Praefectus Praetorio
R.I.P. Brother of the Quill
Another great chapter, Fossy.
Although I am a frequent user of footnotes, I would suggest here that the entire quoted section could be replaced by :
Footnote: Southern Belle - see Scarlet O'Hara!
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The Georgia Peach - A Story of the American Civil War
- Thread starter Fossy
- Start date
Although I am a frequent user of footnotes, I would suggest here that the entire quoted section could be replaced by :
Footnote: Southern Belle - see Scarlet O'Hara!
Fossy
SEXPIOGENTUS
Thank you PrPr my friend, your kind words are very much appreciated.Another great chapter, Fossy.
Although I am a frequent user of footnotes, I would suggest here that the entire quoted section could be replaced by :
Footnote: Southern Belle - see Scarlet O'Hara!
windar
Teller of Tales
A timely note. Tomorrow is Memorial Day in the US. It began as Decoration Day to honor the Union dead of the Civil War and evolved into Memorial Day to honor the dead from all the subsequent wars (unfortunately too many to list here). It's held on the last Monday in May and marks the unofficial start of summer.
The Sunday of Memorial Day weekend (today) is when the Indianapolis 500 is normally held. This year it is of course cancelled due to the coronavirus, but a virtual race will be held, featuring past greats like Mario Andretti, Emerson Fittipaldi, Helio Castroneves and others.
The Sunday of Memorial Day weekend (today) is when the Indianapolis 500 is normally held. This year it is of course cancelled due to the coronavirus, but a virtual race will be held, featuring past greats like Mario Andretti, Emerson Fittipaldi, Helio Castroneves and others.
Fossy
SEXPIOGENTUS
Thanks for the very relevant anecdote my friend
Indy 500 is delayed not canceled...perhaps we can remember what the holiday is for...
Loxuru
Graf von Kreuzigung
Isn't the Civil War America's deadly war, after all? It has cost more deaths than in the total number of casualties of all the other wars the US has fought, including two world wars, Korea and Vietnam? It says something about the severity of the conflict. Of course, both the opposing parties were Americans, and a lot of the casualties were caused by disease, but still,... I once read an estimation, if it would be fought today, with the present population of the US, there would be ten million of deaths.
Praefectus Praetorio
R.I.P. Brother of the Quill
Latest estimate is approximately 750,000 or the population equivalent today of 8 million, WWII US military deaths 418,000, today's equivalent 1 million.
Fossy
SEXPIOGENTUS
As a Brit I hesitate to offer any semblance of authority on the subject. But I have studied American Antebellum and post Bellum history and walked many of the battlefields themselves. It was an extremely bloody and bitter conflict and it still amazes me that peace and growth was established so quickly afterwards. From a historical perspective it presents a wealth of interesting aspects on many fronts. "The Georgia Peach" is my attempt at bringing together my interest in the war with the more sensually stimulating interests we pursue here on CF. I hope and trust all US citizens on here following the tribulations of Catherine McCown, will allow me that indulgence.
Everyone's support and input is hugely appreciated.
twonines
LIMERICUS
It was, in fact,the first "modern" war, where the full industrial capacity of a country was devoted almost entirely to waging war. A forerunner of the two world wars which were to follow. The casualties were inflated as a result of weapon development outstripping strategic and tactical development,and this was even more apparent in WW1.
Praefectus Praetorio
R.I.P. Brother of the Quill
A little known fact. It was the last major war in which the majority of battlefield deaths were caused by hand-held weapons. Ever since, Artillery and then Artillery with Bombs have caused the most casualties.
Loxuru
Graf von Kreuzigung
And the South's problem was, it hardly had any Industrial capacity.
Praefectus Praetorio
R.I.P. Brother of the Quill
Almost all the weapon foundry capacity was in two cities. Richmond and ... Atlanta! Any contemporary strategist looking at the war knew that if Atlanta fell, with its industrial capacity and its irreplaceable rail connections between the Eastern and Western Confederacy, the Confederacy was doomed.
