Introduction

In the aftermath of the Civil War, Josephine vows to rebuild her family's once-grand plantation. But in the face of such destruction, is redemption possible?

Editorial Review

No editorial review at this time.

Excerpt

Chapter One

April 3, 1865

Josephine Weatherly thought she’d already lived through the darkest hour of this endless war, but she had been wrong. Now all hope was truly gone. She huddled with her sister by the upstairs window in her aunt’s home, watching smoke churn into the sky above Richmond, Virginia, like thunderheads. How could the city where she and her family had taken refuge descend into such terror and anarchy? President Davis and the Confederate government were fleeing. Hungry mobs were looting downtown. The enemy invasion everyone had long feared was about to begin.

“Shouldn’t we leave, too?” her sister, Mary, asked. “Everyone else is.” All day they’d watched streams of refugees fleeing Richmond, along with the Confederate government officials, their wagons and carts and wheelbarrows piled high with household goods.

“Where would we go?” Josephine said with a shrug. Hunger made her listless. She couldn’t tear her gaze from the view of the city, barely visible beyond the distant treetops.

“I-I don’t know,” Mary stammered, “but . . . I mean . . . shouldn’t we follow all the others? The Yankees are coming! Someone must know a safe place where we can hide.”

No place is safe, Josephine wanted to say, but she held her tongue when she saw the fear in her sister’s eyes. Sixteen year-old Mary had gnawed her fingernails and the flesh around them until her fingertips were raw. “Stop doing that,” Josephine said, pulling Mary’s hand away from her mouth.

“I’m sorry . . . I can’t help it! I’m so scared!” Mary laid her head on Jo’s shoulder and wept.

“I know, I know. But we’ll be all right. We’re safe here.” Josephine was lying, and God hated liars, but what difference did it make?

For all of her twenty-two years, Jo had tried to be good and to do what the Bible said, but God hadn’t paid her any notice. Nor had He answered a single one of her prayers during these unending years of war. She had asked Him to protect her two brothers as they’d marched off to battle, but Samuel had been killed, and no one had heard from Daniel in weeks. She had begged God to watch over Daddy after the Home Guard drafted him for duty, but he’d died of pneumonia last winter. Josephine had pleaded with the Almighty to watch over her and Mary and their mother, three women left all alone on their sprawling plantation, outnumbered by slaves. In reply, He’d sent a flood of Yankees into the countryside, forcing her family to flee here to Richmond for safety. She didn’t know if she would ever see White Oak Plantation again.

In the months since they’d lived here with Aunt Olivia, crowded in with other refugee relatives, Josephine had fervently prayed for their daily bread and deliverance from evil, but famine and fear had moved into this house on Church Hill along with them. Dawn never arrived; the long nightmare refused to end. And so Josephine had decided in church yesterday morning that prayer was a waste of time. The Almighty would do whatever He wanted, heedless of her pleas. She wouldn’t ask for protection from the fire or the spreading chaos or the Yankee invasion. A person who had the chair yanked out from beneath her countless times no longer tried to sit down.

“Aren’t you afraid, Jo?” Mary asked.

“No.” She felt wrung of all emotion, including fear. One way or another, by death or deliverance, the uncertainty and sorrow would finally end. Jo no longer cared about the outcome. She simply wished it would come soon.

She heard footsteps and turned to see her mother, Eugenia, standing in the bedroom doorway. Mary saw her, too, and ran into her arms. “Is there any more news?” Mary asked. Josephine dreaded her mother’s answer.

“The colonel was kind enough to stop by before leaving to tell us what’s going on. He said not to worry, that the smoke is from bonfires outside the capitol building. The government is packing their most important documents and burning the rest. They’ll probably burn the tobacco and cotton that’s stored in the city warehouses, too, rather than let the Yankees profit from them.”

Jo studied her mother’s beautiful face, usually so calm and serene, and knew by the crease between her dark brows that there was more bad news. “What else did the colonel say? Are the mobs still looting all the businesses?”

Mother hesitated, then said, “Yes. He warned us to stay away from the commercial district, and so . . . I don’t want to alarm you, girls, but I think we’d better pack, just in case.”

“Are we leaving with everyone else?” Mary asked.

“Not yet,” Mother said, stroking Mary’s dark hair. Josephine remembered the soothing gesture from when she was a child, sitting on her mother’s lap, secure in the comfort of her arms. But she was too old to run to Mother now, and her grief was beyond soothing. Besides, Mother had a wellspring of grief all her own. “We’ll wait here a little longer,” Mother said, “but I think we should be ready to leave if we have to.”

“Are we taking everything?” Jo asked. She surveyed the trunks and crates of belongings stacked in their tiny bedroom. War had stripped their lives bare the way wind and frost strips leaves from a tree, until their once-flourishing life had been whittled down to a single room.

