Anna glanced down at George playing beside her on the schoolroom floor, and she whispered a prayer for little Richard Fuller. That poor baby. The war he was suffering through wasn’t his fault. He had done nothing to deserve going hungry or being homeless. She wondered about Delia, as well. There never had been food to spare down on Slave Row, but with Sherman’s army plundering the land, Delia would starve for certain. Anna said a prayer for her, then another one for Massa Fuller. He’d lost his oldest son and had been badly wounded himself. She wondered if he would survive this war—and if he would have a home to return to, if he did.
Finally, after much wrestling, Anna was able to say a prayer for Missy Claire. The Mueller sisters had taught her that if she wanted the Lord to hear her prayers for Grady, she had to forgive other people the way Jesus had forgiven her. And Anna was desperate for the Lord to spare Grady, terrified that he would be killed. She dreaded the day that she would look down at one of the stretchers at the army hospital and see him. She had watched so many soldiers die already.
“Lord, please be with Missy Claire today,” she prayed. “She always needed a lot of help, and … well … I know you can give her what she’s needing most.”
Anna looked up when she finished her prayer and saw that Ada Mueller had finished talking to the two women who had just joined her class. Anna had been waiting to give her present to the two sisters until all of the other students had gone.
“Miss Ada?” she said. “I have something for you. I drew a picture to say thank you for all that you and Miss Helen have been teaching me.” She carefully removed the drawing from the large book that she carried it in to protect it, and handed it to Miss Ada. The sketch showed the classroom where the sisters taught every evening, and two freed slaves in homespun with kerchiefs on their heads, watching Miss Helen expectantly. Miss Ada was bending over a little Negro girl, helping her learn to write.
Miss Ada’s face went very still. She didn’t seem able to speak. She looked as though she might cry, and Anna wondered what she had done wrong.
“This is magnificent,” Ada finally said. “You—you drew this?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“My goodness,” she breathed. “My goodness! Have you drawn many more pictures like this one?”
“Well, yes. My husband bought me some paper last spring, and I been drawing just about everything I see ever since. I have some more of the school, and all the ladies and children in your class, if you’re wanting to trade that picture for a different one.”
“Oh no, dear. No, I wouldn’t trade this for a million dollars. It’s so … so poignant, so moving… .” She gazed from the picture to Anna and back again. “My brother publishes a newspaper in Philadelphia. Would you ever consider selling some of these to him, to print in his paper?”
Now it was Anna’s turn to be speechless. She couldn’t possibly believe what Miss Ada was saying—someone would pay money for her pictures? And print them in a newspaper? But she also knew that Miss Ada would never tell a lie.
“W-why would he pay me to draw?” Anna asked shaking her head.
“If your other work is anything like this, you’ve offered a truer picture of what life is like down here for a freed slave than any photograph ever could. You’ve shown their poverty, the difficulties they face as they struggle for an education. Yet you’ve captured hope in these people’s faces—and beauty and joy. Anna, dear, this is a work of art.”
Anna wasn’t sure what that meant, but tears filled her eyes at the thought of earning money, of being able to help Grady and George get along. For the first time since Grady had snatched her out of the slave jail at Great Oak, Anna felt truly free. People who were free received payment for the work they did.
“Yes, Miss Ada,” she said. “I’ll be happy to sell your brother all the pictures he wants.”
Charleston, South Carolina
February 1865
“The rumors are true,” Captain Metcalf told Grady and the others. “The Confederates have abandoned Fort Sumter. The mayor of Charleston has surrendered the city.” The cheers that followed his announcement were so deafening that Grady was certain they could be heard all the way across the harbor in the city that they’d besieged all these months.
A few hours later, boats arrived to ferry the regiment ashore. Grady saw smoke billowing into the sky from fires set by the Rebels as they’d hurried north to engage Sherman’s army. It seemed unbelievable to Grady to be setting foot in Charleston after occupying the sandy, coastal islands across the harbor since last June. He had taken part in the Battle of Honey Hill and in the capture of Fort Gregg. Wounded men from his regiment had been sent back to the hospitals in Beaufort, and Grady had worried that Anna would see them, would recognize that they were his comrades, and would be overwhelmed with fear for him. He’d had a few close calls from enemy artillery shells, but thankfully, he’d remained safe.