Fossy
SEXPIOGENTUS
Chapter 10 – The Drawing Room at White Orchard Plantation, Around 3pm, May 11th 1864
(Continued …)
Catherine sat, her hands clasped upon her lap and her eyes downcast looking at the rug on the floor beneath her feet.
“Bring me a water bucket,” Sampson ordered, “… and a cloth.”
He settled into his chair once again and, as soon as his instructions had been adhered to, the Lieutenant dipped the cloth into the bucket, sloshing a little of the water out over the rim. He took her arm, making her jump at the sudden contact and began to slowly wipe away the perspiration that covered her skin.
“What are you …?” Catherine was taken aback by his action.
“Shhhh, Miss McCown, I am not a savage. You have endured a terrible trauma and I wish to comfort you a little by cleansing your skin.”
His hands were surprisingly gentle as he went about his self-appointed task and Catherine was conflicted by it. With all that had happened today, all that was still happening, she felt dangerously close to collapse. Her nerves were frayed, and every wipe of the damp cloth sent a jolt of fear racing through her. Her jaw still ached from the gag, but once she had loosened the muscles in her face Catherine was driven to speak.
"Are you going to kill me, or …?" The fear of hearing the answer was vastly outweighed by the uncertainty that ate at her.
He didn't respond immediately, instead choosing to continue his thorough cleansing of her arms and hands. If the Lieutenant was surprised by her words, he did not show it, which troubled her greatly.
Grime had found its way into the grooves of her nails, maybe from the amount of furniture gripping she had performed this day, and he began to work on them with the cloth. She couldn't bring herself to speak again, unsure if it would incur his anger. Instead Catherine watched his face, looking for any crack in the smooth apathy of his features. Her hands began to tremble as she came to the only conclusion that made sense to her: he was going to interrogate, maybe even rape and then execute her.
He acknowledged the girl’s new found trembling with a firmer grip on her fingers, and nothing more … no words, comforting or otherwise.
When the Lieutenant was satisfied that he had done the best he could on her left arm he dipped the rag back in the bucket and reached for her right. She didn't protest or try to pull away despite the dread rapidly building inside her chest. How did soldiers execute people? It must be worse than what the justices did in peace time, though she couldn't imagine how.
He finished with her hand and dropped the cloth into the bucket.
"We shall see," came his very delayed response. The way he looked at her made Catherine think he understood the ambiguity of her question, and that he too was aware that she would most likely live out her usefulness in a short time.
He stood and pulled her to standing with him. Her body shook as she stared straight ahead into his chest, his presence overwhelming her already battered defences. Catherine felt the metaphorical noose tighten at her neck and she was breathless.
When his fingers brushed the top of her shift she pulled away, fear wracking her body once again. The implied promise of her own impending death suddenly became secondary to the imminent threat to her person.
"You don't have to do this," she looked at him, hoping to stave off what she knew to be inescapable.
"That is true," he said as he advanced on her, crowding her again as she retreated back to the chair. When she had backed up as far as she could go, he came up against her, reaching out and catching her wrists to trap them behind her body. His swift movement brought the Lieutenant’s face to within inches of her own.
Catherine gasped.
Shifting his hold on her into a single grip from his large hand, the other began gathering the cloth of her shift.
"But I want to," he said, voice low and cruel to her ears.
She tried to twist away from him, crying out as he gripped tightly making her body ache. His other hand wrenched the thin fabric over her head and drew the garment down her back along her trapped arms. She resisted as much as she was able but felt restrained by the pain he was inflicting through his grip on her confined wrists.
He continued, unperturbed by her struggles. Catherine was never more aware of how pitiful her physical power was than when she struggled wildly and yet barely moved him. The Lieutenant managed to tug the shift from her arms and capture them again before she'd landed more than a glancing blow on his chest.
Then the enormity of the situation hit her.
