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A Fine Looking Soldier

By Mrs. Jane Hadley.

IN WHICH a newspaper and only one tent forge a fragile friendship.

Content warnings: bugs, discussion of slavery and anti-/pro-slavery rhetoric by white people. The author invites readers to consider perspectives not represented by the characters here. The African American History and Culture Museum is a good place to start. Heed the footnotes for further guidance throughout.

XXIII

Fort Snelling, Minnesota
Thursday, September 26, 1861

BY autumn, the companies dispatched to the frontier outposts were called back to Fort Snelling. Henry didn’t much mind; the late September temperature had been so mild it would make for most pleasant tenting weather. Indeed, when the commanding officers broke the news that the entire Second Regiment would be moving out of the barracks, it was most welcome. They were to camp out on the west side of the parade ground beyond the fort walls while a Third Regiment was recruited and set to lodge in the barracks. Even with only a single company being formed in that new regiment, the conditions at the barracks had deteriorated considerably. It had already been a tight squeeze with three companies; a fourth as the weather began to cool resulted in a rash of sickness across the fort. Every soldier Henry saw seemed to be coughing, snorting into a handkerchief, or both. 

The worst of it, though, was the bed-bugs. The vermin had spread quickly after the new recruits to the Second Regiment had been crammed into the barracks, and Henry had bites all along the side he always slept on. Moving into the tents would hopefully make the difference, as long as their clothing and bedding were well-boiled by the laundresses. 

That Thursday, the first of the companies assigned to the frontier outposts returned, so the commanding officers decided that with such favorable weather, it was high time they cleared the Second Regiment out of the barracks. The sun was shining and perfect puffs of clouds floated across a magnificent stretch of blue sky. 

After morning drills, Sergeant Osborn directed the squad to join the line at the quartermaster where they were issued a set of four wedge tents.¹ Each soldier was also issued a gum blanket to lay upon, coated in rubber to keep them dry should it rain. Henry ran his fingers over the sturdy canvas appreciatively, admiring the crisp white fabric folded neatly into a square. It would be so refreshing to have the space to sleep on his back again. 

“Peugh, this smells awful,” Jacob exclaimed, glaring down at the gum blanket like it had threatened him. “How are we expected to sleep on this thing?” 

Webster shrugged and sniffed uselessly with his still-congested nose. “I guess there is a bright side to being sick all the time.” 

“After breathing in Schaefer’s stench for a month,” Smith drawled, “this thing will be like sleeping in a bed of daisies.”

Henry glowered and rolled his eyes. By now, he had settled into his own understanding of Smith’s antics. There was the Smith he knew — hard, skeptical, downright mean — who wielded derision like a shield. He had two expressions: concentration and disdain. But every so often, Henry would catch glimpses of what Smith was protecting underneath. A nervous glance, a genuine laugh, a spark of intelligent interest. Because he feared he would be the weak link in Smith’s elaborate ruse, he had taken to naming her hidden disposition Charley. 

Charley was the person who had been glancing wildly around when the company first assembled, unsure of what to do as the men divided themselves up into squads. It was Charley that he had invited into the squad, not goddamned Smith. It was Charley who had stumbled back to the fort drunkenly, who had drawn him into a moment of shameful weakness with her doleful, dark eyes. It was Charley who snored lightly next to him, fingers tangled up in her short, tousled curls. 

It helped to think this way, because in his mind, Smith was “he,” while Charley was “she”. He hoped the distinction would prevent him from slipping up and using the wrong pronoun aloud. And while Smith was just about the most abrasive and irritating fellow he had ever met, Charley was an enigma that utterly fascinated him.

Charley had become scarce after Jacob’s wedding, hidden under Smith’s blistering snide comments and short temper. Henry didn’t blame her — they had both been too sauced to behave entirely as they ought. The last thing he wanted to do was scare Charley away by showing too much interest. She was wary and he was certain she’d been made more so by Henry’s behavior in the woods, when one sincere compliment from her had set his pulse playing double-time and his eyes unable to focus on anything but the soft bow of her lips. If there was one thing Henry was sure of, it was that Charley Smith thought he was an imbecile. She had said as much countless times. Furthermore, she had also made it clear that she had no interest in making her precarious existence even more uncertain. 

But damn if he wasn’t insatiably curious. Not just about that moment they had shared and what might have come of it had he not embarrassedly declared they hustle on, but about who she was. What drove a Quaker girl to become a soldier? What was the silent story she carried?

