The set-up wherein Isabelle has gathered critical intelligence but can’t leave Vicksburg in order to deliver it—thus sparking a heroic effort by Addy to penetrate rebel lines, collect the intelligence, and escape back to Arkansas—was born from a simple line in Fishel where he mentions that “resident” spies reported via messenger [296]. JR Perkins noted that Dodge sometimes specifically used women to courier intelligence from resident male spies ensconced behind enemy lines. The women would beg Confederate officers to be allowed to leave the rebel side and cross federal lines in order to visit relatives who were refugees—and then deliver their intelligence [110-111]. I simply made my “resident spy” a woman and made it too difficult for her (Isabelle) to leave, thus requiring Addison’s infiltration. Kane’s [72] description of a female spy living and operating in Richmond also provided credibility for the role I ascribe to Isabel in Vicksburg. A Mrs. Baker, working for the Union, collected intelligence at parties and on sightseeing trips in which Confederate officers showed off “earthworks and fortifications” and she attended “army drills and demonstrations.” 

Edwin Fishel’s The Secret War For the Union deserves special mention. He was an intelligence careerist, beginning in World War Two, and brought much more than an historian’s eye to his magisterial account of Civil War spying. The view he provides readers is through the lens of an intelligence professional. By framing rudimentary espionage tactics in terms of modern day lexicon and practice, he provides unique perspective and clarity. Although he focuses exclusively on the eastern theatre (so that Vicksburg is hardly mentioned and Grenville Dodge not at all), I nevertheless drew extensively from his descriptions of Civil War spycraft. 

Section 6

My fictional timing, and actual history, are a close-but-not-precise match in another regard. Addy’s timetable is driven by the failure of the Yazoo Pass operation and the need for him to carry “freshly outdated” intelligence about the expedition to Pemberton. Thus Addison goes back into Vicksburg March 23, supposedly just after Grant makes the decision to abandon a cross-river frontal assault. In fact, historically, Grant made that decision on the morning of March 29 [Shea & Winschel 90]. I derived further specifics on timing and Grant’s overall strategy from Shea & Winschel [75] and Woolworth [11].

The idea for Pemberton bringing in someone (Bristol Cummins) from the same Tennessee town “Owlsley” purports to be from derives from Kane [118]. In the real story, suspected Union spy Lafayette Baker was arrested in Richmond and taken into Jefferson Davis’s office for questioning. Baker claimed to be from Knoxville. Aides located someone from there and brought him in to help validate (or expose) Baker. The individual’s name, Brock, was written on a card on Jeff Davis’s desk; Baker caught an upside down glimpse of it. As the real Knoxvillian entered the room, Baker leaped up and greeted him with a hearty “Why, Brock! How do you do?” Brock was so confused, and embarrassed about not remembering Baker, and Baker so convincing, that Brock essentially ended up confirming Baker’s Tennessee heritage—and Baker avoided a noose.

I came upon countless references to couriers in my Civil War research. Separate and rather innocuous mentions of them in Fishel triggered the narrative development in which Addy kidnaps a Confederate courier, recovers his dispatch, and essentially becomes the courier—which, in turn, led me to create a Confederate agent/courier counterpart in Grant’s camp that Addison had to stop. Fishel mentions a “captured dispatch” [6], and later the Union “capture of a courier” [477] (a rather common occurrence) bound for General Lee just prior to Gettysburg. The “mechanics” of Addy’s intercept of a courier grew out of an anecdote in Benson [146]: on a scout he heard pounding hoofbeats and followed them, surmising the rider was a courier. 

A note to Civil War buffs: I chose the character name Braxton Sware while researching chapter 2—the point in the novel where Sware makes his first appearance. By the end of that chapter I knew Sware would reappear in chapter 8 as some sort of southern military officer. When I began researching chapter 8, over a year later, I was more than a bit surprised to learn that a prominent real-life confederate general in the western theatre was named Braxton Bragg. He actually assumed command of all western forces for a short time after Albert Johnston was killed at Shiloh and Beauregard was shunted off to the Carolinas. Braxton Bragg was also at Shiloh and therefore right in the middle of my story. Some readers familiar with Civil War history might imagine that Braxton Sware is meant to assume the identity, personal history, and/or persona of Braxton Bragg. No. The same given name is pure coincidence. But to avoid confusion my few references to real-life Confederate General Braxton Bragg are all abbreviated to “General Bragg.”