Topless now, wearing nothing but cotton drawers that dropped only to her thighs and silken stockings underneath, she felt the smirking gazes of each man as her body was openly ogled.
Catherine stilled, tensed and shaking, her breasts uncovered and her arms still secured in a tight hold. She did not want him to touch her, but while one hand continued with the restraint of her arms, the other was free to roam wherever it wished.
The poor girl was beside herself with distraction. Never before had she been touched like this, never before had she been touched at all. However, she had the presence of mind to realise that this could become much worse if, in her panic, she continued not thinking with any kind of clarity. Sampson took her change of mental pace into his stride and ran his fingers through her hair as she stood stock still before him.
His free hand drifted down onto her shoulder and across her breast. In her frantic attempt to remain stoic, Catherine tried desperately to hold back the rising panic that was fuelling her nausea. Only a day or two ago she had been sewing in the drawing room while life went on around her, and now here she was, trapped by these monsters while they systematically stripped and humiliated her.
She turned her face away from him as his fingers circled her nipple lazily; the aureole pebbled and stiffened in the low light. She clenched her jaw tightly shut as he brushed the sensitive bud, tweaking it ever so gently and making her insides squirm.
His touch was so strange, so precise and gentle. Then his fingers travelled downwards, making their way to the apex of her thighs. She clenched her legs together to impede his progress. It didn't seem to bother him. Catherine gritted her teeth against the sounds of distress she could feel teasing her throat. What was this lazy caress? Then he was back at her breasts. Why was he toying with her?
She was increasingly aware of his tight grip at her back and she was scared of that touch more than the wicked hand that cupped her breast, squeezing it as his thumb flicked at the teat. His lips descended onto her neck and she gasped in surprise before snapping her mouth closed. She would not react to this man. The hand at her wrists loosened and she used the opportunity to slip from his grip and scramble back onto the chair.
She heard laughter all around her. She had become their plaything …
Catherine couldn't see his face in the shadows as the only lighted lamp in the room was behind him again, but she could feel his malintent, the easy grace of his movements attesting to the confident predator that he was. She had to keep him in front of her. This situation was out of her control, but perhaps she could manage to keep at least that aspect in hand.
“Hold her.”
Now Catherine screamed as she felt herself lifted by a trooper either side of her, one gripping each arm. Her eyes widened when she saw the raised arm before her and her head spun as the open palm slapped down hard onto her face when she was slapped again.
She yelled the first time, but when the reciprocal backhand smacked into her from the alternate side she grunted. It was with a daze that she felt her drawers loosened and pulled down. A draft of cold air slipped between her exposed thighs as she felt the silk torn from her legs, and with slippers removed Catherine was held naked before this monstrous man.
It was in this haze-fuelled, humiliating condition that she heard the drawing room door open and the soldier’s voice say, “Everything is ready just like you asked Lieutenant.”
To Be Continued ...
(Continued …)
Catherine sat, her hands clasped upon her lap and her eyes downcast looking at the rug on the floor beneath her feet.
“Bring me a water bucket,” Sampson ordered, “… and a cloth.”
He settled into his chair once again and, as soon as his instructions had been adhered to, the Lieutenant dipped the cloth into the bucket, sloshing a little of the water out over the rim. He took her arm, making her jump at the sudden contact and began to slowly wipe away the perspiration that covered her skin.
“What are you …?” Catherine was taken aback by his action.
“Shhhh, Miss McCown, I am not a savage. You have endured a terrible trauma and I wish to comfort you a little by cleansing your skin.”
His hands were surprisingly gentle as he went about his self-appointed task and Catherine was conflicted by it. With all that had happened today, all that was still happening, she felt dangerously close to collapse. Her nerves were frayed, and every wipe of the damp cloth sent a jolt of fear racing through her. Her jaw still ached from the gag, but once she had loosened the muscles in her face Catherine was driven to speak.