When the squad arrived on the other side of the parade ground, west of the fort walls, Sergeant Osborn gathered them round while he demonstrated how to erect the tent.

“Gentlemen, this is what is known as a wedge tent,” Sergeant Osborn announced to the handful of them gathered around. “See, here now … what you do is …” 

Osborn shook out his folded square of tent and snapped it in the mild breeze.

“There’s a seam …” Osborne fumbled with the heavy mass of canvas, “…somewhere…”

“Uh, Sarg, I think it might be here,” Elias Hower said and the two of them began to burrow into the tangle of cloth as the rest of the squad awkwardly watched. 

Henry glanced around, noticing that they only had half as many tents as they had men. Leave it to the Union army to ask the soldiers to make do. He took stock of who held a tent, like him, and who didn’t. It didn’t seem to correspond with the previous bunkie pairings. Williamson and Krüger both had one, while Jacob, Webster, and Smith had none. 

“Webster, why don’t we give this a go over there?” asked Williamson, all artificial innocence as he tried to position himself as far from Krüger as possible. Henry glanced over at Charley, who was looking somewhat pale without a tent issue. He entertained the impulse to assure her that she was far and away the most preferable bunkie. But,no, he couldn’t say that. Given what had passed on the road back from St. Paul (and a world of possibility that had not), it would be awkward for him to be so eager. He pressed his lips together and shuffled around, covering his attempt to move nearer to her while pretending to see what the others were doing.

“Back off, Webster is my bunkie,” Jacob snapped, sounding surprisingly more defensive than Henry had ever heard him.

Williamson giggled. “Look out, don’t tell Mary that Jacob’s got someone else to keep his bed warm!” 

“Quiet!” Osborn barked, straightening up and letting Elias spread the tent over the ground, still looking for the center seam. “You’ll be with your same bunkies as before and there will be no arguing.” 

“Ah, come on Sarg!” Williamson whined.

“What did I just say?”

“But Sergeant Nelson is letting his men choose,” Smith pointed out, voice straining against a strong measure of indignance. Henry glanced sidelong at him. Sharing a bunk in a room filled to the brim with men was one thing. Alone with Smith in the privacy of a tent was another. One corner of Henry’s mouth twitched up. With a larger measure of privacy, Charley might be more apt to appear. Perhaps that was what had Smith so wary.

“You’re not in Sergeant Nelson’s squad, now are you?” Osborn retorted firmly. 

“Not for want of trying,” Smith muttered under his breath. Luckily, Osborn didn’t seem to hear him. 

“You all have the same bunkies and that’s final,” Osborn said exasperatedly. “Krüger, hand your tent to Webster. That’s right. Now, what you’ll want next is some sturdy branches to use as tent poles.”

Elias produced the bundle of sticks he’d toted along when they departed from the fort. It seemed as though he’d had advance notice and did the work of scouting good branches for the whole squad ahead of time. Henry glanced over at Nelson’s squad. They were racing another squad to the woods to scout for branches. He threw a thumb after them and leaned in to Smith. 

“I mean, Nelson’s squad might not be all it’s cracked up to be. At least we have a Sarg who’s fetched sticks for us already.” 

Smith leveled a suspicious glare at him. 

“Come now, Jacob,” Krüger boomed, pronouncing Jacob’s name the German way, with a y sound instead of the hard j. “You wound me! I’m an excellent bunkie — just ask Williamson.” He also pronounced Williamson’s name with a v instead of a w. The man didn’t even try not to sound like a greenhorn.

Jacob studied Krüger sidelong, unsure if he was teasing or not. “No offense, Krüger. But you snore something fierce.” 

The big Bavarian just laughed and then clapped Williamson over the shoulder. “Come now, little friend.” 

Osborn looked up at them as he and Elias struggled to get the tent to balance on the branches they’d speared into the ground. “Wait, I have it here, hold on. Don’t start until you all know what you’re doing!” 

Webster smiled pityingly at his friend as he walked by with Jacob. “Try staking the opposite corners first.” 

Osborn glowered at him, but followed his advice. The tent stayed up this time.

The whole company was staking their tents in orderly rows, marked out by twine along the grass.² Henry moved to Smith’s side quietly, hoping he wouldn’t choose this particular order as occasion to lose his temper. Instead, he took the tent from Henry’s hands and snapped the canvas into the breeze, chuckling sardonically. “Well, here we are again.” 

Henry haphazardly tried to grab a corner to spread the tent over the ground. “Seems so.” 

