Numbering all the Bones

“I was a house slave, if you want to get legal about it. But there was nothing about my condition that was legal. I slept in the house, I was educated by Mistis and hardly had any chores. And there was always the promise in the air that I would be taken care of proper-like when Mr. Lincoln’s ‘great measure’ was put into action. Mistis talked a lot about Mr. Lincoln’s ‘great measure.’ She was the master’s second wife. I was his daughter, but not by his first wife. It gets powerful mixed up, here. My mama was the cook in the kitchen before Iris.”

Eulinda describes her unique personal circumstances, introducing the identity she has due to her lineage. Her reference to nothing being “legal” reflects the fact that she is an illegitimate child who has no legal rights because she is enslaved and, having a Black mother and white father, she is legally Black. Gertrude persecutes Eulinda because she is the embodiment of her husband fathering a child with a slave. Mistis, Hampton’s second wife, teaches Eulinda to read and write and teaches her to be well-spoken, though Mistis’s efforts are always to further her own ends.

“And he hated Mistis. ‘She’s no better than his first wife, Miz Gertrude,’ he told me more than once. When I asked him how he could say such when Mistis was a Yankee and had taught him to read and write, he scoffed. ‘She doesn’t do anything unless it’s for her own good,’ he said. ‘Yankee? She’s no Yankee. She’s only down here to make money on the war. If she was for the Yankees why didn’t she let me go join the army when I asked her? I have to run. And she’ll never let you leave neither, sister of mine. You set your cap on freedom on your own. Don’t wait ‘til she gives permission, ‘cause she’s never going to give it. And don’t trust her, ever.’”

Neddy is a person of steely determination who refuses to acknowledge his name while he is a prisoner-of-war, even though it would mean he could leave the prison camp, because doing so would entail his return to slavery. The insights he shared with Eulinda are almost universally correct, demonstrating his better understanding of their relationship with their white counterparts compared to Eulinda’s confusion.

“Miz Gertrude like to jump out of her chair, seeing Mama standing there all feverish and talking to herself. I crept into the hall to watch. And there was Mama hugging Miz Gertrude and saying how sorry she was that she couldn’t work in the kitchen anymore. There Miz Gertrude was, saying, ‘Please, please, it’s all right, go back to your cabin. Let me go.’ But Mama wasn’t about to let go. She hugged Miz Gertrude, she slobbered all over her, then she turned and went by me in the hall, back to the quarters, where that night she died. Two days later Miss Gertrude came down with the cholera. In a week she was dead. And Mr. Hampton knew nothing about Mama coming into the house. And me and Iris never told him.”

Eulinda describes her mother’s clever, fatal revenge upon Gertrude for selling her son Zeke to other slave holders. Her mother’s tight embrace counters the demented abuse she received at the hands of Gertrude and provides an ironic conclusion to the woman’s life. Where she tormented Eulinda emotionally and physically, her death begins with an embrace of apology from Eulinda’s mother.

“I didn’t think I was near the prison. They must have added another part. I wondered if it was the part Roper and Homer working on, and if I’d see them. I crept down the slope. […] Tall, raw timber stuck out of the ground making a fence near twice as tall as a man. It looked like some giant bleached bones. Above it were turrets, with guards on them. Men with guns, pacing. It all mushroomed out of the Georgia land, like somebody’s nightmare come to life. […] I stood watching as the shouting guards herded the men toward the gate, which opened like the mouth of the dragon. One or two men fell on the road and the guards kicked them, cussed at them, and threatened to shoot. I was frightened and rooted to the spot all at the same time. Never had I seen white men treated so. Then I turned to go, only to be confronted by a man in a Confederate uniform, pointing a gun at me. ‘You got a pass, girl?’ he said.”

