Isaac's House: A Love Story of the Old South

By Jane Bennett Gaddy

As a transplanted northern boy, I never understood the motives for such commitment to sacrifi ce from the men and women of the South. I have now been granted a look into the depth of family, faith and community that drove this war for independence. Isaacs House is more than just a good novel. It is a heartfelt love story within a love story of the Old South. Jane Bennett Gaddy is a true daughter of Mississippi, and she speaks from depths of devotion to her heritage with compassion in every line. She conveys the youthful call to war and post-war burden of the warriors, as well as the emotions of those on the home front, and her readers will experience carpetbaggers, scalawags, copperheads, Radical Republicans and a nation even more divided after the war.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Nov 23, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462064564

Jane Bennett Gaddy

Thy bruise is incurable, and thy wound is grievous (Jeremiah 30:12). This was the heart-cry of Rachel Payne, my fictional exemplar of Great-great grandmother Margery Brown Rogers Clark, and all the women who fell victim to such humiliating loss. Rachel was compelled to deal with it the best way she could. And she did it by immersing herself into what she loved best—helping to restore the integrity and dignity of the Old South and its heroes who went down to their graves hopeless and helpless to vindicate the Cause. Rachel would not stop drinking from the well, her pen expressing heart and soul, until there remained nothing more to be written. Beyond that, there would always be an irredeemable love and devotion to the Confederacy and the Old South. Jane Bennett Gaddy, author of House Not Made With Hands, The Mississippi Boys, Isaac’s House, JOAB, Rachel After the Darkness, and co-author of GIBBO-In My Life, is retired and lives with her husband in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. She holds a Ph.D. in Religion and administers a course in American Literature and English Composition for external studies students of Bethany Divinity College and Seminary in Alabama.

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ISAAC’S

HOUSE

A Love Story of the Old South

iUniverse, Inc.

Bloomington

ISAAC’S HOUSE

A LOVE STORY OF THE OLD SOUTH

Copyright © 2011 by Jane Bennett Gaddy, Ph.D.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Certain characters in this work are historical figures, and certain events portrayed did take place. However, this is a work of fiction. All of the other characters, names, and events as well as all places, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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ISBN: 978-1-4620-6454-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4620-6455-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4620-6456-4 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

iUniverse rev. date: 11/09/2011

Contents

PREFACE

The Aftermath

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

PROLOGUE

The Dearest on Earth

CHAPTER 1

The Rising Sun

CHAPTER 2

With Carpetbag and Gunnysack

CHAPTER 3

Isaac’s Girl

CHAPTER 4

The Gathering Place

CHAPTER 5

Farewell, Lady

CHAPTER 6

Innocence

CHAPTER 7

Secrets of the Old South

CHAPTER 8

Simon Graystone

CHAPTER 9

For the Sake of the Children

CHAPTER 10

Blue Dress

CHAPTER 11

Obsession

CHAPTER 12

The Greater Shame

CHAPTER 13

The Rage Within

CHAPTER 14

Pathetic Moments

CHAPTER 15

Spellbound

CHAPTER 16

In The Blowing Rain

CHAPTER 17

My Brother’s Keeper

CHAPTER 18

A Time of Perfecting

CHAPTER 19

Two Rogues

CHAPTER 20

In Large Bowls

CHAPTER 21

Sworn to Secrecy

CHAPTER 22

The Prize

CHAPTER 23

Bittersweet Holiday

CHAPTER 24

Redemption

CHAPTER 25

Never Alone

CHAPTER 26

Joab

CHAPTER 27

Vicksburg

CHAPTER 28

Natchez

CHAPTER 29

For the Last Time

To the memory of Isaac Beauford Clark,

son of T.G. and Marjorie Brown Rogers Clark,

who lived in an era the likes of which have never been repeated.

The Civil War. The Aftermath. Reconstruction.

Their heroics left us an unforgettable legacy.

The crash of final disaster came, and that country went down into the grave

wrapped in her own blood-dyed and battle-torn starry cross,

with all her disarmed and broken-hearted children gathered round,

and shedding the tears of an inconsolable grief.

—from The Life Work of John L. Girardeau, D.D., LL.D.