“Well, I s’pose I’d rather have the evil I know,” Smith shrugged, pointedly not looking at him as they tried to figure out which way the entrance flaps of their tent went. 

“Hey now,” Henry replied, smoothing the sides out as flat as he could manage, considering the shape it was sewn into was three dimensional, “you scarcely know me.” 

Charley tried to stifle a laugh. Henry’s mouth turned up at the corners in a private little smile. Elias chose that moment to intrude, tossing them three sticks-turned-tent poles. 

“You might want to take a knife to one end,” Elias noted. “Sharpen ‘em up and the like. They’ll stick in the ground better that way.” 

Henry’s nose wrinkled at the extra step, even as Smith pulled his knife out of his boot and tested the blade’s sharpness on his thumbnail. 

“Why don’t you go grab some stakes,” Smith suggested as he took up one stick that bifurcated into two branches at one end. “I’ll get these sharp on the ends.”

Henry nodded and went out in search of tent stakes. After much aimless inquiry, Elias ended up giving him a few scraps of sticks that he broke up into smaller pieces, preserving bits where a branch or twig extended so that the tent loop would be held fast to the ground.³

Charley went round to the rear of the tent while Henry stayed at the front. Together, they each lifted their end of the center pole, drawing the canvas up with it, and dropped it in the cradle formed between the bifurcating branches of their tent poles. The canvas hung limply from the center pole and the edges dragged on the ground. 

“I think we’re supposed to stake opposite corners,” Charley said, her eyes fixed on the canvas with a calculating expression. Henry nodded and countered her as she bent to grab the back-right corner. Together, they pulled the canvas taut and slipped the stakes through the cotton loops. Henry crouched on his haunches and pressed the stick hard into the ground, driving the stake in at an angle so it would not slip out again. He straightened and pressed it down with his boot heel for security. The structure seemed sound so they moved to the other corners and staked them too. 

“Voila!” Henry cried triumphantly, standing and dusting off his hands. “Home sweet home!” 

Smith looked down at the tent with some skepticism, as though he didn’t trust that the thing would stay up. Henry snatched up his gum blanket and threw one of the flaps aside. Crouching in the entry, he spread the blanket out as smoothly as he could, the fresh rubber smell reeking into the small canvas shelter. Shuffling inside, Henry flopped on his back and sighed contentedly. 

“It ain’t much,” he said, “but it’s ours.” 

Smith stared blankly at him, still standing outside the entrance. 

“Hm,” he said articulately, and then turned off to walk down the row of tents. 

Henry sat up and stuck his head out the flap. 

“Hey, where you going?” 

But Smith didn’t respond. Henry laid back again. The prairie grass made for a comfortable cushion over the hard ground. With the sun filtering through the canvas, a fine, fresh breeze tickling his hair, and the warm temperature, Henry felt delighted by the prospect of finally being out of the crowded barracks and in their own tents. Not only was it a relief to have more than a 6 foot by 3 foot rectangle to share as a bed, but being in camp felt that much closer to marching to the front, to face the enemy they had spent all this time preparing to fight. Whatever snit Smith was in about their new living arrangements, he’d get over it when their orders to join the front finally came. It could be any day now. Henry grinned at the canvas gable, plucking a length of sweet grass to chew on. 

But then he remembered shipping out would mean he’d finally run out of excuses to not write to his mother. 

⸻

When Cate returned, Schaefer was laid out on his gum blanket, arms behind his head and cap over his eyes, enjoying a piece of prairie grass between his teeth. His shirt stretched over his chest in a way that sharply reminded her that she needed to stop being such a shameless lecher. All the more reason to get a blanket to hang from the center pole. There would no longer a group of other men sleeping a foot away from them. She had certainly wished — dreamed, even — of this level of privacy but the fact was, she didn’t trust herself in a private tent with Schaefer. 

Her own gum blanket was laid out on the other side of the tent and she maneuvered herself inside to sit on it, settling in with the newspaper she had borrowed from one of the St. Cloud boys. She had managed to track down Hower, only to find out that there were no additional army blankets for issue or purchase and that if she wanted one, she would either need to trade for one or buy one from the sutler for a pretty penny. Cate was annoyed but not surprised. All she had to do was find a fellow who had brought his blankets from home and had no use for the additional threadbare army blanket they’d been issued. And then have something he wanted to trade for it. All before winter came and they held on tight to whatever they had to keep warm.

