since I was last in New Orleans.”
“Touché.” Far from looking irritated, Fein seemed delighted by her banter. He dodged a moving cart of newspapers. “Eight dollars? It’s piracy. Wartime profiteering.”
“I could check the other papers, see who’s hiring.”
“Hah. I’d sell my business to Abe Lincoln himself before I’d see your byline pop up on the Picayune . Very well, Miss Breaux. Eight dollars a week, all expenses approved in advance.”
“Good.” She shook his hand.
“Now I’d better get back there and knock heads, make sure not a word of this is breathed on the street until your first story comes off the press. Then I’m going to personally deliver a copy to those lying, illiterate fools at the Picayune . I can’t wait to see the look on Ludd’s face when he sees who I’ve snagged. You’ve got what you need? Deadline is midnight tomorrow. I had a steamer arranged to drop off Delaney and another to pick him up tomorrow—you can take his place.”
“What kind of writing do you want? Straight facts or something more embellished?”
“Gimme real rabble-rousing, the kind of press that makes old ladies trade their silver for worthless bonds, and sends Quaker ministers running to the nearest recruiter. You weren’t just a spy, you can actually write?”
“What kind of question is that?”
“The most important question of all.”
“When your friend Ludd reads my piece, he’ll fold up his rag and surrender his press to his creditors.”
Fein grinned. “I like you, Breaux. You’ll go far on this paper.” He pumped her hand again. “Now get downriver and cover that hanging. I want to see every drop of sweat on the scoundrel’s forehead when he swings.”
S he traveled on an outgoing side-wheel blockade-runner carrying bales of cotton. They huffed downriver seventy miles, reaching the forts by afternoon. Fort St. Philip appeared first, on the east bank. It stretched along the waterfront, made of stone and brick, the walls covered in sod. She’d spotted it when passing with the runner but now paid it closer attention. It bristled with at least three dozen guns that she could count. Men watched from the walls beneath a Confederate battle flag, which hung limp in the still, humid air.
The half mile of river between St. Philip and the larger fort downriver was filled with dozens of boats: flatboats drifting in the current, keelboats closer to the bank, poling their way laboriously upriver, and a pair of steamboats whose side-wheels left a distinctive hatched wake trailing behind them. But there were no gunboats of any kind. No fire rafts to come roaring with the current to burn enemy ships to the waterline. And no chain barricade to block the river. A strong Union fleet could have steamed right up from the delta and passed them on its way toward New Orleans.
The boatmen put her to shore at the docks upriver from the second of the two forts. This was Fort Jackson, set roughly a hundred yards back from the levee. It had stone bastions radiating outward to provide the widest possible angles for its cannons, which jutted like dark snouts from the casemates.
Josephine took in the defensive posture of the fort as she approached on foot, and was unimpressed. Even from a distance she could see that the cannons were small and old, which meant they were likely smoothbore and not rifled. They’d be no match for Union gunboats. The earthworks were partially eroded by time and the elements, and the embrasures and parapets had extensive unrepaired damage. Josephine had personally toured the fortifications being built in northern Virginia and in and around Washington, and what she saw here was inferior. It brought to mind the unprepared state of national defense in the days before the war began.
She followed an oxcart through the marshy land surrounding the fort and, as the road passed through a thicket of swamp grass, came upon a team of slaves digging a defensive moat beneath the watchful eye
“Touché.” Far from looking irritated, Fein seemed delighted by her banter. He dodged a moving cart of newspapers. “Eight dollars? It’s piracy. Wartime profiteering.”
“I could check the other papers, see who’s hiring.”
“Hah. I’d sell my business to Abe Lincoln himself before I’d see your byline pop up on the Picayune . Very well, Miss Breaux. Eight dollars a week, all expenses approved in advance.”
“Good.” She shook his hand.
“Now I’d better get back there and knock heads, make sure not a word of this is breathed on the street until your first story comes off the press. Then I’m going to personally deliver a copy to those lying, illiterate fools at the Picayune . I can’t wait to see the look on Ludd’s face when he sees who I’ve snagged. You’ve got what you need? Deadline is midnight tomorrow. I had a steamer arranged to drop off Delaney and another to pick him up tomorrow—you can take his place.”
“What kind of writing do you want? Straight facts or something more embellished?”
“Gimme real rabble-rousing, the kind of press that makes old ladies trade their silver for worthless bonds, and sends Quaker ministers running to the nearest recruiter. You weren’t just a spy, you can actually write?”
“What kind of question is that?”
“The most important question of all.”
“When your friend Ludd reads my piece, he’ll fold up his rag and surrender his press to his creditors.”
Fein grinned. “I like you, Breaux. You’ll go far on this paper.” He pumped her hand again. “Now get downriver and cover that hanging. I want to see every drop of sweat on the scoundrel’s forehead when he swings.”
S he traveled on an outgoing side-wheel blockade-runner carrying bales of cotton. They huffed downriver seventy miles, reaching the forts by afternoon. Fort St. Philip appeared first, on the east bank. It stretched along the waterfront, made of stone and brick, the walls covered in sod. She’d spotted it when passing with the runner but now paid it closer attention. It bristled with at least three dozen guns that she could count. Men watched from the walls beneath a Confederate battle flag, which hung limp in the still, humid air.
The half mile of river between St. Philip and the larger fort downriver was filled with dozens of boats: flatboats drifting in the current, keelboats closer to the bank, poling their way laboriously upriver, and a pair of steamboats whose side-wheels left a distinctive hatched wake trailing behind them. But there were no gunboats of any kind. No fire rafts to come roaring with the current to burn enemy ships to the waterline. And no chain barricade to block the river. A strong Union fleet could have steamed right up from the delta and passed them on its way toward New Orleans.
The boatmen put her to shore at the docks upriver from the second of the two forts. This was Fort Jackson, set roughly a hundred yards back from the levee. It had stone bastions radiating outward to provide the widest possible angles for its cannons, which jutted like dark snouts from the casemates.
Josephine took in the defensive posture of the fort as she approached on foot, and was unimpressed. Even from a distance she could see that the cannons were small and old, which meant they were likely smoothbore and not rifled. They’d be no match for Union gunboats. The earthworks were partially eroded by time and the elements, and the embrasures and parapets had extensive unrepaired damage. Josephine had personally toured the fortifications being built in northern Virginia and in and around Washington, and what she saw here was inferior. It brought to mind the unprepared state of national defense in the days before the war began.
She followed an oxcart through the marshy land surrounding the fort and, as the road passed through a thicket of swamp grass, came upon a team of slaves digging a defensive moat beneath the watchful eye
Similar Books