Section 7

      As I formulated chapter 8 I was more than a little disturbed that the narrative entirely lost touch with Emma over the course of both Civil War chapters. My broad outline for the novel had been conceived decades before, but when I reached this point in its finer conception and actual writing, Emma’s absence struck me as a problematic design flaw. Then I came across this in Richardson [246]: following Shiloh, the first major battle of the war, which resulted in unanticipated mass casualties, “Hundreds of volunteer nurses, many of them wives, sisters, and mothers, came from every walk of life to join in the work of mercy.” That sentence was His mercy, all right—a Godsend: not only did it make Emma’s appearance as a volunteer nurse credible rather than strikingly coincidental, it also played off her character’s need to assert independence from husband and father. Horn also writes about the volunteer nurse phenomenon following Shiloh—from the southern perspective [148]. 

      Data about the number of wounded at Shiloh and lack of adequate care for them is from Daniel [298-299]. The presence of only one hospital ship staffed by a lone, alcoholic surgeon is also from Daniel [108]. Yes, indeed, “invisible” ink, revealed by the application of milk, existed in the Civil War [Markle 182; Varon 113]. “All mouths and eyes” is an expression taken from Estabrooks [218].

      The idea for Addison floating back across the Mississippi River with the aid of a driftwood raft—in pursuit of a fisherman-spy—was inspired by similar-but-separate incidents involving both Union and Confederate scouts/spies. Shea & Winschel [83] tell of a Union courier who floated past Confederate guns in a “skiff disguised as a log” on behalf of Admiral Farragut during an engagement further down the Mississippi River but only a month before Addy does it. Loughborough [115] describes a Confederate courier carrying a dispatch from General Johnston to General Pemberton (near the end of the Vicksburg siege) stripping upriver, bundling his clothes and messages atop a plank, drifting down the Mississippi two miles with just his head exposed, and landing at Vicksburg. 

The idea for a fisherman having permission from the Union side to ply his civilian trade unmolested when in fact he was a rebel spy/courier, comes from Downs [268]. Fishel also mentions a spy disguised as a fisherman [17]. The Downs fisherman-spy lost a hand at Shiloh, which is where I got the idea for Addison faking a missing arm. 

In several places in the novel—twice in just this chapter—Addy chooses vigorous, confident, pro-active deceit as his best strategy. He does it when he excitedly greets Bristol Cummins in alias and again when he demands to know why those gathered at Vicksburg landing failed to stop the retreating “spy” (when in fact he is the spy). While an offense-is-the-best-defense strategy is fairly common in both fiction and reality, the technique coalesced in my mind as a storytelling device after reading these three accounts:

Ÿ Southern agent Walter “Wat” Baker was making his way through a forest when he stumbled upon a group of Union soldiers seated around a campfire. There was no chance for escape and he had no reason to be there—no “cover.” He immediately assumed the role of aggrieved farmer and castigated the Yankees for warming themselves with his burning fence rails. An argument just as heated as the campfire flared but eventually both sides cooled down and Wat even partook of a cup of coffee offered by the federals. He determined the soldiers were a search party in search of him, spy Wat, but in those mostly pre-photographic days descriptions were vague. Wat tugged on his chin and recalled seeing someone matching the description of “Wat” just the week before. He reported Wat had gone thataway, then promptly retired in the other direction—with no hard feelings about the charcoaled fence rails [Kane 161]. (The reader may well see the echo of Addy’s character in such true tales.) 

Ÿ Union spy and journalist Richardson [433] wrote: “I had learned long before how far a man may go, even in captivity, by sheer, native impudence—by moving straight on, without hesitation, with a confident look. Just as if he had a right to go on, and no one had any right to question him.” 

Ÿ Fishel [24] tells of a Union spy inopportunely happening upon two Confederate riders and boldly demanding their countersign. They gave it—and didn’t ask for one in return.

The description of Vicksburg-under-the-hill derives from Shea & Winschel [17].

Oldroyd, an eyewitness at Vicksburg, provided background on mortar boat shelling [31] while Loughborough [64,78-79] inspired my description of an arcing shell.