Cate tried to quell her catastrophizing by flicking open the St. Cloud Democrat and settled in to read. It was a bit old but she’d take what she could get. It wasn’t as though Franklin Steele carried many abolitionist papers at his sutler, though he did have a good number of Democrat titles. Apparently Jane Swisshelm’s particular brand of fiery moral superiority and vehement abhorrance of slavery was somewhat of an acquired taste — one that a great many Free Soilers and slavery-complicit Minnesotans found offensive. Precisely why Cate liked her. 

“What’re you reading?” 

Cate looked up over the edge of the paper and peered guardedly at Schaefer. “St. Cloud Democrat. One of the St. Cloud boys had it and lent it to me.” 

Schaefer’s eyes lit vehemently. “See, I knew you were a Democrat.” 

Cate rolled her eyes hard. “I know it breaks your little heart that your theory was completely bunk, so I would love to give you this one, but in fact, you were wrong about that too.” 

“Then why are you reading a Democrat paper?” 

“It’s not a Democrat paper, it’s a democrat paper.” 

“You hear yourself?” 

She’d meant to laugh at him, but based on his expression she was afraid she had inadvertently laughed with him instead. 

“It’s Jane Swisshelm’s paper.” She paused but no recognition passed his eyes. “She’s an abolitionist. She published an exposé on the St. Cloud Democratic mayor for keeping slaves in his house, and he sent a mob to set her printing press on fire or throw it in the river or something. She printed the whole thing with a new press as soon as she could, but then he sued her for libel. Anyway, she just changed the name of her paper so she could stay in business and called it the St. Cloud Democrat, just to spite him.”⁴

Cate flicked her eyes back to the paper and the reprint of President Lincoln’s announcement of a day of Humiliation, Fasting, and Prayer. She let out a murmur of interest as she noticed the intended day was in fact this day. She’d already eaten breakfast. Damn.

“Jane Grey Swisshelm?”

That got her attention. Cate folded the paper down so she could afford Schaefer her entire incredulous focus. He was propped up on his elbows, his cap askew and that stupid prairie grass sticking out the corner of his mouth. His blue eyes were placid, enquiring. 

“Yes,” Cate replied slowly. “Do you know of her?” 

Schaefer nodded, looking up as if trying to recollect. “Yes, actually, I think I saw her speak once.” 

Cate’s eyes widened significantly. “Really? Where?” It was hard to keep the envy from her voice. 

“Cincinnati. I can’t remember if she was at Turner Hall or somewhere else.” 

“She spoke at the gymnasticks hall?” Cate clarified incredulously.

“No — yes — well, sort of.” He squinted one eye as he fumbled for words. “We use the hall for all sorts of things — lectures and dances and gymnasticks and community events. The Turners are committed to a sound body and a sound mind.” 

Henry sat up all the way and tipped his head to the side to peer at her newspaper. “I’m trying to remember, but I’m fairly certain she was the fire and brimstone lady my father hated so much.”

“Hated? Why?” Cate demanded a little more defensively than she had intended. She loved Jane Swisshelm. If it wasn’t abolition, it was women’s rights, and she wielded words like deadly weapons in her writing. The woman had left her husband at a train station for God’s sake, heading up to St. Cloud with just her daughter because the man was a frightful bore. She was a heroine come to life.⁵ Cate had read her a great deal in Pennsylvania and based several of her more controversial speeches during the Philadelphia Friends’ meetings on Swisshelm’s model. (Not that they had appreciated it.)

“Oh, he just didn’t like …” Henry started, but then trailed off, twisting his mouth awkwardly. 

“What?”

“Well, my father admires evidence —” 

“Swisshelm uses plenty of evidence in her rhetoric!”

Henry shrugged. “I don’t doubt it. I — I admittedly don’t remember much about her speech. Just that she spent a whole lot of time quoting the Bible and that always gets under my father’s skin.” 

Cate’s brow arched. “She uses Bible verse to devastating effect. She drives right to the root of how abominable slavery is by measuring it against the most definitive code of morality there is.”⁶

“I suppose, but she’s not the only one using the Bible to illustrate her points about slavery. Josiah Priest used the same code to defend the practice in the The Bible Defense of Slavery.” 

Cate faltered; she’d never heard of that. “So?”

Henry sighed, slouching over himself with his legs crossed. “I’m not saying it’s inherently bad, it’s just really easy for folks to pick and choose the bits that defend their argument and cast out the rest. And that’s just sloppy rhetoric.” 

Cate stared at him with her mouth half open. “Should I take this to mean that you have read more than one book?”

Henry wrinkled his nose in offense. “Ha ha, very funny.” 