"Are you going to kill me, or …?" The fear of hearing the answer was vastly outweighed by the uncertainty that ate at her.
He didn't respond immediately, instead choosing to continue his thorough cleansing of her arms and hands. If the Lieutenant was surprised by her words, he did not show it, which troubled her greatly.
Grime had found its way into the grooves of her nails, maybe from the amount of furniture gripping she had performed this day, and he began to work on them with the cloth. She couldn't bring herself to speak again, unsure if it would incur his anger. Instead Catherine watched his face, looking for any crack in the smooth apathy of his features. Her hands began to tremble as she came to the only conclusion that made sense to her: he was going to interrogate, maybe even rape and then execute her.
He acknowledged the girl’s new found trembling with a firmer grip on her fingers, and nothing more … no words, comforting or otherwise.
When the Lieutenant was satisfied that he had done the best he could on her left arm he dipped the rag back in the bucket and reached for her right. She didn't protest or try to pull away despite the dread rapidly building inside her chest. How did soldiers execute people? It must be worse than what the justices did in peace time, though she couldn't imagine how.
He finished with her hand and dropped the cloth into the bucket.
"We shall see," came his very delayed response. The way he looked at her made Catherine think he understood the ambiguity of her question, and that he too was aware that she would most likely live out her usefulness in a short time.
He stood and pulled her to standing with him. Her body shook as she stared straight ahead into his chest, his presence overwhelming her already battered defences. Catherine felt the metaphorical noose tighten at her neck and she was breathless.
When his fingers brushed the top of her shift she pulled away, fear wracking her body once again. The implied promise of her own impending death suddenly became secondary to the imminent threat to her person.
"You don't have to do this," she looked at him, hoping to stave off what she knew to be inescapable.
"That is true," he said as he advanced on her, crowding her again as she retreated back to the chair. When she had backed up as far as she could go, he came up against her, reaching out and catching her wrists to trap them behind her body. His swift movement brought the Lieutenant’s face to within inches of her own.
Catherine gasped.
Shifting his hold on her into a single grip from his large hand, the other began gathering the cloth of her shift.
"But I want to," he said, voice low and cruel to her ears.
She tried to twist away from him, crying out as he gripped tightly making her body ache. His other hand wrenched the thin fabric over her head and drew the garment down her back along her trapped arms. She resisted as much as she was able but felt restrained by the pain he was inflicting through his grip on her confined wrists.
He continued, unperturbed by her struggles. Catherine was never more aware of how pitiful her physical power was than when she struggled wildly and yet barely moved him. The Lieutenant managed to tug the shift from her arms and capture them again before she'd landed more than a glancing blow on his chest.
Then the enormity of the situation hit her.
Topless now, wearing nothing but cotton drawers that dropped only to her thighs and silken stockings underneath, she felt the smirking gazes of each man as her body was openly ogled.
Catherine stilled, tensed and shaking, her breasts uncovered and her arms still secured in a tight hold. She did not want him to touch her, but while one hand continued with the restraint of her arms, the other was free to roam wherever it wished.
The poor girl was beside herself with distraction. Never before had she been touched like this, never before had she been touched at all. However, she had the presence of mind to realise that this could become much worse if, in her panic, she continued not thinking with any kind of clarity. Sampson took her change of mental pace into his stride and ran his fingers through her hair as she stood stock still before him.
His free hand drifted down onto her shoulder and across her breast. In her frantic attempt to remain stoic, Catherine tried desperately to hold back the rising panic that was fuelling her nausea. Only a day or two ago she had been sewing in the drawing room while life went on around her, and now here she was, trapped by these monsters while they systematically stripped and humiliated her.
She turned her face away from him as his fingers circled her nipple lazily; the aureole pebbled and stiffened in the low light. She clenched her jaw tightly shut as he brushed the sensitive bud, tweaking it ever so gently and making her insides squirm.