As an aside…lest a reader think Addison’s life—here and in other chapters—is too sensational for fiction, Fishel [462] relates the biography of Mordecai Hunnicutt. He was born to Quaker parents in Virginia, moved to Ohio in his teens, fought in the Mexican War, went on a failed filibustering expedition to Central America in the 1850s, was captured there and ended up as the pastry chef in the palace of the president of Costa Rica, lived in Kansas during the “bleeding times,” was a detective in Memphis, and a Union spy in the Civil War. He was later accused of murder and died ingloriously in Waco in 1891. Addison True was fully outlined long before I heard of Hunnicut, but I was pleased, in a confirmatory sense, to read of the parallels between his real life and Addy’s fictitious one. 

The idea for Addy sneaking onto the prison train in order to escape Vicksburg was “reverse engineered,” if you will. The escape-off-the-train portion took root in thought as a result of a one-sentence reference in Estabrooks [9], but then fully blossomed after I read JR Perkins’ account of Henson escaping off a train in Alabama while a prisoner [114]. That’s when I began to work backwards: the inspiration for Addison sneaking onto the train is based on the experience of a friend’s now-deceased Belarussian business partner when the latter was a young man in World War Two China. His family was living in Shanghai when invading Japanese summarily executed his father. The teen was imprisoned, escaped, but snuck back intoprison a few hours later, knowing he needed to think through a plan for traversing all of China to Indochina and freedom. I drew on that remarkable story when trying to figure out how pursued Addy could successfully flee encircled Vicksburg. 

CHAPTER NINE

Section 2

   A note on the Sam-Addison alliance: as Addy explains it to Sam (and the reader), neither could make it to freedom alone, whereas together (Addison’s ability to navigate and live off the land; Sam’s ability to secure the help of slaves along the way) they stood a chance. That’s probably accurate. The vast majority of slaves that made it to freedom were from border states like Kentucky and Virginia [Bordewich 271], and that’s principally where the Underground Railroad operated. Slaves denied education—including geography lessons—and without “wilderness skills,” had trouble escaping the Deep South. That said, if Addy and Sam were real-life figures, Addison, realistically, would most likely have dared Confederate lines in Mississippi and tried to reach Union forces there rather than trek hundreds of miles north.

   There’s obviously a complex dynamic between Caesar, Oswald, and Samuel. The idea for Samuel having a son and that son being the product of Oswald raping his wife sprang to thought when I read a sequence in Estabrooks [122-23]. The on-the-run Union soldier was eating a meal in a slave cabin that had an upstairs room. A very light-skinned slave invited Estabrooks to take a look at it. The loft contained a mahogany teacher’s desk, chairs, books, and writing materials. Clothes were hanging about, including a military coat. “The white negro, seeing my curious glances, took it down, and handed it to me. It was of very fine blue cloth, its breast and skirts covered with gold braid and lace, and altogether was as rich a garment as I had ever seen. It had been the pride of the planter in his younger days, when he was a captain in the United States Navy, and by him had been given to his slave son who stood before me.” I also read a fairly innocuous passage in Rudisel & Blaisell [56] about “conductors” on the Underground Railroad in Philadelphia interviewing a runaway who had made it to the city. He mentioned his father was the white captain of a ship, who acknowledged him (the runaway) as his son, and even protected him as much as he could. From those two passages was Caesar born.

   Some specific references. The description of the fireplace in Samuel’s cabin is from Abernethy [31] and Clappe [58]. I have Samuel use the term “escape fever.” Estabrooks [50] writes of “A perfect fever of escape…” I came across several references to slaves making friends with their owner’s dogs and thus negating or diminishing their effectiveness when the slave later escaped, but the first was in Williams [36]. “That sword serves the south!” is from Starr [58]. “Every mean trick and invention” is from a gold rush diary [EPerkins/Clark 194].

   I make Samuel generally mild-mannered and somewhat religious. That disposition was inspired by a scene in Estabrooks [121]. Recall Estabrooks was a Union soldier whose book recounted his escape from the South. At one point he was aided by a slave family and talked at length with their “jovial” twenty-year-old son. The boy was proud of his self-education and showed off his spelling book. “In speaking of the Rebels, I made use of a somewhat strong expression; and, in the gentlest manner, he asked if the ‘good book’ taught us to speak so of our enemies. I took the rebuke in good part, and, with a feeling of mixed shame and amusement, acknowledged that he was right. After that, I was very careful to keep on my best company manners.” Passages like this, and in other readings, always shocked me. Slave owners daily trampled basic Christian values while those who were violently enslaved and abused often lived those values. I wanted Samuel to represent such transcendent character. I also wanted Addy to learn something from Samuel, and since it couldn’t be anything in the way of typical knowledge (again, education was denied Sam and almost all slaves), it seemed logical that what Samuel could teach Addison was some basic morality. 