Cate looked down at her paper for a long moment. The dense lines of ink danced in her vision as she tried to parse which thoughts were debate for the sake of winning and which were her actual opinion. Which spurred a curiosity … 

“So how many of those arguments that you presented just now,” she said slowly. “How much of that was your father’s opinion and how much was yours?” 

Henry looked up at her, blue eyes deep and limitless and stricken. “Um, all of it, I guess —” 

Cate lifted her brow at him.

“I’m certainly pro-abolition, if that’s what you’re asking.” 

“I really don’t care what your father thinks, Schaefer. You shouldn’t either, come to think of it.” She folded her paper primly in her lap. “We’re our own men now, ready to fight for what we believe in. So, question is — what are you fighting for?” 

He stared at her. He looked so young for a moment, guarded yet raw. Then his brows sort of snapped down, like a shield. “I could ask you the same question.” 

Cate’s eyes narrowed. “Only one of us is reading an abolitionist paper. Speaks volumes, I should think.” 

Henry rolled his eyes and gave an exasperated sigh. “I don’t have to prove anything to you.” 

“I’m not asking you to. I just asked what distinguishes your opinion from your father’s. Not my fault you had yet to consider it.” 

“Of course I have,” he insisted as his arms curled defensively around his knees. “I’m … I want to make something of myself. I want to be the kind of man who stands up and says ‘No more.’ And I want to prove that Freethinkers can be moral too.” 

“I’m certain that there are many of us both moral and free-thinking.” 

“Not just freethinkers. I mean Freethinkers.” Henry winced. “All Turners are anti-clerical, but my father and his friends take it a step further. They’re Freethinkers.”⁷ 

Cate widened her eyes impatiently.

“You know, Freethinkers? They don’t go to church…” 

Cate blinked in surprise. “At all?”

“No, uh…” Henry licked his lips awkwardly. Cate became momentarily distracted. “My father was very much against the entire idea of church. So we grew up going to the Turner Hall instead. My father always said it was better to fill our heads with science and history than religion.” 

Cate licked her own lips. “So you’re telling me that there are communities of people who don’t worship together or even believe in a God at all?” She blinked slowly. “What do they do instead?”

“Debate, mostly.” Henry shrugged. “It’s as I described. Speakers and discussion and—”

“But surely the ladies are not included—”

“No, they are,” Henry said. “I mean, they certainly aren’t turned away, in any case. At least not in New Ulm. Though admittedly there aren’t very many about who aren’t mothers or grandmothers and choose to spend their time otherwise occupied.”

Cate narrowed her eyes in suspicion and grunted. 

“I take it you were turned away?” Henry ventured gently. 

“Of course I was. Opinionated women always are. We’re not even allowed to sit in the main audience at most abolitionist talks. We have to sit behind curtains along the sides, hidden away.⁸ What is the point of making women the harbingers of morality when we’re constantly being silenced and made invisible? I mean, to what degree do the ladies of New Ulm feel welcome to participate in Freethinking society?”

“I couldn’t really say,” Henry replied. “As I said, there really weren’t enough women among us who were inclined to the Freethinkers. My mother attended occasionally, but come to think of it, only when my father was hosting. But my mother is among the many Turners who are Christian, even if they practice in the privacy of their own homes or in Bible study groups.” He paused thoughtfully. “But I can see what you mean. Tolerance is not an invitation.”

Cate blinked. “And these Freethinkers. They’re atheists?”

“What? No, of course not—”

“Well, they’re anti-clerical and they don’t go to church. You made a distinction between them and Christian Turners?”

“What?”

“Come now, are you not one of them?”

“No. Well, yes, I mean … sort of.”

“Then that makes you an atheist?”

“No!”

“Then what faith do you adhere to?”

“Uh, Christian, I suppose. Jesus, Smith, if I knew I’d be interrogated, I wouldn’t have decided to spend my free time with you.”

And he settled back on his gum blanket and pulled his cap back over his eyes, making it very clear he would speak no further on the topic. The infernal prairie grass still jutted out from his freshly-moistened lips. Cate peered at him, trying to determine where Henry’s parents ended and Henry began. Why admit to anti-religion in one breath, then claim to be a Christian in the next? 

“You don’t have to pretend for me,” Cate said quietly.

“What?” He nudged his hat up to look at her.

“You don’t have to pretend to be religious if you’re not just to make me feel more comfortable. And you don’t have to be areligious just because your father is either.” 

Henry stared at her. God, those eyes. Tentative, hopeful even, but also a bit anxious. Then, he looked at the ground and gave a weak laugh.