PREFACE

The Aftermath

Southerners were devoted to The Cause during the war years, but the aftermath was a different story, albeit the South was faithful to that Cause long after it was dead. The Union tried in futile effort to manage a country diametrically opposed to its political orientation, a country as stubborn and proud as its hanging moss that clings and blows in the winds of time. Gray in the gloom, caught up in pink shafts of the sun on a day not so gloomy. And the South, ripped to shreds by the war, faced an ideology that challenged its principles and wherewithal, mocked its gentility, and found great pleasure in attempting to clean the carcass of the southern dog.

It was dead of winter 2007 when I visited Isaac’s house in Slate Springs, Mississippi, for the first time. I returned in July 2009 on a warm summer day. Standing on the old front porch, I ran my hand over the same pieces of clapboard into which Isaac had pounded nails over a hundred and forty years before. Moving cautiously to avoid falling through holes where pieces of wood had rotted, exposing the mossy ground under the porch, I began to wonder just what took place in those post-war years. My heart burned to tell this man’s story. The story of Isaac Beauford Clark, my great-granduncle, a young Confederate who fought and survived the Civil War and the misery of Reconstruction under what historians call the Radical Republican Regime.

The Paynes are my fictional family, cast with all the reality I can conjure to align with my real family, the Clarks of Sarepta and Slate Springs, Mississippi. In my waking moments and sometimes in the late night hours, I see Isaac’s house, breathe in the faint fragrance of wisteria, listen to the laughter, and know that he and Jennie are free from the bondage of a cruel war and its aftermath.

I close my eyes, set my imagination free, and shine my fictional light directly on the history of my family, even now evoking emotions of sorrow and joy that kindle a promise of redemption and restoration. And I dream and write of how it might have been.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Writing a story is a journey, one that has a beginning in the heart and mind, but often has no ending, especially if the account is steeped in the history of family and tinctured with imagination. For the journey goes on and on. Without those who come alongside and offer invaluable bits and pieces of thread, memories of the way they saw it or the way it was passed down to them, the journey would doubtless become jaded.

I had those who came alongside, as far back as my grandmother, Vallie Georgia Clark Smith, whose love for family was embedded in me. Born in 1893 in Sarepta, Mississippi, educated in the little one-room schoolhouse by the side of the road, my grandmother stirred me to visit the Gettysburg Battlefield where her grandfather and uncles gave their last full measure and where, from my perspective, the written story began. History. Fiction. Paradoxical, yet essential to the telling of a good story.

I especially want to thank Kay Sugg Best, one of the remaining direct descendants of Isaac Clark, for reading the manuscript and placing her enthusiastic seal of approval on the story, realizing it is a work of fiction based upon War letters and other historical events that framed the era of Isaac’s House. Kay is the genealogist and keeper of the lineage for the Isaac Beauford Clark family.

To Charlie Clark, keeper of the T.G. Clark treasured memories. Charlie’s essays, contribution to books, his photographs, War letters and memorabilia were invaluable in writing The Mississippi Boys and Isaac’s House. Charlie opened his home and his heart and his treasures to me, and it was he who first took me to see the beautiful spot in Slate Springs, Mississippi, where the desire to write Isaac’s House went directly to my heart and pen.

To my son, Peter Joseph Gaddy, whose literary coaching and creative genius saw me through many a line as I sought to perfect this novel.

To my publishing coordinator, Marie Belaneso, who expertly assisted me with every need from the technical to the dust jacket design and in such fine fashion as to make the experience most enjoyable. And to my publishing services associate, Jill Serinas, who worked diligently with the design team until the cover told the story. I am most grateful.

Many others contributed in ways too numerous to list. I dare not try to mention them all for fear that I will miss someone of great importance. I am grateful to each of them.

Jane Bennett Gaddy

Trinity, Florida

October, 2011

Charlie%20Clark%20001.jpg

Charlie Clark at Isaac’s House in Slate Springs, Mississippi.

Winter 2007

The fire yet burns to preserve the memories and

to live in the glory of the legacy of our Civil War heroes.

Original%20Clark%20letter%20-%20Civil%20War.jpg

I seat myself to write you a short letter as I have

a chance of sending it safely by hand.

The times are so exciting, I can’t think of anything but the army.

Albert Henry Clark, April 27, 1862

Albert Henry died July 1, 1863, at the Battle of Gettysburg.