His touch was so strange, so precise and gentle. Then his fingers travelled downwards, making their way to the apex of her thighs. She clenched her legs together to impede his progress. It didn't seem to bother him. Catherine gritted her teeth against the sounds of distress she could feel teasing her throat. What was this lazy caress? Then he was back at her breasts. Why was he toying with her?
She was increasingly aware of his tight grip at her back and she was scared of that touch more than the wicked hand that cupped her breast, squeezing it as his thumb flicked at the teat. His lips descended onto her neck and she gasped in surprise before snapping her mouth closed. She would not react to this man. The hand at her wrists loosened and she used the opportunity to slip from his grip and scramble back onto the chair.
She heard laughter all around her. She had become their plaything …
Catherine couldn't see his face in the shadows as the only lighted lamp in the room was behind him again, but she could feel his malintent, the easy grace of his movements attesting to the confident predator that he was. She had to keep him in front of her. This situation was out of her control, but perhaps she could manage to keep at least that aspect in hand.
“Hold her.”
Now Catherine screamed as she felt herself lifted by a trooper either side of her, one gripping each arm. Her eyes widened when she saw the raised arm before her and her head spun as the open palm slapped down hard onto her face when she was slapped again.
She yelled the first time, but when the reciprocal backhand smacked into her from the alternate side she grunted. It was with a daze that she felt her drawers loosened and pulled down. A draft of cold air slipped between her exposed thighs as she felt the silk torn from her legs, and with slippers removed Catherine was held naked before this monstrous man.
It was in this haze-fuelled, humiliating condition that she heard the drawing room door open and the soldier’s voice say, “Everything is ready just like you asked Lieutenant.”
To Be Continued ...
Attachments
malins
Stumbling Seeker
Now that is always very sexy.
Such an evocatively descriptive passage! Shivers!
Another winner of a chapter. More, please!
Fossy
SEXPIOGENTUS
Thanks Barb!
Praefectus Praetorio
R.I.P. Brother of the Quill
Such a delectable mixture of eroticism and humiliation! 
Loxuru
Graf von Kreuzigung
In real life, at this moment, John Wayne would rush in, shouting "Whatta hell is going on here!?" The soldiers would stay put. Sampson would try to explain himself, only to be replied by Wayne's fist in his face,...
Sadly for Catherine, this is fiction,... No John Wayne around, to rescue her…!
Sadly for Catherine, this is fiction,... No John Wayne around, to rescue her…!
Fossy
SEXPIOGENTUS
For a moment there I thought you'd had a sneak preview of tomorrow's postIn real life, at this moment, John Wayne would rush in, shouting "Whatta hell is going on here!?" The soldiers would stay put. Sampson would try to explain himself, only to be replied by Wayne's fist in his face,...
Sadly for Catherine, this is fiction,... No John Wayne around, to rescue her…!
Fossy
SEXPIOGENTUS
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.
Strangers who, right now, were chuckling at her futile show of modesty. Picking up the battered fabric Catherine pulled the torn shift over her head to cover one exposed breast, her left ... letting the rag fall to her thighs. The left shoulder was torn and the flap of material that exposed Catherine’s right breast and nipple hung loose below her chest.
A strange, feeling invaded her wearing this ragged smock … half shame and half defiance, her body so shockingly exposed ... but even this humiliation was not enough for these brutes. Catherine flinched upon hearing the desperate screams of the naked slave, whose smock she now wore, being dragged forcibly from the room.
“Put this on her.” The Lieutenant held out an iron slave collar to one of his soldiers.
“Please no,” she recoiled at the thought of what they were about to do. But she was powerless to stop this further mistreatment of her body.
Feeling her hair bunched tightly into a male grip so that it could be pulled away from her neck, Catherine winced as the collar was placed snuggly into position.
“Now these.” The poor girl’s arms were jerked out from her barely covered body and her delicate wrists encased in heavy iron manacles.
They had clearly discovered the room where the slaves were disciplined, or ‘the block’ as it was more commonly called, and seemed determined to treat her like she too was enslaved.