“What?” She pressed, then clamped her mouth shut. He was right about one thing: he did not deserve to be interrogated. 

“It’s just …” Henry sighed and pushed a hand through his hair. “I … God. I wish I could be half as sure of myself as you are.” 

The words sort of cracked alongside Cate’s head like a slap. Which was ridiculous because it was a compliment. A long moment passed, with just the sound of the wind in the trees and the murmur of busy soldier voices humming outside the tent. Cate fumbled with her paper awkwardly, a half-grunt her poor excuse for a response. He sounded like he meant it too. It made her lungs feel like they were curling in on themselves. 

She scoffed into the fold of the newspaper. “You really have no idea how wrong you are.”

Henry regarded her skeptically. “Oh really?”

“Come now, you’re the last person to make a bid for my good character,” she snapped, crumpling the paper in her lap. “Until last month, you thought I was an arrogant ass. And you’re not wrong. I let my temper and my ego get the better of me. If I was as self assured as you think, I’d be corporal. Or I’d have done some other tangible action to further abolition, instead of stealing and deceiving to enlist. I’d have —” She stopped herself from saying she’d have refused to marry. Or that she’d have taken her ideas elsewhere after getting kicked out of the Friends instead of moping at the backs of other denominations’ sanctuaries for years, letting her father convince her of how burdensome she was. She felt her eyes sting and gritted every muscle in her face to push that sensation well away. 

“You went to great lengths,” he ducked his head to force her to look at him, “to ensure you were able to enlist. Surely that counts for something.”

Cate stared at him, fighting the tightness seizing her throat. Tried to focus on his eyes, on his nearness, on the heat that it had conjured in the pit of her belly. All of that was infinitely easier to bear than his unassailable argument to prove her good character. He didn’t know her. There was so much he didn’t know. 

“So,” Cate sniffed, glancing up furtively and shifting discomfittingly as she smoothed the paper in her lap. “What else have you read?” 

Henry’s mouth twitched the prairie grass consideringly before he straightened, pulling his cap back. He regarded her with a frank openness she scarcely deserved after all the hostility she’d heaped on him these past few months. “I quite liked the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.”

Cate stared at him. She had spent the last few months certain that for all his fine looks, this farmhand had no brains. He was a good-looking man with a defective personality, too stupid to know how little he knew. If he were about to prove her otherwise, she would be well and truly done for. 

⸻

XXIV

CATE was well and truly done for. It was after supper and she was dogging Henry Schaefer in the late afternoon glow across the prairie grass, beyond the tents, as he explained his thoughts on Frederick Douglass’s escape from slavery. 

“I don’t really suppose he could have explained what he did to get away, since he didn’t want to compromise the people who helped him, but damn if I’m not curious.” 

“Well, of course you’ve heard about the Underground Railroad?” Cate said.

“Enough to know it’s not an actual railroad. I suppose that’s all we need to know. Didn’t Douglass call it the ‘upperground railroad’?” 

Cate smiled. “I believe he did. I admire that he didn’t want to divulge his escape methods, though. Folks still use those means to escape, even now.” She twisted her fingers in her hands. “Did you ever see slaves? In Cincinnati, I mean?” 

Henry frowned. “Yes. We’d see them across the river in Kentucky. Ohio had a law that slaves brought into the state would be automatically free.” 

Cate scoffed. “We could have used a law like that here.” 

Henry nodded. “I never knew any personally. We had some free Black folk talk at the Hall. But the Turners are not the easiest people to join if you don’t speak German.” 

Cate nodded wistfully. “We had free Black neighbors in St. Anthony.” She could still see Emily Grey’s expression of warning, of fear, when the mob had raided her house that night Eliza Winston was freed. “Both of them were born to parents who had been enslaved. But they were free. And I don’t understand how that makes a difference.” 

“What do you mean?” Schaefer glanced up at her as he stooped to pluck another long stalk of prairie grass to chew in his teeth. 

Cate’s mouth twisted as the sky shot with gradually deepening shades of pink and purple. “This whole defense of slavery seems built on the notion that some people are more human than others. If dark-skinned folks are less human than light-skinned people, then why are free Black people more human than enslaved Black people? What is the difference?” 

“I think the real flaw is looking for any semblance of logic in the pro-slavery argument to begin with,” Schaefer said, the grass twitching up and down through the air as he spoke. 

“But people believe it. And I’d like to believe most people are reasonable. So why would they keep digging in on this issue if it is so obviously wrong?” 