Now Grady just wanted it all to end. He was tired of seeking revenge, tired of fighting. He wanted the war to be over so he could live out his life with Anna.
It was an odd feeling to walk the once-familiar streets of Charleston as a victor, to see white people scurry into their homes in fear and draw their curtains closed as he marched past. The last time he’d walked through Charleston, he’d been another man’s property, fit only to drive a carriage. Now he wielded the power of a conqueror over these people. But somehow the victory felt hollow as he viewed the ravaged city.
Hundreds of buildings had been destroyed, some by fire, others by Union artillery shells. Still others crumbled dangerously, about to topple. Nothing remained of the church where Massa Fuller had been married except a burned husk. Starving people—black and white—begged for food. But it was the sight of so many homeless, drifting slaves that moved Grady the most—sheep without a shepherd.
His first task was to help fight the fires that had raged for a day and a half. The blistering heat and choking smoke made that battle nearly as dangerous as warfare. When the inferno was finally under control, Grady’s regiment was assigned to picket duty around the city’s undamaged buildings to halt the looting. It seemed ironic to him that he and other former slaves now worked to save the property of a people who hated them. And his Negro troops were clearly hated. They faced jeers and brickbats and spitting wherever they went. Snipers took potshots at them from among the ruins. Grady confided his resentment and simmering hatred to Captain Metcalf one evening.
“It’s only a few misguided individuals,” the captain assured him. “Remember, Grady, not every person in Charleston hates Negroes. Don’t let the actions of a few speak for all Charlestonians.”
Grady recalled Colonel Higginson’s warning that the end of the war might not bring an end to the battles that Negroes would face. “But how do I fight those few?” he asked. “How can I be helping my people get the respect we deserve as human beings?”
Metcalf sighed. “It’s not up to you to fight every battle for your people. You weren’t at Gettysburg or FortWagner, were you? You didn’t fight at Petersburg or Shiloh—only where you were sent. Your war will be won over time, Grady, by every soldier doing his part, right where he is. We can only do what we’re asked to do today.”
The following morning thousands of Charleston’s slaves poured into the streets as Grady’s regiment marched past. Throngs of ragged, cheering children skipped alongside them. Women lifted small babies, like George, high in the air so they could see their deliverers. Grown men stretched out their hands to them, wanting to touch them, thank them. Grady saw tears on every face, arms raised to heaven in praise, and it was hard for him and the other soldiers not to be overwhelmed with emotion, hard to keep marching.
Then someone in Grady’s regiment began to sing. Grady recognized the song from his years as a slave. It was one that he and the others had sung as they’d trudged to work in the fields every day:
My army cross over; O, Pharaoh’s army drowned!
My army cross over, we cross the river Jordan …
Grady immediately joined in, and soon everyone was singing—men and women, soldiers and slaves, their voices raised in a joyful song of victory for all that they had won, for how far they had finally come:
We’ll cross the danger water, my army cross over
We’ll cross the mighty river; O, Pharaoh’s army drowned!
Beaufort, South Carolina
April 1865
It seemed to Anna that she had waited breathlessly, for days, for the latest news. First Richmond had fallen to the Yankees. Then General Grant had Lee and his men on the run outside of Petersburg. Rumors said that the Confederates were badly outnumbered, weary, starving. Thousands of Lee’s men had already deserted. At Anna’s school, at the hospital, on the town’s street corners, everyone waited for the good news of a final surrender.
And then one sunny spring morning, the church bells in Beaufort began to ring. Shouts of joy filled the streets. Jim rushed into the warming kitchen to tell Anna and Minnie that General Lee had truly surrendered. The war was over. Soon they would all live in peace. Anna hugged her two friends and wept for joy.
“Mama?” little George whimpered. He was watching her, clinging fearfully to her skirts as if unable to understand her tears or the noisy celebration in Beaufort’s streets. She lifted him into her arms and kissed him.
“It’s okay, honey. Mama’s happy, not sad. Pretty soon your daddy’s coming home.”