The T.G. Clark Civil War Letters are archived in the University of Mississippi Library.

PROLOGUE

The Dearest on Earth

From the window seat in her great room, Rachel Payne stared at the top of the ridge thinking about Thomas. Dear God, she missed him! With every breath she longed for him. For his tender touch, his voice that stirred her in the morning and hummed her to sleep at night. She would not see him again until the resurrection, the thought of which beset her at times. She wondered if it would get easier, more bearable with the passing of years.

The war was still raging hot across the South in the fall of 1864, and by now, Rachel, like every Confederate wife and mother, had given the ultimate in sacrifice—her husband, Thomas, and Albert Henry, her second of five sons.

Her eldest son, Jonathan, had fought beside his father and Henry all the way to the Battle of Gettysburg where the two were killed in July of 1863. Thomas died in Jonathan’s arms. Jonathan dug the grave and buried his father and brother together on that hot Pennsylvania battlefield. He had talked little about his father’s last words. One day he would. He needed to talk, and Rachel needed to hear. Until then, she would be patient, for it would not change a thing. Her beloved Thomas was dead. Besides she had a feeling Jonathan wanted to spare her the gory details, but if she were ever to know anything at all, Jonathan would have to tell her the truth.

Isaac Payne, who was a few years younger than Albert Henry, had joined the cavalry just weeks before and was off somewhere with Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. Rachel prayed to God the fighting would be over before her fourth son, Joab, was old enough to join. She never expected it to last this long. None of them did. Rachel was strong, but it had only been a year since Thomas and Henry were killed. She clutched her breast, assured herself she must hold precious memories close and wait a little longer to take on the truth of the bloody Battle of Gettysburg that took her husband and son.

Rachel stepped out on the porch and searched the tree line, wishing to see Jonathan and Albert Henry riding over the ridge together loaded down with fish out of the stream, but Henry—well Henry was dead. Lee would never lay eyes on his father, and Henry’s young widow, Cassie, would live the rest of her life with a broken heart.

Climbing midway up the hill to the familiar oak, Rachel stooped to brush fallen leaves of gold and green to the sides of the little mound. Ben’s grave. She sat down and wrapped her skirt about her legs, touched the wood carved marker Jonathan made before he went to war, moving her fingers across Ben’s name as she had so many times before. Benjamin Payne. Borne Up By Angels. Her boy was just seven years old when he died. Isaac had taken Joab and Ben to cut a Christmas tree and while Isaac’s back was turned, Ben slipped on the ice and fell into the stream. Isaac jumped into the icy water and pulled his brother out, saving his life. But Ben took pneumonia and it was his last Christmas with the family. He died shortly after New Year’s in 1861 just months before the war started. The pain of losing Ben was unthinkable for Rachel, and then the war took her men.

Thank you, Jesus, she whispered, for Jonathan and Isaac and Joab and Samuel. Four boys were left—she treasured them.

Albert Henry and Cassie had married the year the war broke out, Cassie refusing to leave Rachel’s side until the men came home or until they lay dead on a bloody battlefield. Cassie was pregnant when Albert Henry left. He never got to see the baby boy who now brought immense joy to the family.

The South had seen success and failure, unspeakable carnage, battles won, battles lost. Through sun and shadow, fog over blood-spattered polluted ponds, and endless rains the soldiers marched. Snow lay knee deep in the winter. And in the spring, southern men slopped through mud to the tops of their boots, until there came a day when their leather was gone except for small pieces held on their feet by strips of cloth. The monster of sickness, disease, and death skulked. Each new day brought hope or despair, the inconsistency enough to drive both sides insane. Hope for the Confederate States was sinking when word came the Alabama was lost. And Sherman took Atlanta. The Battle of Petersburg, where General A.P. Hill fell, broke the back of the Army of Northern Virginia. The Payne men had fought with A.P. Hill’s Corps in Heth’s Division of Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. General Hill was a southern hero who fought to the bitter end with unsullied courage.