“I think they know in their hearts that it’s wrong,” Schaefer said. “Damn, if that don’t beat all. That’s a beautiful sunset.” 

He plopped himself down in the grass and laid out his full length, hands behind his head. Cate averted her gaze, looking up at the painted clouds. She’d spent the whole day counting the minutes until she could talk with him again. At first she tried to test him, to see if he’d actually read Douglass’ book. Many folks had read excerpts in newspapers but hadn’t deigned to read the whole narrative. But he’d easily passed. She suspected he may have actually read it more than once. 

After that, she half lost her mind. They’d gushed together about how horrible Edward Covey was over dinner and how satisfying it had been when Douglass finally stood up to him. She looked for Henry in the mess hall and welcomed him with a smile when he returned to their tent after supper. And while she was unsure how accurate her perception was, given her partiality for his finer features, she sensed that he was as eager to discuss it with her as she was with him. It had been such a long time since she’d talked about abolition with someone who didn’t think she was a nutter. 

Cate sighed and sat down next to him, curling herself in over her knees. “If they knew in their hearts it was wrong, they wouldn’t sacrifice themselves on the field of battle for it.”  She plucked some grass and started weaving it together with her fingers, the absent motions of flower-crown making. 

“Denial is powerful,” he said. “And when your God lets people run rampant with cruelty, lets people like Edward Covey bruise and abuse with impunity, well, they think He’s signed on to their way of doing things.” 

“Uh oh, should I be guarding my faith against your heathen temptations?” 

“Yes, shield yourself. Soon I’ll be slinging simple logic and questioning whether we need the threat of a celestial smiting to make sure we’re nice to each other.” 

“I knew you were an atheist.” 

“And yet, you aren’t fainting with shock.” 

“Even when folks believe God’s watching to make sure they’re kind, they still treat people like shit on the bottom of their shoe.” Cate looked down at the hoop of grass in her hands and tried not to think about Pennsylvania. “Maybe when the Friends forsook me, I started to wonder if He did too.” 

Henry didn’t say anything. Just smiled around that damn overly-long stalk of grass in his perfect white teeth. 

“Are you some sort of stock animal, Henry Schaefer? Why are you always eating grass?” 

“I resent that remark. I’m a prairie grass connoisseur. It’s sweet — here, try it.” 

He sat up and picked a stalk of grass between his fingers. Twilight played purple shadows across the flat planes of his cheeks. God help her, but she let him set a stalk of grass between her lips. 

“Chew.” 

She wrinkled her nose but obeyed. It was sweet. Damn him. Damn everything. She was doomed. 

“Good, right?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. It tastes like grass.” 

He was two feet away from her, grinning with his hair floating in the breeze. And she couldn’t understand why. Not a month ago, he’d hated her. Why did revealing her secret to him turn his regard to such an extreme opposite? Mutual interest in abolition or not, she was no pretty peach to turn his head. It wasn’t like they were at the front and she were the only lady for miles. There were pretty girls touring the fort every day, watching drills and bringing tokens of thanks to the soldiers. He could have attracted a wife like Robinson had if he’d given even half an effort. Yet he looked at her with such singular fascination. Why? 

A drumbeat rang out from the fort. Henry looked up and Cate took the opportunity to shake her head straight again. 

“Taps,” he said unnecessarily. “Better get back for roll-call.” 

Cate stood dumbly and followed. One thing was for sure — no more philosophical heart-to-hearts. She wasn’t sure there was anything she could do to resist a man who listened to her opinions with actual interest.

⸻

Later that night, she lay on her back under their tent watching how the murky shadows blurred the distinctions between the dark center pole and the white canvas. It was long past lights-out, but sleep was elusive through the racket of Henry Schaefer-shaped thoughts bouncing around her head. She couldn’t sleep and she stared up at the dark tent gable, listening to the crickets chirp and her comrades snore in adjacent tents as she tried very hard to remember what it was she hated about Schaefer. To think of all the most excellent reasons why she would do well to stay away from him, or anyone else for that matter. To get too close was to compromise her secret. 

She rolled onto her side, the hard ground pushing sharply against her hip bone. She looked at his peaceful face and let the insidious thought form. But he already knows.

Henry lay inches away, sprawled flat on his gum blanket with his arms curled up over his head. His mouth was soft with sleep, his head tilted towards her, his features obscured by shadows. 

Sleep did something to people, relaxed their features to show their faces in their most unadorned form. In the darkness, the shadows carved his face in vague planes, softening any sharp angles or blemishes. His lips, parted slightly, curled around the faintest shadow of his fine teeth and Cate swallowed against a niggling sense of existential dread. 