While checking rabbit traps, Eulinda is surprised to see that the Andersonville prison has expanded so closely to Pond Bluff, the plantation where she lives. She compares it to the skeleton of a giant. There is no need to guard a corpse, symbolizing the death that emanates from the eroding Confederacy. She also compares the prison to a dragon, with men being marched into its mouth. The camp symbolizes the embodiment of war, where humans are sacrificed to an inhumane beast. When Eulinda says she has never seen white men mistreated to this extent, the implied reality is that she has seen Black men similarly mistreated.

“‘Never,’ Sancho said, ‘have I seen white men brought so low. It’s bad. White people around here shouldn’t let it happen.’ ‘What do they care ‘bout Yankees?’ Iris asked. ‘Like you say, they’s fightin’ to free us.’ ‘If they be Christian, they should care about human beings so treated,’ Sancho insisted. ‘God’s gonna bring his wrath down on people who treat other humans so.’ Sancho wasn’t much on God. So when he invoked His name, everybody listened. They saw me then, and nodded. I gave Iris Mistis’s request, and she prepared the remedy, putting it in a cheesecloth. I left, feeling I’d missed something important, and wished I’d been there with them at supper.”

This discussion among the enslaved people reveals a shared awareness about the conditions at Andersonville. Eulinda perceives that the other enslaved people are reluctant to speak freely around her. They believe that Eulinda has not decided in her heart as to whether she belongs to the master’s family to the enslaved population. This builds upon Mistis’s comment to her that Eulinda needs to decide where she belongs and to decide where her true loyalties lie.

“Phineas was her brother in Atlanta. We went to Atlanta three or four times a year. I loved it there and hated it, too. I loved the house, the busyness, the shops. I hated it because Mistis treated me like a servant there. She said she had to. People came and went in her brother’s house. People were watching them. You didn’t sit a bright-yellow servant girl at your table in Atlanta unless you wanted to be accused of being a Secret Yankee. You made her sleep in the lean-to, polish Miss Annalee’s boots when that young lady visited from the Female Academy. You even slapped your bright-yellow servant girl on occasion and made sure people saw it. Especially in the street, she explained. And you slapped her good.”

This passage offers insight into the complicated relationship between Eulinda and Mistis. Without Hampton’s protection at the plantation, Eulinda is treated as an enslaved person was normally treated at the time, with Mistis’s excuse of keeping up appearances. Mistis’s behavior demonstrates her untrustworthy nature and her motives to further her own agenda.

“We smelled the prison before we saw it. At the gates we went our separate ways. The last I saw of Moll, she was running off in the rutted muddy road, after some soldiers who had just come out with carts loaded with dead. I turned to the entrance I’d first seen the day they took Otis. Three carriages were outside the gates with white folk in them. They were quality, here for a lark. The women wore spring frills, toted parasols. The men were in good broadcloth. They escorted their ladies to the guards. There were at least six Southern ladies, all giggling with excitement as the men slipped the guards some coins to let them to ascend the one parapet at this part of the prison.”

The light-heartedness of the southern socialites climbing the parapets to look at the imprisoned Union soldiers starkly contrasts the grimness of a wagon rolling out of the prison carrying bodies of dead soldiers. The lack of concern for the prison’s inner-workings and novel appeal to the community around it highlights the lack of humanity during the time period, and it illustrates the appeal of human suffering as a carnival oddity show or even a zoo.

“‘Mr. Hampton, they’ve got women in there.’ He closed his eyes. ‘Women?’ ‘Yessir. The guard said three. One just had a baby. And he said Captain Wirz is looking for a local family to board her and the baby.’ ‘Are you asking me to take in a woman and a baby?’ ‘I don’t know, Mr. Hampton. But don’t you think it’s a terrible place for them to be? ‘I certainly do.’ Mistis came up behind us, startling us both. ‘Hampton, listen to what the child is saying! It’s the perfect situation I’ve been looking for.’ ‘I wasn’t aware you were looking for a situation, dear.’ He looked down at me as if to say, I hope you’re happy now, look what you started. ‘Why, of course!’ She rushed over to him. ‘Bringing that woman home will show my cooperation with the Confederate authorities and keep the Yankees happy. You did say she’s a Yankee didn’t you Eulinda?’ ‘Yes ma’am.’ ‘And Neddy!’ She clasped me to her. ‘We’ll bring him home too.’”