“We’ll pack only what we truly need, this time,” Mother said. “And only what we can carry. We’ll leave the rest to God’s will.”

Jo wondered if these last few possessions would survive or if God would take them, too. She and Mother had clung to these reminders of their old life ever since the day a Confederate captain and his handful of men had ridden to their plantation, fifteen miles from Richmond, to warn of the advancing enemy.

“It isn’t safe to stay here any longer, ma’am,” he’d told them. He’d removed his hat out of respect, but he hadn’t dismounted. The horse snorted impatiently, fogging the chilly air with its breath.

To Jo, another loss had seemed unimaginable, coming a mere month after Daddy’s death. “But we can’t leave our home!” Jo had blurted out. “It’s all we have!”

Mother had stood proud and strong as she’d absorbed the news. Her inner strength seemed to be made from the same glue that held the universe together and kept the stars in place. She reached for Jo’s hand and squeezed it. “What will happen if we decide to stay here?” Mother had asked the captain.

“The enemy could be here within a day, ma’am, so I strongly advise you to leave. The Yankees are savages with no code of decency or chivalry.” He glanced around at the family’s slaves who had stopped work to listen and added, “Besides, there’s no telling what your Negroes will do once the Yankees get them all stirred up, promising freedom and all.”

Jo’s breath seemed to freeze in her lungs as she waited in the icy air to hear what Mother would do. The captain’s horse fidgeted and pulled at the reins as if eager to gallop. “We’ll have soldiers patrolling the roads into Richmond for as long as possible, ma’am. They’ll watch over you all the way. But we can’t guarantee your safety once we pull back.”

“Thank you, Captain.” Mother smiled, still the poised and lovely matron of White Oak Plantation. “Good day and good luck to you and your men.” She then went inside and closed the door. For the rest of the morning she had calmly issued orders as Ida May and Lizzie and the other house slaves had packed up the household, loading bedding and clothing, a few pieces of furniture, and trunkfuls of valuables into the carriage. Otis harnessed their only horse to the overburdened carriage and drove them to Aunt Olivia’s house in Richmond, leaving the remaining slaves alone on the plantation.

The city had been swollen with refugees and pulsing with fear. It bore little resemblance to the Richmond Josephine had visited before the war, but it had provided safety and shelter for the past few months. But no longer.

She turned away from the window and looked around the jumbled room. What should she pack? The things that once seemed so important to her—her brush and mirror set with the ivory handles, her diary, her grandmother’s opal necklace—hardly mattered anymore. These were treasures for another time and place, unnecessary weights in a struggle for survival. She had brought several dresses with her to Richmond, but the only one she needed now was the green muslin one with their gold coins sewed into its seams. She unbuttoned her bodice and changed into that dress. Her mother and sister were changing, as well.

Josephine packed some essential toiletries in a canvas bag, then decided to add the photograph of her father, Philip Weatherly. It seemed like the very last token of the life she’d once known, and she feared losing the memory of his handsome face just as she’d lost everything else. When she finished, Josephine carried her bag downstairs and sat down in the parlor with the rest of her family to wait. Aunt Olivia and her three daughters had also packed their bags, but Great-Aunt Hattie refused to pack a single thing. “I came into this world with nothing,” she insisted, “and I expect that I’ll leave it the same way.”

The sun had set, shrouded behind the smoke-filled sky by the time they were all ready. The parlor grew dark and cold. Aunt Olivia made sure everyone had a quilt to huddle beneath. Fuel had become very scarce, and they needed to conserve every stick of firewood for cooking. They had long since run out of lamp oil, but Aunt Hattie produced a tallow candle she had been saving “for such a time as this,” and opened her Bible to read aloud to all of them: “‘God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear . . .’”

Josephine stopped listening. The others may find the Scriptures soothing—and Aunt Hattie certainly had enough faith to move a mountain all by herself—but Jo didn’t. She considered the Bible nothing but fairy tales. She closed her eyes, wishing that God would end their lives quickly, if that’s what He had determined to do. As the evening dragged on and on, she began to doze.

A loud banging on the front door awakened her. Aunt Olivia went to answer the door herself, having sent all of her slaves to their own quarters behind the house for the night. Without a word, Josephine rose and followed her aunt. Their next-door neighbor stood on the front step, nervously twirling his hat in his hand.

“Won’t you come in?” Aunt Olivia asked, as if she was having a dinner party and he’d arrived a few minutes late. He shook his head.

“I saw the candle through your window and wanted to make sure everyone was all right. I see you decided to stay?”

“Yes. My sister Eugenia and I decided that we were better off here at home than out on the road somewhere in the middle of the night. Besides, we have no place to go. This is my home. I’ll stay here and defend it the best I can and take my chances with the Yankees, if they come.”

