Estuary for Young Readers #23

Things had turned quiet on the Rappahannock since the shooting war had moved south to Richmond, which, as far as I knew, was still in the iron grip of the Confederates and General Robert E. Lee. This left me, Ray, my prisoner Leyland, my ferry, and my portion of the river a good distance behind battle lines, creating an uneasy quiet.

One morning, warm and lazy, the three of us sat at the bow on the main deck enjoying a cup of coffee and getting ready to play a hand or two of poker when we heard the honking of geese and spotted them moving in our direction.

“Know why they always fly in that V?” Ray says and, without waiting, answers his own question. “Saves energy. It’s all about wind resistance. If they’re back toward the two tail ends of the V they get an easier ride. The one up—”

“Hell’s afire!” a man’s voice cries out from behind us, followed by a loud thump on the main deck and a scuffle.

“Spit!” What remained of my coffee startled itself right out of my cup and onto the deck. Not one of us had a gun, no protection. I spun around with only my empty tin coffee cup to defend myself, when I see a Union soldier struggling to get back up onto his feet. Relieved, I rushed to him and offered my hand.

“Easy does it, pal,” I said pulling him up onto his feet.

“Didn’t mean to announce myself in such an ungraceful manner, y’all,” he said. “I jumped from the dock onto the deck of your ferry, but my balance just ain’t what it used to be, being I’m all lopsided now.” He dusted himself off, picked up his cap, put it back on his head, and said, “Corporal Miles James, Company B, 36th Colored troops. Call me Miles.” He saluted with his right arm, which was his only arm, as the left one was missing just below the shoulder. With no arm to fill it, the pressed cuff of his blue uniform sleeve was folded up to the shoulder and held in place with a metal safety pin.

“Welcome aboard the Saybrook, Miles. I’m JJ, captain of this ferry.” I pointed to Ray and said, “This here is Ray, my second, and…”

Leyland takes a big step forward and says, “Name’s Leyland. I’m a Confederate soldier. I’m a prisoner here, engineer, and general handyman.”

Leyland had found he enjoyed wearing bits of his Confederate uniform and announcing his Confederate soldier and prisoner status to strangers, and then waiting for a reaction. He maybe thought that Miles, being colored, might have been shocked to find himself so close up and personal with a Confederate soldier.

But, Miles didn’t act shocked at all. He just smiled, and said, “Pleased, Leyland, mighty pleased. Don’t think I ever crossed paths with such a pleasant prisoner of war.”

The geese were right overhead now and honking so loud we all stopped our conversation to look up and watch as they passed.

“Always in that V shape,” Miles said. “Watch how they swap out who has to move up to the point of the V. The guy in the front has to work the hardest.”

“I was just saying exactly that,” Ray said.

“So, what can we do for you, Miles?” I asked.

“I’m looking for some transport, JJ,” he said, “to Rappahannock Station.”

“Won’t happen today,” I said. “We’re waiting around for a delivery of coal, supposed to be here by the end of the day. Since the fighting moved south, supplies don’t come as quick; this ferry isn’t anybody’s priority these days. Want to join us? We’re just about to commence a game of poker. Pull up a box, a barrel, or the deck.”

Miles doffed his cap and said, “Okay by me. I been ordered to rest up, can’t return to duty for another month. I come off the battle of Chaffen’s Field. Weren’t those troops magnificent, though? Colored troops by the hundreds.” He lifted his stump of a shoulder and said, “That’s where I made my contribution to this here Freedom’s War.”

Leyland leaned back and said, “You expect this son of the South to believe there’s whole colored battalions fighting in this war?”

“Yes, sir,” Miles said. “Whole colored regiments from all over the north. General called us, ‘The Army of the James.’ General Butler was our leader. If you aks me, General Grant—you know who he is—Grant had a plan, and we was an important part of that plan.” He raised his arm, made a fist, shook it, and shouted, “We was to take Fort Harrison and after that—Richmond!”

The three of us jumped back when he shouted, “Richmond!”

“I thought Richmond was locked down by General Lee, with forts all around. Impenetrable,” I said.

“That’s history, JJ. That was the situation before General Lee and his men came face-to-face with the Army of the James. We rewrote history, we did. See, it was like this…”

I put the cards down, and Ray, Leyland, and me, settled back and gave way to Miles James, who stayed on his feet, using his one arm to help tell his story. He bent down and whisper-talked, like he was letting us in on a secret.

“We started out in the dead of night, and we got to work building a pontoon bridge ’cross that James River so we could cross at night and make our way to Fort Harrison.” He stood up, turned his face toward the sky, and said, “See, the general’s plan was to overtake, overwhelm, wash over Fort Harrison like a tidal wave!”

He sounded like a preacher on Sunday morning, the way he kept getting louder and louder when he said overtake, overwhelm, wash over Fort Harrison like a tidal wave. He carried on with his story, like it was God’s truth.

“Once we got across the James River, General Butler said we was to drop in on this place called Chaffin’s Farm. Like locusts we was, soldiers swarming in every field, street, and front porch. Union blue everywhere, just like the locusts in the Bible, we was God’s judgment, black locusts. See?”

Definitely a preacher, I nodded to myself. I also sensed the gift of a true storyteller and started to think that much of what he was saying could be some finely-spun yarn, spun around some scraps of truth. From the looks I got from Ray and Leyland, I sensed they were thinking the same thing.

“This is sounding a little one-sided, Miles,” Ray said. “What about General Lee’s troops, didn’t they fight?”

“Fought with the fear of the Lord they did, but we was too many. See, there weren’t enough Rebel troops to defend that fort, so General Lee called in troops from other forts around Richmond to cover this battle at Chaffin’s Farm, leaving the other forts unprotected and Richmond open for the taking.”

Miles lowered his voice, held his hand over his heart, bowed his head, and said, all soft voice again, “But, to swarm like locusts, to overwhelm and overtake like the general ordered us to, colored died by the hundreds, heroes every one, died in this here Freedom’s War.”

“We call it the War of Rebellion,” I said. “Never heard it called Freedom’s War.”

“Colored call it that, JJ. We was slaves before we joined the Union army, so we fighting for our freedom.” He looked at his folded-up shirt sleeve. “I gave my arm to call myself a freeman. My fellow soldiers, most just boys—they’re the real heroes—they gave up their lives, leaving me, at 34, to live on.”

“How did it happen, Miles—your arm, I mean, if you don’t mind talking about it?” I asked.

Miles sat down, picked up the cards with his one hand and said, “Fast, Captain JJ, quick like a bunny, fast. Got two arms one minute; got one arm the next. Small price, to be able to walk off the battlefield and end up here talking to you fellows on this sunny day, with birds passing over, and me a free man.”

He took a seat, in a manner that said he had been willing to talk about the heroes who died on the battlefield but not so willing to spend any time talking about himself and how he lost his arm. He turned the cards over in the palm of his hand and did some kind of a fancy shuffle.

“Hey,” Leyland said, “I ain’t seen that shuffle since my riverboat days. Gamblers had every way but Sunday to flip cards with one hand, move them around, and work some kind of sorcery with them. You a gambler, Miles?”

“We all gamblers, Leyland,” he said, “gambling with our lives every day.”

Leslie Tryon is an award-winning author-illustrator of children’s books (Simon & Schuster, publisher). Five generations of Tryon’s family served as ferrymen on the Connecticut River between Old Saybrook and Old Lyme, Connecticut, and many of those men were named JJ.