Update a bit delayed; a story while you wait
Charleston, November 1899
It was a warm day, Congress was in recess, and it was a good time to sit and read on the veranda and drink lemonade. There was a novel in Harriet Tubman’s hands, but she’d been on the same page for the last twenty minutes, content to enjoy the feel of the late-afternoon sun and contemplate the future.
She woke to the sound of footsteps on the walk and realized she’d been dozing – an occupational hazard, at her age. No doubt it was one of the neighbor girls who came in sometimes and helped take care of the house. Too much house, if you asked her – some days she still regretted letting her staff talk her into buying a place south of Broad. But if she was in Congress, she needed a place fit to receive callers, and the neighbors were sweet about helping out.
When she opened her eyes, though, she saw it wasn’t a neighbor girl – oh no, not that. There was a man on the walk not far short of her own age, standing just below the stairs waiting for permission to climb them, and she’d know his face anywhere.
“Afternoon, ma’am,” he said.
“Same to you, General Longstreet. Can’t say I was expecting you, but come on up and sit down.”
He did so, and as he took a seat on the other side of the table, she tried to remember what she’d heard about him. He’d settled in New Orleans after the war and turned scalawag – the number one scalawag, in fact, until Memminger gave the redeemers a bigger target. After they’d run him out of Louisiana, he’d trained militia in the Mississippi Black Belt, been a postmaster somewhere and served as commissioner to the Ottoman Empire; he’d brought some strange ideas back from there, or so people said. He’d fought in the war, too, commanding British colonial troops, and now he was back on a farm in Georgia.
He held up the pitcher of lemonade and, at Harriet’s nod, filled her glass and poured one for himself. He sat and drank, and the silence lengthened.
“So what brings you here, General?” she asked at last.
“Georgia isn’t suiting me very well, so I thought I’d move back to South Carolina. See home before I die.” He did look like hell – he’d lost a lot of weight, if his old pictures were anything to go by, and the rough life he’d led in the war probably hadn’t done him any good.
“Your home’s up Edgefield way. Long way from here.”
The old man laughed. “All right, you got me. I did want to stop by and see you on the way up there. Congratulate you on the Tubman Act, and talk about some things.”
“The Tubman Act? That’s what they’re calling it?” It was certainly the thing she was proudest of about her second term, but she hadn’t known people were putting her name on it already.
“In Georgia they are. Usually, they spit when they say it. They’re sure the Supreme Court will strike it down – how can lynching be a federal crime even if it all happens in one state?”
“Wish I could say they’re wrong. Teddy says it’ll pass under necessary and proper, but with this court I’m not so sure.” She put her glass down on the table for emphasis. “Not everyone in Georgia’s against it, though – Becky voted for it, if you can believe that.”
“I’m still not sure I can.”
“I am. I saw it happen.”
“Well, Becky’s got a big blind spot when it comes to you – or should I say, she’s got one where it comes to every… Negro but you.”
“No, it wasn’t that.” It hadn’t been admiration for Harriet that got Rebecca Felton to sign on, or at least it hadn’t been just that. And it wasn’t that much of a mystery, when you thought about it; Rebecca might have her views about what the Negroes’ place was, but she’d come around to opposing lynching for the same reason she opposed slavery: that it corrupted the morals of the whites.
“Regardless, I think Teddy’s right. With the two new justices, I don’t think it’ll be struck down.”
“Maybe the court’ll let it pass,” she allowed, “but enforcing it is another story.” She lapsed into silence. Federal courts set their own qualifications for jurors, so blacks couldn’t be kept off Federal juries the way they were in places like Alabama or Florida, but that didn’t stop people from terrorizing the ones who did report for jury service, or making sure they knew what would happen if they returned a guilty verdict. She’d been thinking about that problem for a while, and wasn’t sure she had an answer that the government would actually follow.
“Anyway,” the general was saying, “it was a good piece of work. But that’s not the only reason I’m here, not that it isn’t nice to pass the time with such a fine-lookin’ lady. You see, when I was in Turkey, I became what you’d call a Malian. I learned that I’ve got to make amends, renew the world – spread freedom. I’ve learned that what I demand from the world, I need to give to others.”
“Now that’s good to hear,” Harriet answered, as noncommittally as she could. She recognized the old general’s words as a jumble of Abacar, Bello and Abay Qunanbaiuli. Evidently, his adoption of Catholicism in the seventies hadn’t been his final religious conversion, and just as evidently, he’d had an eclectic group of teachers in Stamboul and wherever he’d been afterward. No doubt he’d picked up his faith from soldiers and coffee-house owners rather than scholars, though that surely didn’t make it any less sincere.
