was happening and smiled. He stood and offered her his hand, asked her
if she would like to dance.
Queen could not believe her cars. This must be what Jane called being
drunk, for it was unreal to her and wonderful. She sat staring at her
adored father until he smiled again, and repeated his request. Believing
him now, Queen accepted his offered hand. Jass led her to the center of
the hallway, and to the distant music they could hear from the ballroom,
he danced with her. They were alone, the two of them, in the vast, empty
hall, the portraits of their ancestors staring down at them.
It was the happiest night of Queen's life.
55
The Southern celebrations continued well into the New Year. Not even the
seizing of United States arsenals provoked a reaction from Washington.
There was a small hiccup in early January when someone burst into the
tavern in Florence, where Jass was drinking with friends, to tell them
that President Buchanan was sending a warship to reinforce the federal
garrison at Fort Sumter, a small island in the middle of Charleston
Harbor. They all raced from the tavern to the telegraph office, where the
news was confirmed. There was general astonishment that it was the
passive, lame-duck Buchanan who had taken this aggressive action, and a
general, sobering realization that there were many federal army forts
throughout the South. If there was to be war, the North had a natural
advantage. A few men immediately enlisted in militia units, for there was
no Southern army yet, while the others champed at the bit for news, and
insisted that Alabama should show her solidarity with the sister state.
Jass, wanting to be close to the source of news, the telegraph office,
slept at the hotel for the next few nights, to the distress of both
Lizzie and Sally, who felt he should be at home with them. For the
following week, the South held its breath. Six days day later, they heard
that the ship carrying the reinforcements, the Star of the West, had
turned about under fire from Charleston shore batteries, and jubilation
returned. The independence of South Carolina had been challenged, the
rebellious state had won, and on the same day Mississippi withdrew from
the Union.
"The Yankees," Alec Henderson told Letitia, "are all piss and wind." Mrs.
Henderson clucked at the language, but forgave her husband because these
were stirring times, and she agreed with him. Still, she determined to
try to curb his potty mouth when order was restored to the land.
470
QUEEN 471
Momentous news now reached them with dizzying speed. Almost every day,
it seemed, another state seceded. Florida, and then, to considerable
rejoicing in the streets of Florence, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and
Texas were the next to leave.
When the telegraph officer rushed out to tell the assembled multitude
that Kansas had been admitted into the Union as a slave-free state, he
was jeered and pelted with mud and small rocks. He got a cut over his
eye, but took it in good part. It was only sport, the boys were in high
spirits, and who needed Kansas?
Delegates from the seceding states were to meet in Montgomery, Alabama,
to form a new provisional government. Jass had no official role, but was
set upon a political career and had many friends of influence, so he
decided to attend, if only as a spectator. Lizzie and Sally were inclined
to argue with him, but Jass lost his temper. They were all perfectly safe
at The Forks, he assured his women; no harm could come to them. The North
was not going to do anything to hinder the rebellion; they were having
a peace convention in Washington, for heaven's sake. And even if some
retaliation did eventuate, at some later time, Florence was a very long
way from the center of any possible action.
"What if the baby comes?" Lizzie asked him, crying softly, but even the
prospect of a new child, another son perhaps, did not deter Jass.
"You've had babies before, and it isn't quite due yet," he whispered to
Lizzie. "I'll only be gone for a couple of weeks. "
Thus Jass went to Montgomery, and was present at the creation of a new
country. The name chosen for that new country was the Confederate States
of America, and Jass was profoundly moved. This was how it should be, he
thought; this was how it should have been all along, for the very name
itself represented what he believed America to be. A confederation, a
group of sovereign states banded together in a common cause, not a
federation, which implied surrender of power to a central authority. When
Jefferson Davis was presented to them as president, the bands played what
was to become their
472 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN
anthem, and Jass sang "Dixie" as loudly and lustily as anyone there.
He rode back to The Forks with a full heart. Now that the deed was done,
it was as if a festering boil had been lanced. He was filled with a sense
of peace and purpose. He attended his family with care and affection, and
went about his business with an unaccustomed vigor, for now the new
country had to be made to prosper.
It didn't matter that the new country had no treasury, Jass, like many
others, invested heavily in Confederate bonds, believing them to be
gilt-edged. They had cotton and powerful allies, for Great Britain had
to protect the supply of that cotton to its mills in Manchester. Even if
the North was initially belligerent to the South, it was unlikely to take
on John Bull, and must eventually accept the fact of the new Confederacy.
The two nations of America would live in harmony and prosperity, and the
Jackson fortune would become greater than ever before.
But what was a country without a king? Sally was less sanguine about their
prospects. Although she believed in the idea of confederation, she had no
faith in Jefferson Davis as their leader. She had met him several times
when James was alive and active in politics, and was astonished when he
was chosen as their president. The Confederacy needed a visionary general,
not a pedantic schoolmaster. An intelligent and erudite man, Davis had an
unpredictable temper, and was given to prolonged bouts of melancholy.