Wearing a torn, dirty slave shift was more humiliating in her mind than being naked … but to be shackled and forced into compliance, led on a chained leash like a dog ... was unbearable.
But so it was that, flanked by two uniformed soldiers, armed with loaded rifles, she began her slow procession to some unknown and unknowable fate. Her slender wrists were secured well beyond reason, clasped in heavy steel manacles. The short length of chain connecting them jingled with a strange, hollow sound as the slow procession entered the hallway and out through the main door.
Her firm, smooth, naked thighs quivered, one brushing against the other as she walked, the rubbing of skin against tender skin stoked a bold, unwelcome sensation within her loins. She dared not cry out or even speak, her head down, her heart pounding, her only impulse to run away, cover and hide herself. Nor did she dare even think, because every thought was frightening and revolting.
His carriage was still parked outside the main door, and so Catherine assumed that Uncle Billy remained at White Orchard. Had he absolved himself of the whole affair? Or was he watching, surreptitiously from behind a lace curtain, embracing his arousal at her newfound predicament. Catherine shook her head to free it of such thoughts. Even now, feeling as let down by him as she did, the poor girl could not think ill of her Godfather, and she prayed inside her head that he would put a stop to proceedings before they went too far!
With a growing realising Catherine saw where they were heading. It was to the block itself, where the slaves of White Orchard were taken to be disciplined … where normality consisted of the sound of cries that echoed like a crazed, macabre chorus. That was where the Lieutenant and his men were taking her.
Or was it the whipping post positioned outside the entrance to the block. Would they whip her? They had stripped her like a slave, dressed her like a slave, chained her like a slave and now they were going to treat her like a slave …
She sensed the close proximity of her personal armed guard, and as their obvious destination became closer she felt the heightened repulsion swirling around her head before settling in the pit of her nauseous, churning stomach.
Catherine began to tremble uncontrollably. Right now, at this very moment, she would do anything to be spared the shame and humiliation of being paraded in front of the gathered slaves assembled along with the full complement of Union army soldiers, to await her appearance … chained as she was, her nubile shape exposed, nipples hard in the cold air … half-naked.
The rains had stopped but she felt the small stoned gravel digging into her skin and the slippery mud underneath her bare feet as they traversed the pathways and then the open land that prefaced the block.
Upon reaching the large open double doors into the wooden barn like building, Catherine panicked and painfully wrenched herself into an opposite direction, only to be forcefully stopped in her tracks and dragged with very evident enthusiasm on her aggressors’ part, through the ominous entranceway. Her captors had thrust her into a familiar place, but one that she was about to see in a completely different light.
Catherine herself had never used the block in anger. In fact, since her father left for the war … never to return … the slaves at White Orchard had enjoyed a more communal relationship with her and, until recently, her mama. But the heavily shackled girl knew that using this fact to appeal to Sampson and his men would be a wasted effort.
To Be Continued ...
Footnote - The inclusion of the words and picture depicting Sherman and his son, Willie, clearly creates a very sensitive narrative. Had the subjects being more contemporary I would not have done so, however given that they are historical figures from over 150 years ago, my belief that the value their inclusion has in highlighting the conflict existing in Sherman's mind between his loving, family values versus the way he was now allowing his Goddaughter to be treated, outweighed the sensitivity issues. I hope you all agree.
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.
Strangers who, right now, were chuckling at her futile show of modesty. Picking up the battered fabric Catherine pulled the torn shift over her head to cover one exposed breast, her left ... letting the rag fall to her thighs. The left shoulder was torn and the flap of material that exposed Catherine’s right breast and nipple hung loose below her chest.
A strange, feeling invaded her wearing this ragged smock … half shame and half defiance, her body so shockingly exposed ... but even this humiliation was not enough for these brutes. Catherine flinched upon hearing the desperate screams of the naked slave, whose smock she now wore, being dragged forcibly from the room.