“I was hoping that you might put in a good word for me – help me find something to do here. I can still train militia, or if you don’t need me for that, I don’t mind teaching, or working with my hands.”
“Work with your hands at your age, and you’ll be in your grave.” She sipped her lemonade carefully, and thought. Longstreet wouldn’t be the first old Confederate to look for a place in South Carolina – hell, Memminger had even been governor, there at the end, with a mostly-black cabinet that met in his home every morning. But things here were a lot more established now than they were then, and it was mighty late in the day to start over…
She leaned forward over the table. “We’ve got our militia pretty well in hand, but if you mean what you say, there’s something you can do. Not here, though, and it won’t be easy. We need you back in Georgia, for the underground railroad.”
Longstreet looked like he’d been poleaxed; whatever words he’d expected her to say, it obviously hadn’t been those. “Underground railroad? That went out with the war, didn’t it?”
“The hell it did. It went out of business for a while, but when the redeemers began taking over, it started right up again. Only now it’s two ways. We still take people out – people who are wanted, or who’d be lynched else – but we also send things in. Money, books, letters – things to help people organize and keep some freedom alive down there. Guns, too. We sometimes send those.”
The old man nodded his head. “And you want my farm to be a stop?”
“That’s right. We need white folks who are willing to help. They can get away with a lot more than we can, down in those states.”
Now it was Longstreet’s turn to sit and think, and decide if he had really meant what he said. Harriet watched him carefully, and she saw the answer in his eyes a moment before he spoke it.
“Ma’am, you’ve got a recruit. You’ll tell me what to do?”
“Oh no, not me. I’ll put the word out, and when you go back to Georgia, someone will come meet with you. I don’t even know who it’ll be, but they’ll give you your marching orders.”
“Fair enough.” His arms stiffened on the chair, and he began to push himself up.
“No need to leave so fast,” she said, waving him back down. “The lemonade isn’t finished, and it’ll be time for supper in an hour. A couple of the neighbors are coming by to help cook, and I think they’d like to meet you.”
Charleston, November 1899
It was a warm day, Congress was in recess, and it was a good time to sit and read on the veranda and drink lemonade. There was a novel in Harriet Tubman’s hands, but she’d been on the same page for the last twenty minutes, content to enjoy the feel of the late-afternoon sun and contemplate the future.
She woke to the sound of footsteps on the walk and realized she’d been dozing – an occupational hazard, at her age. No doubt it was one of the neighbor girls who came in sometimes and helped take care of the house. Too much house, if you asked her – some days she still regretted letting her staff talk her into buying a place south of Broad. But if she was in Congress, she needed a place fit to receive callers, and the neighbors were sweet about helping out.
When she opened her eyes, though, she saw it wasn’t a neighbor girl – oh no, not that. There was a man on the walk not far short of her own age, standing just below the stairs waiting for permission to climb them, and she’d know his face anywhere.
“Afternoon, ma’am,” he said.
“Same to you, General Longstreet. Can’t say I was expecting you, but come on up and sit down.”
He did so, and as he took a seat on the other side of the table, she tried to remember what she’d heard about him. He’d settled in New Orleans after the war and turned scalawag – the number one scalawag, in fact, until Memminger gave the redeemers a bigger target. After they’d run him out of Louisiana, he’d trained militia in the Mississippi Black Belt, been a postmaster somewhere and served as commissioner to the Ottoman Empire; he’d brought some strange ideas back from there, or so people said. He’d fought in the war, too, commanding British colonial troops, and now he was back on a farm in Georgia.
He held up the pitcher of lemonade and, at Harriet’s nod, filled her glass and poured one for himself. He sat and drank, and the silence lengthened.
“So what brings you here, General?” she asked at last.
“Georgia isn’t suiting me very well, so I thought I’d move back to South Carolina. See home before I die.” He did look like hell – he’d lost a lot of weight, if his old pictures were anything to go by, and the rough life he’d led in the war probably hadn’t done him any good.
“Your home’s up Edgefield way. Long way from here.”
The old man laughed. “All right, you got me. I did want to stop by and see you on the way up there. Congratulate you on the Tubman Act, and talk about some things.”