For Anna, her own long, dark night was finally over. Grady had survived the war. Her little family was free. A dreadful thought had long resided in the back of her mind, that if the South somehow won, or if the North grew tired of all the fighting and bloodshed and called a truce, that she and Grady and George would be returned to slavery again. But the Union was clearly victorious. No one could ever take away her freedom.
“Let’s go celebrate with Miss Ada and Miss Helen,” she told her son. The sisters had taught her that free people—even white people—served the Lord Jesus as their Massa. Anna knew that the little church would soon be ringing with songs of praise for Jesus, their true Deliverer. And she wanted to join them.
Great Oak Plantation, South Carolina
June 1865
The war was over. Delia was free. She had watched her fellow slaves walk away from Slave Row with their belongings bundled inside their tattered quilts—and nobody stopped them. Some of the slaves lugged the plantation’s dugout canoes to the river and paddled off downstream. Others followed the long, sweeping driveway past the Big House and disappeared down the road. Delia wondered what they would do with their freedom. They’d been so overjoyed when they’d heard the news, dancing and celebrating for an entire day and night. But how would they live tomorrow and the next day?
Delia had watched them pack up and say good-bye, and she’d felt a mixture of sorrow and joy. “You’re welcome to come along with us,” several people had offered. “You know we’ll be taking good care of you.” But Delia was much too worn out to go anywhere. She spent the rest of that spring in the same shabby cabin where she’d lived for the past year and a half, scratching around for food in the meager gardens that the other slaves had left behind.
She knew that the war was really over when Massa Fuller arrived at Great Oak Plantation one warm June afternoon. Delia watched him trudge up the driveway, slump-shouldered and weary, the uniform he’d worn at his wedding five years ago a tattered pile of rags. She beamed with happiness when she saw him, this white man she had suckled along with her own daughter and reared into manhood. Massa Roger was safe.
“Thank you, Lord,” she murmured. “Thank you for watching over him.”
Yes, the war was over and Delia was tired—bone-weary tired. Life here in South Carolina had been very hard this past year, the white folks suffering just as much as the colored folks. There hadn’t been much food for any of them to eat, with the soldiers from both sides taking all of their chickens and pigs, and plucking the crops right out of the garden as fast as they could grow them. She’d heard stories about all the plantations that had burned, and she thanked the Good Lord that Great Oak didn’t lie in the Yankees’ path. She wondered how her home—Massa Roger’s place—had fared. Whenever she thought of “home,” Delia always pictured the Fuller Plantation.
That evening, Delia walked up to the Big House and asked to speak with Massa Roger. He came to the door in his shirtsleeves, his face gaunt and sallow, his injured arm shriveled and crippledlooking. But he smiled with surprise and pleasure when he saw her.
“Delia—you’re still here? You’re free now, you know. You don’t have to stay around here any more.”
“I know. But I want to ask you something, Massa Roger. I want to know if you’ll take me back home to your plantation, when you go. It’s where I was born and raised, and I been living there most of my life.”
“Is your family still there?”
Delia shook her head. “I don’t have no family, Massa Roger. They all dead and gone. But I’d sure like to live out my days there, if that’s okay with you. I’m willing to work for my keep.”
“Of course.” He smiled sadly and Delia wondered if the sorrow he felt was for her or for himself—or for both of them. He had once loved her freely and unashamedly as a child. She remembered the warmth of his little arms around her neck as he’d hugged her and called her Mammy Delia.
“I’m taking Claire and Richard back home at the end of the week,” he told her. “You may certainly come with us.”
By the time Delia reached home at last, the suffering and senseless destruction she’d witnessed along the way had left her deeply depressed. All those plantation houses—beautiful, graceful homes—burned to the ground. All those ruined fields and barns. Such a waste. Every tired breath she’d drawn had reeked of smoke. But what brought her the most sorrow were the people—not only the hundreds of slaves wandering hungry and homeless, but the white refugees, as well. Women and children like Missy Claire and little Richard. Confederate soldiers like Massa Roger, making their weary way back to homes that no longer existed. So much sorrow. So much hatred in this world.