“Put this on her.” The Lieutenant held out an iron slave collar to one of his soldiers.
“Please no,” she recoiled at the thought of what they were about to do. But she was powerless to stop this further mistreatment of her body.
Feeling her hair bunched tightly into a male grip so that it could be pulled away from her neck, Catherine winced as the collar was placed snuggly into position.
“Now these.” The poor girl’s arms were jerked out from her barely covered body and her delicate wrists encased in heavy iron manacles.
They had clearly discovered the room where the slaves were disciplined, or ‘the block’ as it was more commonly called, and seemed determined to treat her like she too was enslaved.
Wearing a torn, dirty slave shift was more humiliating in her mind than being naked … but to be shackled and forced into compliance, led on a chained leash like a dog ... was unbearable.
But so it was that, flanked by two uniformed soldiers, armed with loaded rifles, she began her slow procession to some unknown and unknowable fate. Her slender wrists were secured well beyond reason, clasped in heavy steel manacles. The short length of chain connecting them jingled with a strange, hollow sound as the slow procession entered the hallway and out through the main door.
Her firm, smooth, naked thighs quivered, one brushing against the other as she walked, the rubbing of skin against tender skin stoked a bold, unwelcome sensation within her loins. She dared not cry out or even speak, her head down, her heart pounding, her only impulse to run away, cover and hide herself. Nor did she dare even think, because every thought was frightening and revolting.
His carriage was still parked outside the main door, and so Catherine assumed that Uncle Billy remained at White Orchard. Had he absolved himself of the whole affair? Or was he watching, surreptitiously from behind a lace curtain, embracing his arousal at her newfound predicament. Catherine shook her head to free it of such thoughts. Even now, feeling as let down by him as she did, the poor girl could not think ill of her Godfather, and she prayed inside her head that he would put a stop to proceedings before they went too far!
With a growing realising Catherine saw where they were heading. It was to the block itself, where the slaves of White Orchard were taken to be disciplined … where normality consisted of the sound of cries that echoed like a crazed, macabre chorus. That was where the Lieutenant and his men were taking her.
Or was it the whipping post positioned outside the entrance to the block. Would they whip her? They had stripped her like a slave, dressed her like a slave, chained her like a slave and now they were going to treat her like a slave …
She sensed the close proximity of her personal armed guard, and as their obvious destination became closer she felt the heightened repulsion swirling around her head before settling in the pit of her nauseous, churning stomach.
Catherine began to tremble uncontrollably. Right now, at this very moment, she would do anything to be spared the shame and humiliation of being paraded in front of the gathered slaves assembled along with the full complement of Union army soldiers, to await her appearance … chained as she was, her nubile shape exposed, nipples hard in the cold air … half-naked.
The rains had stopped but she felt the small stoned gravel digging into her skin and the slippery mud underneath her bare feet as they traversed the pathways and then the open land that prefaced the block.
Upon reaching the large open double doors into the wooden barn like building, Catherine panicked and painfully wrenched herself into an opposite direction, only to be forcefully stopped in her tracks and dragged with very evident enthusiasm on her aggressors’ part, through the ominous entranceway. Her captors had thrust her into a familiar place, but one that she was about to see in a completely different light.
Catherine herself had never used the block in anger. In fact, since her father left for the war … never to return … the slaves at White Orchard had enjoyed a more communal relationship with her and, until recently, her mama. But the heavily shackled girl knew that using this fact to appeal to Sampson and his men would be a wasted effort.
To Be Continued ...
Footnote - The inclusion of the words and picture depicting Sherman and his son, Willie, clearly creates a very sensitive narrative. Had the subjects being more contemporary I would not have done so, however given that they are historical figures from over 150 years ago, my belief that the value their inclusion has in highlighting the conflict existing in Sherman's mind between his loving, family values versus the way he was now allowing his Goddaughter to be treated, outweighed the sensitivity issues. I hope you all agree.