Sally had known many powerful men, with Andrew Jackson, whatever his
faults, as the greatest, and could not see in Jefferson Davis the dynamic
aura of natural leadership. Whatever his political skills, he had no
charisma, and in a moment of absolute panic, Sally saw the unraveling of
the complex tapestry that had so recently been woven. Unlike Lincoln,
Jefferson had no popular mandate and few skills of oratory, and she could
not imagine anyone following him to death or glory. The South was bound
together by a single idea and a single issue, slavery, and for that moment
of panic she could not imagine that the idea itself was strong enough to
bind them through the prospective crisis. The Union had been based on a
single idea and a single issue, but
QUEEN 473
that idea was freedom. Was slavery as powerful an ideal?
Still, she had no choice but patriotism and cast aside her doubts.
Provided Lincoln did nothing rash, and the South nothing to provoke him
beyond its simple existence, they might prevail.
In March, Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated as president of the United
States of America.
And still there was no war.
In April, Lizzie gave birth to a son, who was christened James, after his
father, grandfather, and great-grandfather.
Transcendent emotions flooded Jass as he held his new son for the first
time. A new boy for a new country. It seemed so fit and proper, and Jass,
who had never been unusually religious, was moved to an extraordinary awe
of God, his creator. He fell to his knees, prayed for a peaceful life for
his new son, and made a most sacred, solemn oath to defend the boy's
patrimony with every drop of blood in his body.
On the same day, the Confederate States demanded the surrender of Fort
Sumter, and when the Federal commanding officer, Major Anderson, declined,
Southern bombardment of the island began. Anderson surrendered two days
later, and two days after that, Lincoln declared a blockade of Southern
ports and called for seventy-five thousand volunteers for three months.
The immediate Southern reaction was simple indignation. If Lincoln thought
he could whip the South in only three months, he had better think again,
they told each other.
Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee seceded from the Union,
a rampaging mob attacked Union troops in Baltimore, there was a stirring
parade by the Alabama Dragoons through the streets of Florence, and Jass
enlisted as a private in the 4th Alabama Regiment.
He looked very fine in his uniform of simple gray, uncluttered by
decoration. He had not discussed his intention to enlist with any of his
family, but had gone with Henderson to a meeting at the Wesleyan, Hall
in Florence. He heard the speeches and watched the fellows enlist, and
the ladies present gave them little Confederate flags as they did so.
Jass knew he had no choice. He could easily have avoided military ser-
vice, for he owned more than twenty slaves and was, by de-
474 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN
cree, exempt. He could as easily have formed his own regiment-he had the
financial means to do so-and ridden off to glory as their colonel. He could
easily have deferred any decision until the course of the war was known.
But not to fight was the coward's way. Jass believed in his cause, and his
sons, William and James, gave quickening momentum to his ideals. He had
heard the cries that it was a rich man's war and a poor man's fight, for
the slave-owning rich were a small minority in the South, and to give the
lie to that, he resisted a commission. He enlisted as the common man
enlisted, and would fight beside the common man, for the common cause.
Lizzie fainted when he told her, and on recovering, screamed her distress,
but Sally's heart filled with love for her son, and pride that he had so
stalwartly heard the call.
Her heart was overflowing again now as he stood before them to say his
good-byes.
It was a perfect April, a day he would dream of in the dark nights to come.
The family was gathered on the veranda, slaves watching from a distance.
Henderson was near the magnolia tree saying good-bye to his wife. They had
debated his enlistment several days before it happened, but briefly, because
Letitia was in favor of it. She was proud of the man she had married, a good
honest laborer, and believed it was his God-given duty to fight for his
country. She didn't love him as Jass loved Easter, or even as Lizzie loved
Jass, but she was fond of him, cared for him, and while she would miss him,
she doubted that any real harm would come to him. The war would not last
long, a few months at most, and it would be almost two months before he came
within sight of a Yankee army. And even if he was hurt, or killed, she would
have reason for pride in him. She had been happy with him for the few short
months of their marriage, but it was the fact of her marriage that was most
dear to her. Life as a widow was infinitely preferable to life as a
spinster, which had seemed to be her fate but a few months before.
Henderson, on the other hand, was excited at the prospect of a few battles,
and bloodying some Yankee noses, for he was bored with his life as an
overseer. It was the same thing,
QUEEN 475
day in, day out; the only challenge was the weather, which no one could
predict, and keeping the niggers in line, which wasn't hard when he held
the whip. Married life had been interesting for a few weeks, but Letitia
was a stem taskmaster, always on his back about something or other. She
had less patience with niggers than he did, and was forever urging him to
flog them more, which made life difficult because he remembered and
respected Mitchell's advice to him-it had served him well. Letitia kept
a good house, and was obliging in the cot, but he had started to miss his
freedom.