Section 3

   “Incurable by reason or truth” is from EPerkins/Clark [195]. 

   “Looks too good for negroes and not good enough for a planter” derives from Estabrooks [115]: “It seemed too good for negroes, and not good enough for white people…” Indeed, Addy exposing his “Yankee” in this scene to the couple that operate a sawmill, escaping their house, then sneaking back to steal horses, was inspired by a same-but-opposite-resulting incident in Estabrooks [115]. The escaped Union soldier entered a home in Virginia, attempted a Southern dialect, then departed, but hid in the woods nearby to see if the owner exited, suspicious of the visitor—but he never did. Estabrooks assumed he had convinced the man he was Southerner and continued his journey.

   Rachel is a composite. One element of her comes from Richardson [151]. He was a Union spy, escaped across North Carolina, and ran into a “peculiarly intelligent” female slave who “interrogated” him about the progress of the war and the views of northerners towards slavery. As mentioned, most slaves were purposely kept in ignorance. I found Richardson’s real-life knowledge-seeking slave girl charismatic in a way I couldn’t resist. Rachel was also greatly informed by the Patsey character in Twelve Years A Slave. I read the book, along with a dozen other slave narratives, in 2011 while researching a screenplay (two years before the Oscar-winning movie with that title was released). Of all the slaves described or profiled in those dozen books I read, the one that stuck with me the longest—and haunted me to some extent—was Patsey. (For that reason I wasn’t terribly surprised to hear the book was being made into a movie, even though it had been published 160 years before!) The violence, torture, and outright murder that defined slavery was obviously horrible, but there was something that struck me as even worse—if that’s possible—in the story of Patsey: the crushing of the human spirit. In the Northrup book she is portrayed as early on as having a joyous, indefatigable essence that her master systematically deconstructed with his relentless carnal pursuit. She fought him just as endlessly, and was whipped frequently for it—egged on by his wife (echoed in Rachel’s backstory)—but it was a battle she was fated to lose. In homage to Patsey I imbued Rachel with some of her effervescence. 

   Bordewich [216] mentions a linsey-woolsey dress. I vaguely recalled a similar reference in a book I’d read five years before; I located and consulted my copy of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Author Jacobs/Brent [Section 2] describes a linsey-woolsey dress as being “one of the badges of slavery.” Rachel was thus outfitted. 

   Mixing dough on chestnut bark and baking it on heated stones is a recipe from Ellis [134].

   When our four flee north for Guntersville and the Tennessee River, the first horse that broke down “wouldn’t stir a step.” That phrasing, referencing a balky mule, is from Beymer [102].

   After his overseer is shot dead by Addison as the story nears Guntersville, speaking of Rachel, Cooper cries out “I’ll go to hell or have that girl.” That derives from Rudisel & Blaisdell [90] telling of a father and son from Maryland who, chasing “their” runaway slaves into Pennsylvania, find themselves in a disadvantageous position. The son suggests they quit the pursuit but the father refuses, saying that he would “go to hell or have his slaves.” Another telling of the same story has the apparently-hungry father (a man named Gorsuch) saying “I’ll have my property, or I’ll breakfast in hell” [Bordewich 330]. In a melee with the escaped slaves that followed, the father was badly injured but survived while the son was killed. The line “I’ll go to hell or have [that girl],” for me, echoed the rapacious lust Epps had for Patsey, so I put the phrasing in Cooper’s mouth. 

Section 4 

   Huntsville was occupied for much of the war, though with one break. The first occupation ran from April 11, 1862 to that fall, and then from fall 1863 continuously to the end of the war. Thus the visit by our trio to the town in May 1863 would have found it absent Union troops. 

   Confederate General Bragg indeed encamped for six months at Tullahoma, ao he would have blocked Addy, Samuel, and Caesar’s way west to Nashville on the rail line from Chattanooga. Bragg was eventually forced to retreat to Chattanooga and fought a famous battle there, but the withdrawal wasn’t until the end of June, after our fictitious threesome had passed through [Horn 231,236-37].

   Burning blue mold off bread and eating it is from Ellis [158].

