Chapter 11 - The Upstairs Study at White Orchard Plantation, Around 4:30pm, May 11th 1864
William Sherman had ensconced himself in the upstairs study. It was a room he knew well having spent many happy hours in here, drinking brandy and smoking his favourite cigars with poor old John. He was not happy now though, not in the slightest, and his river of discontent had many tributaries.
Stroking his distinctive red beard, and running a hand through his unkempt hair of matching colour, Sherman was consumed by pensive thoughts.
Surely, she couldn't be guilty of what they were all now suspecting, not little Catherine. She had always been headstrong, but demure too, a beautiful Southern Young Lady even in her early teens.
He sighed. That was before the war, and now, just a few shallow years later, the world ... her world ... was a different place.
The General recalled the night he and Catherine's father had come to the parting of their ways. They weren't here, nor in Louisiana, but they had both visited the War Department in Washington, and had sojourned for a late nightcap in Sherman's room at Willard's hotel.
Back then John, the more emotional of the two, and conscious that the veil of differing ideals was still between them, thrust out his hand suddenly and said, "Whatever happens, Billy, you and I must not quarrel over it. Let's pledge our word here and now that, having come this far together, we will always be friends."
The General recalled how the colour drained from his cheeks as the words of his friend brought the whole sorry state of affairs to a personal head for them both.
A slight moisture had appeared in his eyes. Billy Sherman was, on the whole, more reserved than his friend, but he, too, was stirred.
He took the outstretched hand and gave it a strong clasp. "Always, John," he replied. "We don't think alike, maybe, about the things that are coming, but you and I can't quarrel." He recalled releasing the hand quickly, hating any show of emotion ... but now he wished he had held onto it a little longer.
Poor John. If there was a saving grace it was that his friend's death early in the war had avoided the intolerable situation of them facing one another across the battlefield.
Another sigh however told the General that metaphorically speaking they were facing one another now over Catherine.
Closing his eyes, he thought about his own children, and Eleanor his wife. Little 'Willie' came into his head and the tear that had amassed rolled down his cheek.
It was no secret that 9-year-old Willie was the General's favourite child. In fact, his wife reproved him repeatedly for making his preference for Willie uncomfortably obvious to their other children.
But on the evening of October the third of the previous year, just several short months ago, the boy lay dead in a Memphis hotel room. The General had called them to join him at Vicksburg ... he should never have done that. When they moved the camp back to Chattanooga, Willie had contracted camp fever ...
The memory caused the General to slump over the desk before him, as, in his mind's eye he recalled the family vignette around his son's death bed, Father Carrier from Notre Dame presiding over the solemn affair ...
Shaking his head and sitting upright he turned his thoughts to the previous Sunday. A beautiful sunny May day, before the rains had come with such vengeance.
On that beautiful day he had ridden a few miles from his tent and picked bouquets of wild flowers from a deserted woodland. He mailed the flowers to his daughters, Minnie and Lizzie, with a note that said "My darling girls, with these flowers, both of you will have a present to commemorate the opening of Spring."
He had added a kiss ... how he cherished them, how he had cherished Willie. And now here he was, lost in a deportment of displeasure. Angry with Catherine for putting him in this position. Angry with himself for handing his own Goddaughter over to the troops so that the Union army could dole out justice as they saw fit. And angry with the world for heaping these burdens upon him in simultaneous order.
There was a gentle knock at the door.
"Come," The General said quietly as Mary the long-time house slave to the McCown family, entered.
"Massa Sherman, they have took her to the block, I thought you should know Massa, Sir."
Sherman closed his eyes and waved her away. He knew what the block was. Standing, new concerns now bubbling upwards from his stomach, he moved to the window to look out over the front of the Mansion ...
Chapter 12 - From the House to The Block, Around 5pm, May 11th 1864
Catherine didn't know the exact moment the blackness overcame her, a raging darkness through which she floated dreamily.
She fought hard to regain clarity ... then remembered that although the soldiers were not gentle with her, even these barbarians seemed to have a code of honour. They could already have abused her virtue, not stopping, as they seemed to have for now, with her humiliation.
She looked up to see the Lieutenant standing before her, the orange lantern glow lighting the silhouette of his head.
"Put this on," he thrust forward the rag that had been recently covering the body of Martha one of the field slaves, who, having been called upon to attend this horrible little scene, now stood naked and trembling in the corner of the drawing room, trying somewhat pathetically to cover her own newly acquired nudity.
Catherine looked at the torn, dirty rag as it was dropped upon the table by her side. She stood with one arm over her naked breasts and the other hand covering her mound, exposed for the first time in her young life to the prying eyes of strangers.