Eulinda’s relationship and ease with Hampton is highlighted in their concern over the women in the prison at Andersonville and Eulinda’s ability to bring her worries to him. Mistis quickly grasps the opportunity, selfishly ingratiating herself both to the overseers of the prison and those in the North who will hear about her supposed selfless deed. Neddy remains an afterthought for Mistis, a motivation to regain the expensive ring he stole, not an individual to be cared for and rescued.

“‘I only know he told the guard that he was a freedman. Not Neddy Kellogg, that he did not know me and would not come home with me.’ ‘What did you do?’ ‘What could I do? His fellow prisoners backed him up.’ […] He turned to attend to papers on his desk. ‘I told you, didn’t I, Eulinda? I told you about your brother. He left once. He won’t come back again.’ ‘But it’s terrible there,’ I said. ‘Yes, Mr. Hampton said, ‘It is terrible there and I am shaken, to think he regards us as so bad that he won’t have commerce with us anymore. I was always good to Neddy, wasn’t I?’ His voice broke.”

Hampton, to rescue Neddy from the prison for Eulinda, demonstrates his desire to save his children, regardless of their status in society. However, his lack of understanding and cowardice against the constructs of slavery prevent his character growth as he cannot grasp how his behavior has caused pain for his son. Hampton represents his community in this manner, who chose to be oblivious and deny the atrocities happening at the prison, just as they continued to do with the institution of slavery.

“‘The master, he put everythin’ in her name. The whole plantation. And all of us. She owns everythin’ now.’ I felt a wave of shock go through me. Had I dreamed it? Sensed it? ‘Why?’ ‘Sancho says the way he heard it, it was so the ‘Federacy can’t take his property if they think he do treason.’ ‘Treason? What treason?’ She shrugged and set down the battlin’ stick. She held her hand over her belly, which was getting rounder every day. ‘All I know is we hers now. An’ she can sell us off anytime she wants.’ ‘It’s why master was crying last night,’ I said. And I told her how he had cried about Neddy. ‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘He oughta cry. He knows he done lost us all. So you better be careful Eulinda. Doan get on her wrong side. He cain’t help you no more.’”

Eulinda’s status pivotally changes in this instance, from the blurry lines of daughter and enslaved person, solely to enslaved property. Hampton’s cowardice and lack of action comes to fruition as he gives up all rights to his enslaved children. Moll’s hand, reaching to her pregnant belly, signifies that this ownership extends to her own unborn child, who is now considered property of Mistis. Eulinda’s comfortable life straddling the lines of white and enslaved society have become even more precarious with this development.

“‘You seem cast down. I’ve been watching you. I imagine that being Mr. Kellogg’s daughter is a confusing lot. You’re neither this nor that. Or are you?’ She looked at me. ‘I’m a house servant,’ I said. ‘You’re a slave. In bondage, then.’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Are you happy with things the way they are?’ I shook my head, no. ‘I used to be, when I was a child. But as I said, I’m not a child anymore.’ There was another spell of silence. Then she spoke very softly. ‘I could get you North. Would you like to go North with me?’ I stared at her.”

Eulinda’s identity comes to the forefront again, and she is quickly reminded of her station by Janie, a white woman from the prison harbored by the Kelloggs. Though Eulinda feels she is a simple house servant, Janie voices the conflict behind Eulinda’s very existence. Eulinda’s response about her emotions reveals the growth she has experienced throughout the narrative as she has come to realize the injustices she will have to live with. Still, though this reality has emerged for Eulinda, she’s unwilling to secure freedom until she identifies who she is for herself.