   References to itinerant preachers were common in the Civil War books I consulted, and I noted several allusions to spies using clergyman cover, including Varon [121] and Downs [89]. Also, wearing a disguise to flee the antebellum south seems to be a feature of virtually every true-life, and fictitious, account of escaping slavery stretching back to Uncle Tom’s Cabin and beyond. In Downs [215] a white Union spy and his black scout disguise themselves as a southern planter and his servant. 

   Trusted slaves moved about fairly freely from plantation to plantation or into town on errands, but always with a pass. References to forged passes were recurrent in the research I conducted, but I first got the idea for Sam’s pass from Brown [63]. Bordewich [100] explains the ultimate irony of the pass system. A “free” black man had no rights under the law, so he was constantly subject to the threat of kidnapping. But a slave was property and thus stealing a slave was not only theft, it was regarded with as much opprobrium as horse theft in the Old West. Thus it was generally safer to be a slave with a pass than a free black man.

   When Samuel reaches Huntsville I write, “every town got a safety committee that roamed about looking for runaways and deserters.” Sam was confronted by two such armed members. Committees on Safety are widely remarked on in books about the war but the first reference I saw was in Beymer [269]. Samuel accosted and befuddled by a prostitute was drawn from an account in Williams [7]. The real-life incident took place in New York in 1850. Williams’ temptress first asks him to come home with her, and when he declines, she “commenced to abuse me, and I grew belligerent, and she called the watch.” The watchman struck Williams with a cudgel, but unlike Sam, he made his escape. When Samuel is in Huntsville a white man asks “Boy, who do you belong to?” Unfortunately such emasculating speech was commonly employed, but the phrase (I use) is a direct quote from Williams [1], so I credit him here. 

   The idea for having Caesar speak for Addison in Huntsville derives from Rudisel & Blaisdell [39-41]. The story they tell is intriguing. Husband and wife slaves—her light-skinned—contrived to disguise themselves as a young male planter (her) and a male servant (him). She wrapped her head as though she were sick, in order to hide her beardless face, but they also portrayed the illness as so severe she was unable to speak. They made it safely to Philadelphia from Georgia. I simply transformed the thing to be disguised from gender to Addy’s Yankiness—and then tossed in laryngitis, which seemed credible for a preacher.

   I got the idea for the suspicious-of-Addison man in Huntsville—the displaced farmer originally from Pittsburg Landing who recognizes him—from a sentence in Estabrooks [98]. At one point the escaped Union prisoner, surreptitiously making his way north across Confederate Virginia, hitched a ride with a slave driving a wagon. They came upon a mounted white man on the road, exchanged greetings, and the stranger rode on. “The negro told me he was a bitter rebel by the name of Carnigan, a planter from Vicksburg, whence he had been driven by Grant with the loss of all his slaves and other property.” I was also influenced by a Beymer story in which a Union spy is spotted in a civilian setting [27].

   The idea for hiding in the washtubs is mine. While researching chapter 8 I came across a Google images photograph of slave wash kettles, of the size I describe, on an antebellum plantation. I recalled the picture while outlining chapter 9. The flute-as-breathing-device derives from a story told by a fellow trainee while I was in government service. He had been a carrier pilot in the Vietnam War and had been shot down over the North. He parachuted into a swampy area surrounded by Vietcong. He remembered movies where the hero in such a predicament submerged and breathed through bamboo. He tried it, but unlike Hollywood bamboo, the real stuff leaks. Gagging, he surfaced to find the edge of the swamp, a few feet away, heavily populated with Vietcong aiming rifles at him. I thought of my Bachelor Officers Quarters roommate while writing this and leaky bamboo was transformed into a flute, since slaves were often allowed to make music in the quarters, and did. 

   My claim in the text that a slave assisting a Yankee was sufficient cause for executing the slave is no exaggeration [Estabrooks 206].

   I don’t know if runaway slaves dipping their feet in tar to reduce their scent and throw off bloodhounds was or wasn’t common practice. The only place I came across it was in Sarmiento [267]. 

   As an aside, Bordewich [269] mentions a merchant seaman in the Civil War era who was “genuinely comfortable” with blacks. Years before I ever read that reference I came up with the idea of Addy being “genuinely comfortable” with various ethnic groups as a result of working with different races on a whaleship, but I was pleased to have my original conception validated. Furthermore, despite having worked on Nantucket during summers while in college, until I began researching this chapter I forgot the island had an extensive Quaker population in the 19th century and that the “Friends” purposely hired runaway slaves to man whale ships [Bordewich 139].

​

​

​