“Oh, they’re surely coming,” he said. “But they’re not our biggest problem. I just walked down to the center of Richmond and . . .” He glanced at Josephine with a worried look before continuing in a softer voice, as if hoping she wouldn’t hear him. “You need to stay inside with your doors locked. There’s no law and order in Richmond tonight, and the looting is out of control. These aren’t the Yankees, mind you, but our own citizens.”

“Do you think the violence will spread up here to Church Hill?”

“No one knows what might happen, Mrs. Greeley. And that’s not all . . .” He glanced at Josephine again, and she knew he didn’t want to say more in front of her.

“Go ahead,” Josephine said. “You won’t frighten me.” But when he spoke, his voice was softer still.

“The guards at the state penitentiary have abandoned their posts. All the prisoners are on the loose.”

“Oh, Lord, help us,” Aunt Olivia breathed.

“I’m going to let all of our slaves sleep inside our house tonight. Strength in numbers, you see.”

“Thank you for telling me. I believe I’ll do the same.” Aunt Olivia closed and locked the door again, then went out to the slave yard to order them inside. Jo heard the slaves stirring in the basement kitchen below her a few minutes later.

“You’re not letting the slaves come into the parlor with us, are you?” Aunt Hattie asked when Olivia returned with the news.

“Certainly not. I told them to stay down in the kitchen and to make sure they bolted the back door.”

Mother reached into the satchel she had packed and retrieved a small leather-covered box Josephine had seen in her father’s desk drawer. Aunt Olivia looked horrified when Mother opened the box and pulled out a pistol.

“Eugenia! Is that thing loaded?”

“Yes, it is,” Mother replied, calmly inspecting it.

“Do you know how to use it?”

“Of course. And I will, if I have to. I suggest you get the pistol your husband left you, as well.”

“But I . . . I really don’t think I could . . .”

“You don’t need to shoot it, Olivia. Merely pointing it at someone acts as a deterrent.”

Olivia went into her husband’s study and fetched the pistol and ammunition. “Here, Eugenia. You’ll have to load it for me.” Mother’s hands were steady as she loaded it. The two women sat with the pistols in their laps as Aunt Hattie resumed her Scripture reading in the flickering candlelight.

“‘Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid . . .’”

“We’re going to lose the war, aren’t we?” Josephine said as Hattie paused between Psalms. Everyone stared at her in the darkness. “General Lee’s army is leaving, and the Yankees are going to conquer Richmond. The war is over, and we’ve lost.”

“We’ve had setbacks before,” Mother replied. “But our cause is just. Virginia joined the Union voluntarily, and we have every right to leave it. Right is on our side.”

“But can’t we be right and still lose?” Josephine asked. No one replied. “Do you think God is punishing us?”

“No! What for?” Mother said. “All we asked for was to live in peace the way we always have. The enemy is trying to conquer us and force us to change, but I’ve been to Philadelphia and I’ve seen the way they live up north—and believe me, it is very much inferior to our way of life.”

“How are they different?” Josephine asked. “I know they don’t own slaves but—”

“All they think about is money. They may criticize us for the way we treat our slaves, but they treat immigrants much worse. At least we provide food and shelter for our workers. No one up north cares if those poor foreigners starve to death in the streets. The North has none of the graciousness of our way of life and they worship the almighty dollar. The most important things to us are our families and our land and our traditions.”

“But if we lose the war—” Josephine began.

“Win or lose,” Aunt Hattie interrupted, “we must learn to pray as Jesus did in His darkest hour: ‘Nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.’”

“If the war does end, at least the killing will end,” Aunt Olivia murmured. “We’ve lost so many loved ones already.” Her pistol lay limp in her lap; Mother gripped the handle of hers in her fist.

“If General Lee is forced to surrender,” Mother said, “it will only be because they outnumbered us, not because they outfought us.”

“I just wish we knew what was going to happen next,” Aunt Olivia said, “and when all this will end.”

“I wish we didn’t have to be afraid all the time,” Mary added. She was chewing her fingernails again. Josephine reached to take her sister’s hand and hold it in hers. A moment later, Aunt Hattie snuffed out the candle, plunging the room into darkness. One of Josephine’s cousins began to cry.

“Think of how dark it must have seemed to Jesus’s disciples after Calvary,” Hattie said. “Their Messiah was dead. All hope was gone. But then resurrection came on Easter Sunday, not just for Christ but for all of us. The Almighty has kept us safe throughout this day, and we can trust Him for tomorrow.”

What if tomorrow is even worse? Josephine wanted to ask, but she kept her thoughts to herself. Aunt Hattie began singing hymns, but Jo didn’t join in. This seemed like the longest night of her life as she sat waiting for the dawn. Exhausted, Josephine finally leaned against her sister and began to doze.