“In April Mr. Hampton came to the kitchen. ‘I wish you to go to the quarters and summon everyone,’ he said. ‘I have something to tell them.’ So it had come, then. A strange quiet lay over the place. Where was everybody? I felt eyes watching me. I saw a hawk circling lazily over the fields. At my feet Otis scurried around and barked at nothing. They were all in their cabins. I stood in the dirt path in the middle of the quarters and yelled, ‘Mr. Hampton said he got something important to tell us!’ They all knew what it was, of course. Hadn’t they waited for it for years? Doors opened. They stepped out cautiously, all afraid that if they didn’t behave proper-like, it would go away. ‘Come on,’ I said to them. ‘Come on right along with me. Up to the piazza. It’s the day you’ve all been waiting for.’”

Eulinda recognizes the time has built up to this point—the liberation of enslaved people in the US. The lack of people around and the lazy hawk serve to illustrate the feeling of isolation, while the eyes watching Eulinda build a sense of suspense. Eulinda’s two worlds have collided, and she stands, figuratively and literally, in the middle as she becomes the messenger for her white father to the enslaved people on the plantation. Her speech of what “you’ve all been waiting for” indicates that Eulinda herself is not quite ready for this change and what it may mean.

“‘What a confused mess. We’ll straighten it out though. All we need is time.’ Then he stuck out his hand. ‘My name is William Griffin. From Fort Valley, a bit north. I heard about this place. Had to come and see for myself if it was bad as they say.’ I shook hands with him. Never had I shaken hands with anyone before in my life! And him a Confederate officer! ‘Well is it?’ I asked. He sighed. ‘It’s worse. Makes me ashamed, is what it does. I promised myself I’d never be ashamed of what I did for the Confederacy. Sure, we got beat. But that’s nothing to be ashamed of. This is.’ We both stood looking in silence for a bit. Finally, I spoke. ‘My brother is in there.’”

Eulinda’s life has changed with emancipation, and some changes are immediate. Her response to her interaction with William reflects the new status she has as others acknowledge her as an individual over an enslaved person. Her novelty she feels as she shakes hands with a Confederate soldier illustrates this change in a physical way, while her choice to visit the prison on her own, represents her new freedom in an intangible way.

“I wanted to ask him why he was doing all this, with no authority and out of his own money. Then I supposed he was making up for things that he’d done in the war. ‘All men from the war got things I got to make up fer,’ Man-Jack told me when I spoke to him about it. ‘You doan ask. They ain’t gonna to talk ‘bout it, ever. You think if Mr. Julian comes home he gonna talk?’ ‘I’d just like to see him come home,’ I said. ‘Maybe Mr. Hampton would come back to his senses.’ ‘Some men, they ain’t never gonna come home,’ Man-Jack told me. ‘Some don’t wanna. They glad to be lost. Thas’ what I heered.’”

Eulinda’s conversation with Man-Jack highlights the issues men had in the aftermath of the war. Mr. Hampton struggles with psychological damage, while Julian may never return. Man-Jack emphasizes the ability for many soldiers to gain a new identity in the confusion of the societal reorganization after the Civil War, and the advantages—though few—that came along with their time at war.

“Clara Barton did not wear a pointed hat or a gauzy veil. She was plain as a field mouse in her dark gray dress with the white collar and her hair all bundled up behind her head. She came with forty workmen and clerks and all kinds of supplies, wood for white headboards, ink for black lettering, and Dorence Atwater, the man with the death rolls. ‘This is Mr. Atwater,’ she told us. And the tall young man with the broad shoulders and the hundred-year-old eyes gave a little bow. ‘He has lists of the dead, so we can identify their graves, and let their loved ones know where they rest.’ Clara Barton isn’t the princess, I thought, she’s the fairy godmother with the magic wand.”

Clara’s appearance reflects her personality in her no-frills dress as she immediately arrives to the prison and works to help identify the dead. Dorence’s appearance tells of his role as well, with his eyes that have seen more life and death than most. As Eulinda views these two historical figures, she likens Clara to a fairy godmother, foreshadowing Clara’s role in helping find Neddy’s body as well as providing Eulinda future employment—the two things that help her feel a sense of identity and closure.

