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Jubal Early, triumphant in his last several encounters, has marched his army down from Frederick, having swept up and around from West Virginia. Washington City, until only recently well-defended by an army of eighteen-thousand men and nine-thousand guns, is down to about four-thousand irregulars—so irregular, in fact, that some of their number is made up of invalids rousted from the local hospitals—to defend the thirty-seven miles of fortifications that circle the city. General Grant has pulled the real soldiers from Washington into the siege of Petersburg, where the Union has General Lee holed up and increasingly cut off from his supply lines. When the news comes of Early’s intention to march on Washington City, Grant dispatches seventeen-thousand troops to the capital, but Early gets there first. Some of his officers, who ride in advance of the Confederate force, find points along the breastworks that are entirely unmanned. Washington City suffers from a surfeit of generals and dearth of fighting men. In the very best tradition of the seat of U.S. power when confronted with a crisis, many important people independently declare themselves in charge, issue conflicting edicts, and remain comfortably above the ensuing chaos.
The city has lived in fear of a Confederate invasion since the disaster at First Manassas, and now, in the run-up to the fight for the city, her residents are infected by rumor, wild speculation, and general hysteria. Old Jube breathes hellfire, they say, and his vast army has burned Pennsylvania and Maryland to the smoky nub. Mary hears the breathless tales from the customers at her little dry goods counter at the back of the yard, the talk swirling around her. Soon he will have shot lightning bolts from his eyes and leveled armies by pointing his finger.
That’s not to say she’s sanguine; she comprehends the danger, especially given that their house is only one square back from the Seventh Street Pike. It’s obvious that the Pike is to be the main thoroughfare for Union movement, and for the Confederates, should they break through the northern line of defense. She has two children to protect and care for, and her weak-eyed, spindly boarder, Mr. Briggs, has fled to his parents’ farm on the Eastern Shore to avoid whatever is coming. He surely would be of no help in the crisis; his entire body twitches whenever he hears the talk. She is completely on her own. On this point, she finds herself angry rather than fearful. Where is Christian but hundreds of miles away and far from any fighting? Taking his ease, as he likes to say. He has left them to this, to fend for themselves as best they can.
To add to the misery, it is the hottest summer that any of them can remember, and in Washington City that is saying something. The oppressiveness of knowing the battle is coming is overmatched by the oppressiveness of the heat and the suffocating, wet-wool tent of inescapable humidity. Tempers flare amid the misery and speculation, but any threat of fistfights peters out in a lack of energy to engage. Decorum does not allow for any unpinning of high collars or sloughing of jackets for the decent folk, so the adults slowly boil inside their civilized clothing, waiting for the city to be overrun by southern savages. In the heat and anxiety, Mary closes her door to customers, unable to maintain her composure.
“Can you hear it?” Mrs. Slocum from next door asks Mary in the wrenching noon heat of July eleventh.
“Hear...?”
“The gunfire. It’s coming from their skirmishers. They’re harassing the picket line in front of Fort Stevens.” Mrs. Slocum’s husband is a veteran of the Mexican war, and the impending battle gives her an opportunity to display her knowledge of military tactics and terminology. She dabs her face and neck with a wet cloth while they both stand in the sliver of shade offered by their adjoining porches. Nighttime offers no relief; in fact, it often feels as though the thickened air wraps even more tightly in the dark, like a tangle of wet bedclothes that cannot be kicked off. No one has slept.
“But that’s miles away. I wouldn’t think...” Even as Mary starts to protest, she picks out the faint pops that come in bursts of five or six before trailing away. In her exhaustion, she feels tears pressing behind her eyes, and she retreats into the house before she humiliates herself.
She feels stupid from lack of sleep, disconnected and off balance. She has left the girls at the table in their damp underclothes; they both have heat rash, and, every so often, she stands them in the washtub and pats them down with cool water from the pump. To distract them, she has given Little Mary a chalk tablet to practice her letters, and Emma a square of muslin, a needle, and a length of embroidery floss for stitching. While Mary is out sweeping the porch, Emma has climbed down to lie on the cooler floorboards; she is asleep. Little Mary focuses closely on her tablet, rubbing off each set of letters with her rag before beginning another. Mary has coaxed her out of the habit of making a fist around the chalk, showing her how holding it in her fingers makes it easier to form the letters. While she watches, Little Mary wipes down the tablet and picks up the chalk to start the next set. There it stays, poised above the tablet, one second, two, three. Without thinking, Mary begins to count how long the seizure lasts. The heat seems to bring them on more frequently than usual, but it’s impossible to predict how long any of them will last. This time, after twelve seconds, the hand finishes its movement toward the tablet; Little Mary writes a capital H, sees her mother watching from over her shoulder, and holds it up to her proudly. Mary smiles and strokes her daughter’s head, but looks at the permanent red marks that show through the damp muslin against her back. She blinks again to push back pointless tears. At least without Christian here, Little Mary needn’t fear the lash. Now they just have to survive whatever is going to come storming down that road.
As though on cue, she hears a commotion outside and steps onto the porch to see. She is surprised that the wave of dust and noise billows up from the south, when the threat comes from the north. Every one of her neighbors is outside, along with many others she doesn’t know, and the undercurrent of urgent voices finally resolves into an understandable message, “Union.” These are Union soldiers marching up the Seventh Street Pike, heading up to the northern-most forts of the city to engage the rebels.
Mrs. Slocum’s war-veteran husband, Henry, rushes up their street from the Pike, faster than Mary might have imagined he could, given the heat and his age. Mrs. Slocum sees him coming and fetches a cup of cold water fresh from the pump. He gulps it down and hands it back for more before he’s able to provide an update. Henry and a number of his cronies have formed a loose communications network that stretches all the way from the lines at the fort, through town, and down to the river. They are better informed than virtually all of the Union commanders who are feverishly working at cross-purposes. “It’s the Sixth Corps! They came into the wharves by steamer, just now. These boys have been in it, Ida Mae; they are hard-fired, I promise you. Not office clerks and derelicts.” He turns and spits, then drains his second cup. “We got to fill some buckets and get water down to them. Elsewise, they still might buckle under this hell’s breath inferno, no matter how tough they are.”
Little Mary comes out behind her, and then Emma, rubbing sleep from her eyes and tucking herself under Mary’s arm despite the heat. For the moment, Mary is too distracted to shoo them back inside in their undressed state. Henry comes staggering out of the yard with two filled buckets, and Mrs. Slocum trails with a cast iron cook pot. It contains tomatoes she has harvested over the last two days, some overripe but still edible. She’s been planning to can them, and finds herself relieved that she will not have to labor for hours over the fire now. “Mrs. Miller, perhaps you could take these down to the boys. I don’t know that I can carry the pot all the way in this heat.”
Mary glances down at the girls and back up at Mrs. Slocum, who tells her, “I’ll keep an eye on them, don’t you worry.” Mary casts another glance at Little Mary, and Mrs. Slocum says quietly, “It’s fine, dear. I know about her...spells.”
“Go inside, girls. I’ll be right back. Mrs. Slocum is going to stay with you for a little bit.” She takes the pot, surprised that it is even heavier than she expects. She follows behind Henry, who again is moving with surprising speed back toward the column, even as he takes care not to slop too much water from the buckets. She is afraid she might