An enormous explosion jolted her awake. The blast shook the entire house and rattled the windowpanes. Mary leaped from the sofa and into Mother’s arms, Josephine’s cousins sobbed and wailed, and slaves screamed in the kitchen below.

“The Yankees are shelling us!” Aunt Olivia said. “Their gunboats must have made it up the James River.”

Another explosion followed, louder than the first. Josephine ran to the window and parted the curtains. The sun hadn’t risen yet, but the entire sky glowed with an eerie, unnatural light.

More blasts followed, one after the other like a hundred cannons firing, until the whole earth seemed to reverberate. Josephine raced upstairs to peer out the window that had the best view of the city and saw molten flames leaping into the sky beneath clouds of thick, dark smoke. This wasn’t a bonfire like yesterday. The city was burning. She stumbled downstairs again to tell the others. “It-it looks like the whole city is on fire.” Everyone stared at her, mute with shock.

Aunt Hattie spoke first. “It says in Scripture that at the end of the age ‘the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and all the elements shall melt with fervent heat.’”

Stop it! Jo wanted to scream. Just stop it! You said that tomorrow would be better, but it isn’t! Her sister and cousins couldn’t stop crying, and it seemed to Jo that the end of the world had truly come. There was nothing to do but wait for it. Aunt Hattie tried to gather everyone together to pray, but Jo wanted no part in it. “I’ll go watch in case the fire spreads this way,” she said. She climbed the stairs again, alone.

Josephine had no idea how much time passed, but eventually the sun rose and the sky began to grow lighter. She could glimpse a small stretch of Franklin Street between the houses and trees and saw a moving wall of dark blue marching down the hill toward the center of town, toward the flames. Wagon wheels and marching feet rumbled like distant thunder. The enemy had arrived.

If God was good, and if He loved Josephine and her family, how could this have happened? She had prayed! They all had. She covered her face and wept, not for her lost nation but for her lost faith.

Another hour or more passed, and the view grew dim behind a haze of smoke. Josephine dried her tears and went downstairs to rejoin the others just as their neighbor arrived at the door again. This time Aunt Olivia led him inside so everyone could hear his news.

“The Yankees are here,” he said quietly. “Richmond has surrendered. The explosions we heard before dawn were our own gunboats, the Virginia, the Beaufort, and the Richmond. We blew them to smithereens in the harbor so the Yankees wouldn’t get them.”

“It looks like the city is on fire,” Josephine said.

“Yes, the commercial district is ablaze, and our fire and police forces are nowhere to be seen. But the Yankees are working hard to quench the flames. Church Hill should be safe.”

“How could this happen?” Aunt Olivia asked. No one replied.

“Well, at least the worst is over,” Aunt Hattie said. She was the only one who hadn’t been weeping. “From now on, we’ll face whatever we must with faith in God.”

Jo didn’t want to hear it. She returned to her bedroom, her faith in God as shattered as the Confederate gunboats. Why pray when God wasn’t listening? Besides, her only prayer would be that the Confederate Army would surrender and the war would end—and her family would call her a traitor if she said that out loud. But why keep fighting? Why prolong this nightmare?

Josephine opened her diary, then closed it again. It recorded her past, but there was nothing left of her old life. Everything she’d learned during the past twenty-two years would have to be revised. Not simply cleaned up and pruned the way the slaves back home trimmed the bushes and cut the weeds, but dug up and yanked out by the roots so that something altogether new could be planted in its place.

Jo still believed in God; only a fool could deny the existence of a Creator. But she no longer believed in prayer or in a God who cared about her suffering. It was time to bury her childish faith in a God who was her loving Father, watching over her, doing what was best for her.

As far as she was concerned, He was as distant and unreachable as her own beloved father. view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

1) At the beginning of the novel, what does each woman, Josephine, Eugenia and Lizzie, want most now that the war has ended? Did get what they’d hoped for?

2) In what ways did each woman change throughout the course of the book? What particular events brought about these changes? Which woman changed the most?

3) What does the novel say about the effects of war on people’s lives? How did the war change Alexander Chandler, Daniel Weatherly, and Harrison Blake?

4) Which character in the book had the strongest faith? How did he/she develop that faith? How was it tested?

5) Why do you think Harrison helped Josephine to rescue Lizzie’s children?

6) Do you think Daniel will keep the agreement he made with Alexander Chandler at the end of the story? Why or why not?

7) What were some of the ways that the chaos and lawlessness of the Reconstruction era were shown in this novel?

8) If you could write a sequel to “All Things New,” what do you think will happen to Josephine and Alexander? To Lizzie and Otis and their children? To Eugenia—and Doctor Hunter?

Weblinks

»	Publisher's Book Info
»	Author Lynn Austin's book club

Book Club Recommendations

Recommended to book clubs by 2 of 2 members.

Member Reviews

Rate this book