He went to see Mitchell, who agreed he should enlist, and agreed to visit
The Forks from time to time to check that things were running smoothly.
They found a young man, Tom Parsons, to fill in as temporary overseer,
and when Henderson went with Jass to the Wesleyan Hall, he had already
decided to join up. He waited till Jass took the plunge first, for Hen-
derson thought it was sensible that the two of them be in the same
regiment. Jass Jackson was his bread and butter, and he'd be able to keep
his eye on the Massa, who wasn't, in Henderson's opinion, cut out to be
a soldier. He was surprised, and a little disappointed, that Jass went
in as a private. If he'd been an officer, Henderson could have been his
sergeant, but there was never any point in telling Jass when he had his
mind made up, so Henderson had accepted his fate and followed his Massa.
Now, standing under the vast magnolia, he kissed Letitia politely, said
all the right things, he hoped, mounted his horse, and waited to follow
the Massa again.
Jass shook William's hand. The boy had been excited at seeing his father
in a soldier's uniform, but now fear assailed him and he was close to
tears. His training stood him in good stead, and he didn't cry, but hugged
his father hard. Jass kissed Mary, and said good-bye to the little ones,
then moved to his mother.
Neither said anything for a moment, and both smiled a little, but without
joy.
" I hate to see you go," Sally said.
"I hate to have to go," Jass told her, although it was not entirely true.
476 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN
Sally embraced him. "Be brave," she whispered. "Do your duty." She didn't
want him to go and she didn't want him to die, but he had to go, and she
put her fa
ith in God that he would not die. She knew that she would have to
say good-bye to all her sons, for all had enlisted, and it was probable
that one of them, at least, would be wounded, or worse. But a man was
either brave or he was a coward, and it had comforted her during the last
dark days before Jass's departure to know that all her sons were brave.
Jass held her close for a moment, and the truth of his circumstances hit
him hard. He longed for war, he longed to prove himself in battle, he felt
he had wasted too many years of his life, an idle, rich man's son, and now
he had the opportunity to be the man he had always promised himself he
would be. But he had to face the truth of it. It was war, and he might die.
The smell of his mother caressed him, the smell he had known all his life,
from before his memory of it. This is what he wanted to take with him; this
is what he wanted to remember of home, the loving embrace of his mother.
He had another memory to take with him, but it was not of home. It was of
the woman he cherished and to whom he had never been a failure. It was the
memory of Easter, plump and full now but as exciting to him as she had
always been. He had spent some of the previous night with her, after Lizzie
was asleep, and when dawn came he told her something that was important to
him.
"If anything should happen to me," he whispered, "always know that I will
have loved you until the moment of my dying. "
He knew that she understood, because she hadn't wept, as Lizzie had been
weeping for days, but had held him to her, and had hummed a lullaby from
some place deep inside her soul, just as she had on their very first night
together, and he had drifted to sleep in her arms, knowing that he was
loved.
Easter was standing with Queen, at the end of the veranda, watching him say
good-bye. Jass moved reluctantly from his mother to Lizzie, whose face was
blotchy with tears.
"This is it, my dear," he said, for want of anything better to say. He
wished he could think of some intimate truth to give her in farewell, but
he could not say to her what he had said to Easter, because it was not
true.
QUEEN 477
Lizzie was distraught. "I can't bear it," she cried.
"I'll come home safe, I promise," he said. Suddenly, he grabbed her, held
her to him, kissed her hard, and forced his tongue into her mouth. For
suddenly he hated himself. The memory of his farewell to Easter rang in
his ears, but she was a nigger, and Lizzie was his wife, mother of his
children. It was Lizzie he was ready to die for, to protect.
"I love you," he whispered harshly, when his mouth was free. But Lizzie
would not let him go. She hung on to him for dear life.
"Don't go," she screamed. "You don't have to go!"
Letitia Henderson clucked in disapproval, and glanced slyly at her
husband. She thought Mrs. Jackson would have had a greater sense of
proper behavior.
Jass tried to pull himself away from Lizzie, but she clutched at him,
tried to drag him back, screaming at him.
Sally moved to help, but Lizzie was a frantic woman, and Sally too frail.
None of the other slaves dared touch their hysterical mistress, and so
Jass had to do the unthinkable.
He called to Easter and Queen.
They did what had to be done, and pulled Lizzie from him.
"Go now, Massa, quick," Queen said, when he was free. Lizzie was sobbing
desperately, in Easter's arms, but still Jass couldn't go. There was one
more thing to do.
They looked so frail, so helpless: his old mother, his weeping wife, and
his little children. Even William, trying so hard to act like a man, was
obviously only a boy. Someone had to take care of them.
"Look after them, Queen," Jass begged. "They need you."
It was a sublime moment for Queen. The Massa, her father, had given her
charge of his family. It was a sacred trust.