Henry had the sort of face that reminded one of an anvil, but not one made of heavy metals. Perhaps he was more carved from wood, his chin and nose and brow an interplay of finely honed horizontal and vertical lines. Perhaps these features contributed to why he seemed older than the other fellows, even though he was only twenty-one. Cate felt a shroud of guilt come over her. She could ruin this boy. She was old, bitter, not to mention the little inconvenience of being married. All excellent reasons why he shouldn’t waste his time. 

His sandy-blonde brows cast his eyes in shadow. Cate craned her neck forward, imagining how soft his skin might feel under her fingers. For all the thick toughness of him, his eyelids were as delicate as anyone else’s. Some of the hairs of his eyebrows skewed up, out of order. Cate absently lifted her hand and smoothed her finger over them. 

Henry stirred at her touch. She flinched to move her hand away, but Henry’s arm came down and the smooth callus of his fingers wrapped around her wrist. Cate forgot to exhale as his eyes fluttered open. 

Her fingers were frozen upon his brow and she stared at him with wide eyes. His eyelids were heavy with sleep and his lips twitched into a half smile. 

“Hi Charley,” he murmured, his voice low and coarse with sleep. 

Cate swallowed hard, embarrassed at being caught and utterly taken aback by his serene, unassuming response to her stroking his eyebrow in the dead of night while he was sleeping. 

“Hi,” she breathed. She surprised herself with the softness of her own usually-harsh voice.

Henry exhaled contentedly and his thumb stroked down her palm. He blinked drowsily at her hand and smiled. 

 “Laundry.”

Cate flinched, but not so much that she snatched her hand away. “What?” 

“You were a laundress.” Henry looked at her hand, his expression simple and focused. “Your chilblains. When we were inspected, you had chilblains.” 

He turned her hand over in his. Cate remembered to breathe, but it caught in her throat. 

“They’ve healed up first rate.” He stroked a finger up the back of her hand, over her knuckles, down her finger, before he laced his fingers neatly between hers. She swallowed hard. Her skin lit up under his touch. She wasn’t sure how much more of it she could bear, knowing it wasn’t real. At least not in the way she wanted it to be.

“Well, don’t expect me to do your washing.” She had intended to snap this at him, but it came out too fluttery to be intimidating. 

Henry huffed a chuckle. “I wouldn’t dare.” 

His hand pulled hers in to tuck under his chin. Then, with her hand entwined with his, he gave every indication of falling right back into sleep. 

Yes. She was well and truly done for. 

⸻

Footnotes

1. After considerable research and asking of reenactors, who make it their business to know such things, I can safely conclude that wedge tents were not, indeed, the most likely option this early in the war. More likely, each squad would have been issued a Sibley tent, which was in effect much like a tipi and slept 8-15 men. However, I promised myself (and you) tent shenanigans and wedge tents were in use at that time so I (gasp!) took literary liberty. Later in the war, each man was issued half a shelter tent, which buttoned together and was shared by two men. This constituted my original inspiration but they do not have any flaps and therefore afford zero privacy, so wedge tents it is! Civil War Monitor: Quarters.  ↩︎
2. Osman, Stephen E. Fort Snelling and the Civil War. Ramsey County Historical Society: St. Paul, 2017. ↩︎
3. All this faffing about with sticks is a product of my imagination, though I can confirm that soldiers historically used found objects like sticks, or sometimes their own rifles, to set up their tents. ↩︎
4. Lehman, Christopher. Slavery’s Reach: Southern Slaveholders in the North Star State. Minnesota Historical Society Press: St. Paul, 2019. ↩︎
5. As is often the case with figures of the mid-19th century, Jane Grey Swisshelm, while staunchly abolitionist, leaned heavily imperialist after the US-Dakota War, when she traveled to Washington DC to advocate for Lincoln to exterminate all the Dakota indiscriminately. She was unsuccessful, but her memory will be tainted by that initiative forevermore. Weber, Eric. “Swisshelm, Jane Grey (1815–1884).” MNopedia, Minnesota Historical Society.  ↩︎
6. Cate’s bias as a white, European-American ex-Quaker is showing here.  ↩︎
7. Cooper, Bernice. “Die freie Gemeinde, freethinkers on the frontier.” Minnesota History, vol. 41, issue 2, 1970, pp. 53-60. ↩︎
8. Berkin, Carol. Civil War Wives. New York: Vintage, 2010. ↩︎

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