“‘Mr. Hampton, I’m leaving.’ I had yet to pack my things, but I had few things to pack. An old rag doll I played with as a child, some books, one change of clothing. And, of course, my dog. ‘Leaving? It’s late to go to town, isn’t it?’ ‘Not to town, sir.’ ‘Oh, the prison. You have an errand there tonight?’ ‘No, Mr. Hampton, I mean I’m leaving for good. I won’t be back anymore, sir. I’m going away.’ Now he put down his papers and looked at me. When had he gotten so old, I wondered? When had his hair turned white? ‘Mr. Hampton, I wanted to tell you, so’s you’d know.’”

Through her maturity, Eulinda finally sees her father’s age in a way she hadn’t noticed before, and Hampton is no longer a figure of awe for Eulinda. She feels bitterness in that he does not use this opportunity to express his feelings for her as his daughter. Her thoughts about what she must pack still reflects her torn identity—as Hampton’s daughter, she has more possessions than the enslaved people around her, but still a lack of abundance that her father’s white children have. Hampton also confirms his place in the narrative as a stagnant character, while Eulinda’s growth carries her away from the plantation to freedom and independence.

“Dorrance Atwater had a twitch in his face, and I could see that talking about his imprisonment brought it on. ‘After I was here a while they asked me to be a clerk in the prison hospital. I was to keep a record of all the prisoners in the hospital. I was to record the names, units, and dates of those who died, cause of death and grave number. They said the list would be turned over to Union officials at the end of the war. But I did not believe them, so I kept another list. I hid my list inside my shirt or pants whenever an officer came into the office. When I returned to the stockade at night, I’d transfer the names on my list to my ledger book. Then I’d wrap my ledger in waterproof cloth and hide it in my shebang. They never found it.’”

Atwater reveals that spiriting the death list out of the prison was only the first part of the difficulty in maintaining the list of the dead. Releasing it to the public, so families would know of the death of their loved ones, became an uphill battle as Atwater struggled to fight the government that tried to contain the number of deaths wrought by the war. Atwater’s presence serves as a reminder that the government played a large part in keeping the atrocities of the Civil War hidden.

“‘That’s a long spell to be here,’ he said, ‘and Negro troops weren’t treated well at all. They had a white commander who was wounded. His name was Boyle, I think. Yes, Archibald Boyle. When he got here he was near death from his wounds. The doctor refused to treat him. The Negro soldiers did, with makeshift remedies.’ ‘Did he live?’ ‘Yes. Miss Barton tells me he’s going to testify at the trial of Henry Wirz, which begins next month. But he was always sickly when he was here, always sneaking into the hospital for treatment and being thrown out. Just because he commanded Negro troops.’”

The prejudice expressed against white officers who commanded Black Union soldiers during the war illustrates how deep the racism ran during the Civil War era. This bias extended even to men who were wounded and to sick prisoners near death. The lack of care and depth of consequences for these individuals, who were Black and those who worked with the Black community, demonstrated the depth of fear in the white community for retribution after the war ended.

“In the next week the white headboards bloomed in the earth like flowers. On moonlit nights you could see them up there in the cemetery, a whiteness against the surrounding dark, like the lost souls whose places they marked forever. In the daytime the vast graveyard was now neat and orderly. Miss Barton had brought some flower seeds and planted them about. They would bloom, in full, next summer, when none of us would be here, when we would all be gone our separate ways. Under the hot summer sun we settled into a set pattern. Not a day went by that I didn’t write a letter, Miss Barton saying the words, to help someone who was working for us. We wrote letters seeking lost relatives almost daily. Every one of the workers had someone missing, it seemed.”