“The Tubman Act? That’s what they’re calling it?” It was certainly the thing she was proudest of about her second term, but she hadn’t known people were putting her name on it already.
“In Georgia they are. Usually, they spit when they say it. They’re sure the Supreme Court will strike it down – how can lynching be a federal crime even if it all happens in one state?”
“Wish I could say they’re wrong. Teddy says it’ll pass under necessary and proper, but with this court I’m not so sure.” She put her glass down on the table for emphasis. “Not everyone in Georgia’s against it, though – Becky voted for it, if you can believe that.”
“I’m still not sure I can.”
“I am. I saw it happen.”
“Well, Becky’s got a big blind spot when it comes to you – or should I say, she’s got one where it comes to every… Negro but you.”
“No, it wasn’t that.” It hadn’t been admiration for Harriet that got Rebecca Felton to sign on, or at least it hadn’t been just that. And it wasn’t that much of a mystery, when you thought about it; Rebecca might have her views about what the Negroes’ place was, but she’d come around to opposing lynching for the same reason she opposed slavery: that it corrupted the morals of the whites.
“Regardless, I think Teddy’s right. With the two new justices, I don’t think it’ll be struck down.”
“Maybe the court’ll let it pass,” she allowed, “but enforcing it is another story.” She lapsed into silence. Federal courts set their own qualifications for jurors, so blacks couldn’t be kept off Federal juries the way they were in places like Alabama or Florida, but that didn’t stop people from terrorizing the ones who did report for jury service, or making sure they knew what would happen if they returned a guilty verdict. She’d been thinking about that problem for a while, and wasn’t sure she had an answer that the government would actually follow.
“Anyway,” the general was saying, “it was a good piece of work. But that’s not the only reason I’m here, not that it isn’t nice to pass the time with such a fine-lookin’ lady. You see, when I was in Turkey, I became what you’d call a Malian. I learned that I’ve got to make amends, renew the world – spread freedom. I’ve learned that what I demand from the world, I need to give to others.”
“Now that’s good to hear,” Harriet answered, as noncommittally as she could. She recognized the old general’s words as a jumble of Abacar, Bello and Abay Qunanbaiuli. Evidently, his adoption of Catholicism in the seventies hadn’t been his final religious conversion, and just as evidently, he’d had an eclectic group of teachers in Stamboul and wherever he’d been afterward. No doubt he’d picked up his faith from soldiers and coffee-house owners rather than scholars, though that surely didn’t make it any less sincere.
“I was hoping that you might put in a good word for me – help me find something to do here. I can still train militia, or if you don’t need me for that, I don’t mind teaching, or working with my hands.”
“Work with your hands at your age, and you’ll be in your grave.” She sipped her lemonade carefully, and thought. Longstreet wouldn’t be the first old Confederate to look for a place in South Carolina – hell, Memminger had even been governor, there at the end, with a mostly-black cabinet that met in his home every morning. But things here were a lot more established now than they were then, and it was mighty late in the day to start over…
She leaned forward over the table. “We’ve got our militia pretty well in hand, but if you mean what you say, there’s something you can do. Not here, though, and it won’t be easy. We need you back in Georgia, for the underground railroad.”
Longstreet looked like he’d been poleaxed; whatever words he’d expected her to say, it obviously hadn’t been those. “Underground railroad? That went out with the war, didn’t it?”
“The hell it did. It went out of business for a while, but when the redeemers began taking over, it started right up again. Only now it’s two ways. We still take people out – people who are wanted, or who’d be lynched else – but we also send things in. Money, books, letters – things to help people organize and keep some freedom alive down there. Guns, too. We sometimes send those.”
The old man nodded his head. “And you want my farm to be a stop?”
“That’s right. We need white folks who are willing to help. They can get away with a lot more than we can, down in those states.”
Now it was Longstreet’s turn to sit and think, and decide if he had really meant what he said. Harriet watched him carefully, and she saw the answer in his eyes a moment before he spoke it.
“Ma’am, you’ve got a recruit. You’ll tell me what to do?”
“Oh no, not me. I’ll put the word out, and when you go back to Georgia, someone will come meet with you. I don’t even know who it’ll be, but they’ll give you your marching orders.”
“Fair enough.” His arms stiffened on the chair, and he began to push himself up.
“No need to leave so fast,” she said, waving him back down. “The lemonade isn’t finished, and it’ll be time for supper in an hour. A couple of the neighbors are coming by to help cook, and I think they’d like to meet you.”