In the spring of 1865, the azaleas bloomed in tight red bunches from one end of Richmond to the other. Daffodils and tulips stood tall and arrogant in window boxes, denying the war entry into the beautiful city that was just days ago the capital of the Confederacy. Surely it was excluded from wrack and ruin. But far from the truth. Not on this spring day—on this Sunday morning when a runner burst through the double wood doors and whispered the word about Petersburg into the ear of President Davis as he worshipped on his reserved pew at St. Paul’s Church. He must know. Richmond would have to be evacuated. The Confederacy was taking the deathblow.

Word spread through the city like the wildfires that broke out behind it, irreverently disrupting Sunday services and all other goings-on. Richmond’s people were in disbelief, calm to begin with, almost indifferent. Then reality hit like a ton of bricks, typical of how the war affected the South. Bankers doled out legal tender then buried what was left on the grounds of the old Capitol, as if the Confederate dollar would ever again be worth a dime. When night fell, looters wreaked unthinkable mischief. Men and women packed their belongings, showing little emotion, still in shock. Some left, some stayed. All wept at some point. The beautiful city could no longer be described as such, for its own people were setting it afire.

And then the news rang out over the half-burned city of Richmond and over cities and townships all across the war-torn South. Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia. Four years of anguish had come to a close. The Cause was lost, all hopes crushed. Dead. Like so many of the South’s noble warriors.

Isaac Payne rode with the last of his company to Appomattox on April 10 with no inkling of what to expect. He waited outside the perimeter. Enlisted men were not allowed to be present on the streets of the Courthouse common. Only commanding officers. Isaac was emaciated, just like all the southern patriots who leaned hard against the white picket fence that surrounded the township. Tired, hungry, and disheartened, they waited to know the end of the story. One man could scarcely be identified from the next. They all looked the same. Withered and wasted. Isaac dismounted and patted Glory. She was his only earthly possession besides his weapons. His only connection to home. He gripped the bridle and pressed his face to her thin neck, unconsciously rubbing his hand over her protruding bones.

He gazed into the distance, longing to see his father and brother riding the dusty road to Appomattox to join him, but how could that be? They were dead. The thought of their absence and the way they had fallen at Gettysburg sent waves of nausea over him. He dismounted and heaved, relieving himself of absolutely nothing. His stomach was empty, hunger a thing of the past. The lack of food no longer meant a thing to Isaac. He needed his mother, Jonathan, Cassie, and the boys. To touch his mother’s face one more time would suffice him. To wrap his arms around her again would be heaven.

A mere remnant of his brave officers accompanied General Lee—Longstreet, Heth, Gordon, Wilcox and a few others. The rest were dead or mangled, unable to travel. From a distance, Isaac could see General Gordon at the head of the column, a picture of West Point’s finest, yet most gut-wrenching, hour. Officers from both sides dismounted and stood at attention as did Isaac and the scores of other enlisted men who waited outside the gates. They were in awe of what remained of the grandest army of all time, so few of the most fascinating of all generals.

A warm wind rustled the trees; beyond that—dead silence. Not a whisper. Just the snap of Gordon’s leather as he mounted. Gloom hovered thicker than miasma over the bloody pond of Shiloh while the general gave the orders, touched the toe of his boot with his sword, and in silence that may have hushed heaven—honor answered honor.

Isaac had heard all about General William Gordon from Georgia, Antietam’s patriot. He fought that battle like no other could have. Chills ran up Isaac’s spine as he recalled the stories about Gordon. To be in his presence was a privilege Isaac was not taking for granted, something he would tell his grandchildren in years to come, Lord willing.

When all was said and done, Confederate officers saluted their commanders and walked away in irrefutable sadness. Word had spread that only officers were allowed to keep their side arms and their horses, but under no circumstances would Isaac leave Appomattox without his sorrel mare, nor would he part with the saber and rifle he had taken from two thieving Yanks who tried to steal from his family just a year before he went to fight. And he would not be leaving his own squirrel rifle, which he had taken from the mantel the day he left to join the Confederate Army.

Isaac’s eyes were fixed on Longstreet and Heth, Commanders in Lee’s Army, under whom his father, Jonathan, and Albert Henry had served. He stood as tall as possible and saluted them from a distance. They returned salute. These generals knew the Mississippi fighting men who had served them well over hundreds of miles of southern terrain. And fourteen hundred of them had fallen on Union soil at Gettysburg. The generals were there, encouraging, commanding, leading.