Eulinda’s description of the cemetery provides both closure for those who lost their lives within the prison walls, as well as for Eulinda herself as she has located her brother’s remains and begun gainful employment under Clara. Eulinda’s ability to write puts her in the position of creating letters of inquiry for families who were searching for missing servicemen, providing her with a sense of purpose.

“One old gray-headed man stood up. ‘The reason why we come, Miss Clara, ‘sides to meet you, is to ask, is Mr. Lincoln really dead, like we’ve been tol’?’ ‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘White folks where we all comes from said that if’n he be dead we be slaves agin. We be thinkin’ he not dead and white folks tellin’ us this as a hoax, to get us to be slaves agin. If you tell us he dead, but we still free, we believe it.’ Miss Barton looked into a sea of at least twenty-five faces. ‘Mr. Lincoln is dead,’ she told him quietly. ‘It was a terrible tragedy. He was shot. I saw him dead. But you are still free. You will always be free, and don’t believe anyone who tells you otherwise.’”

The group of former enslaved people who approach Clara represent the disinformation that was spread after the Civil War, regarding whether enslaved people were to retain their freedoms. That Clara is seen as a reliable source speaks to her trustworthiness, and Lincoln’s death represents a loss of hope for enslaved people. Clara’s indignation boosts the sense of hope that carries through the narrative for both Eulinda and the formerly enslaved people.

“‘Now I wish to tell you,’ Miss Barton said, ‘that according to these orders written by General Wilson, he advises you to remain on the estates of your former masters until Christmas, to gather in the crops you planted and await further arrangements by the Federal government. Also in these papers he orders the whites to give you a share of the crops as wages if they do not have the proper currency. Under no conditions are you to work for nothing, and if you have any further trouble, go to the provost marshal’s office in Andersonville.” There was great deal of jubilation. The Negroes crowded around, thanking Miss Barton. By the afternoon of that day, they were gone back to their old plantations.”

Clara’s reading of the formerly enslaved peoples’ rights and advisement from the government reflects the imbalances still very much at play as they navigate a new world of freedoms. Unable to read because of their oppression, they must rely on Clara to provide them with information about their status. Clara’s deliverance of instructions to return to their former plantations foreshadows the problematic “solution” of sharecropping that former enslaved people were forced to endure after emancipation.

“‘A ring? Why, Miss Kellogg, how could you?’ Miss Barton said sweetly. ‘Eulinda has been my hardest worker and so good to everyone in trouble. I’m afraid you did not appreciate her when you had her around. You have no idea of the nature of the work we are all doing at the prison. How can you concern yourself with a ring? I tell you now, that if you do not leave this dear child in peace, I will exert every degree of power I have, and believe me, it is considerable, to have your true activities during the war brought to light.’ I heard Mistis gasp. ‘You see, I know you passed yourself off in Atlanta as a Secret Yankee in the war to make money. And a loyal Confederate here. Would you like that bandied about?’”

Much of the narrative comes to a head as Clara intervenes on behalf of Eulinda, warning her to leave her Eulinda alone. Clara’s confrontation effectively ends the conflict between Mistis and Eulinda, as Clara, a fellow white woman to Mistis, threatens Mistis’s security in a way Eulinda cannot. Clara represents the use of her privilege for the betterment of others, where Mistis foils her as a toxic, racist white woman with only her own gain as her priority.

“The next day, when Miss Barton was about to raise the colors over the cemetery, she turned to face the crowd. ‘I need a Negro worker to accompany me because of the work you all did here,’ she said. ‘Come, Eulinda, for you have a brother buried on the hill. And another sold off in the time of slavery.’ I felt a sense of peace. [...] I have made myself come true, I thought, as the flag went up the pole. Here, in this place. I have shed my old life and taken on a new one. And helped others to do so.”

Clara’s request that Eulinda joins her in raising the flag symbolizes the new era to come, as the white community joins with the formerly enslaved communities to create a new social order. Clara and Eulinda represent this union through their work in the cemetery and Eulinda’s purpose she has found through her work with Clara allows her to feel that she has finally found herself.