Ragged war-weary veteran, Isaac Payne, a warm April breeze blowing against his youthful face, rode west-southwest toward Sarepta, Mississippi, memories of the war that took his father and brother vaulting through his mind.

It was over. The South was defeated.

Snow clouds rippled across the western sky, promising a few flakes before long. Jonathan Payne sat alone on the front porch swing, shivering yet not wanting to go inside out of the bitter cold. He reached in his pocket and pulled out the letter he had read time and again. Henry had stuffed it in his haversack before Gettysburg. The old bag was strapped across Jonathan’s chest for over two weeks, the letter pushed to the bottom without his knowledge. He didn’t find it until the day he emptied out the haversack and that was days after he came home. He heard his brother’s voice.

Somewhere in Pennsylvania

June 15, 1863

Jonathan, my brother,

Some days I have thoughts that we might not make it back to Calhoun alive, and God miraculously delivers us out of the enemy’s hands. Some days there is hope. But then I surrender my thoughts, for some days there is the reality I may never see Cassie again and never my son, Lee. My selfishness overpowers me and I dare not give in to death and defeat. How foolish of me. My days are numbered and God knows best how to deal with the likes of me. Jonathan, on my best day, I’m not the man you are. You’re my hero, the brother most men never have the extravagance of knowing. You have always given in excess, expecting nothing in return. And I have never known a day when I didn’t love you with undying devotion. I am asking one last promise of you. In return for what you have given, take the dearest to me. Take my wife. Take my son. Love them as your own. Do for them what I cannot do. Be to them what I cannot be. Do it without guilt and without trepidation, for you are worthy of such love as they will give in return. And in so doing, I charge you to ensure their safe arrival in heaven with you, where I will meet you just inside the gate. Until that glorious day, may God Almighty see you safely home to Calhoun County and a love most splendid. Forever your faithful brother, Albert Henry Payne

Jonathan thought how life had pulled its punches. He had changed, finally learning it was permissible for real men to weep. He had never been able to read this letter without crying, and he had shared it with no one. He touched the floor of the porch with his boot, setting the swing in motion, hoping the squeak of the chains would drown out his thoughts when something more tangible happened.

Jonathan?

Oh, Cassie, you’re quiet as a little mouse. I didn’t hear you, he said, slipping the worn paper into his pocket.

I believe you were deep in thought.

Come sit with me. Jonathan patted the seat of the old creaky swing, his hand shaking.

I brought us a blanket. Choctaw, of course. Cassie draped the blanket over Jonathan and sat down beside him, leaving ample space between them. She couldn’t help noticing his face was drawn but she said nothing about it. Jonathan deserved his private moments. He always would. He fought a war that took his father and Henry. There would always be times like these. Heaven knows she had them. Every waking hour of the day, she had thoughts of a war that turned her world upside down.

They’re the best, he said, remembering his Choctaw friends when he was growing up.

Well, I’m sure this one is yours.

She watched the lines across his face begin to relax, revealing a much more handsome and peaceful Jonathan, such as he had been years ago when she first met him before the war. In those days she had avoided eye contact with him for reasons she didn’t quite understand herself. But today was different. Something was happening, daring her to be drawn to his gaze.

"I’m sure they’re all mine," Jonathan said, forcing a slight grin.

I like your scarf, she said, making small talk, as usual, not knowing exactly what to say to him but desperately wanting to without opening up old wounds.

Mother made it to replace the one I wore out on the battlefield. I like yours.

Rachel made mine, too, of course. I like mine better.

Red’s a good color for you. It looks splendid with your brown hair and blue eyes. Henry used to say ‘Cassie’s got dark brown hair the color of coffee with just a touch of sweet cream and eyes like blueberries wet from the morning dew.’ Henry was quite poetic. I don’t have that going for me.

Cassie turned her face to hide the tears, but Jonathan saw the wet drops plopping onto her cheeks. She was beautiful, and he loved her. He always had. It was time he told her, for now he could do so with no shame. He clutched his cane in one hand, pulled the scarf across her shoulder with the other, and stared at her. She gazed back noticing for the first time his eyes, once bright blue, had faded to gray. And now she couldn’t take her eyes off him.

It hurts even now, he said.

You mean the war, Jonathan?

"No. Much worse than the war. To look