My room consists of a bed and a fireplace, and a chamber pitcher and basin for washing. I am unlike my brethren, in that I bathe at least once a week in the communal tub on the first floor near the kitchen. One gets used to the smell, however. In France, we smelled of flowers, sweat and leather. Here, we smell of strange and extraordinary scents.
The fireplace is small enough to heat just what is in front of it, which does not include the bed. I wash myself at the chamber pot before stripping to nothing and going into bed. It is July, and summer, and I could open the windows to welcome the night air, but not the night sounds of men and cats carousing.
I awaken at sunrise, as I am wont to do. I go down the hall to perform libations, and meet another tenant on the way back. He looks grim and angry, so I do not greet him. Nine o’clock is three hours away, so I go to the restaurant in the Spotswood. I am tempted to move my room here, because it has been recently renovated and under new management. I have not had trouble at my rooms thus far, except for some theft of money which I left behind and the negroes took, and I was compensated by the management. However, Spotswood is well known to be a home of ill-repute, with half of the women being lightskirts.
At 8:30 o’clock, I travel to the Dispatch. There is no celebration in the street. The boys are passing out the penny paper. I am not able to see it until I get to the news room. The Battle at Manassas is on page 2 and 3. My information is on page 4, just before the ads, and is one paragraph long.
Disgusted, I set the paper aside. War, war, war – that is all we are talking about now. No one cares about the society anymore, or the newest debutantes. This brings fear to me – what if they make me a war correspondent?
I, and two other reporters, are called into Crenshaw’s office for the meeting this morning. Three of the other reporters are in the field as war correspondents and will return tonight with their reports.
Crenshaw looks the three of us over as I shut the door. “Ruffin, go and replace Durham at Beuregard’s army.”
“Now?” I ask. My plan was to attend to the court of Jefferson Davis and ask him about the truce he offered to Mr. Lincoln.
Crenshaw glares at me. “Yes, now.”
My worst fears are realized. I will be a war correspondent.
“What of the Grand Ball this week?”
“You will just have to miss it.”
I am not happy at this.
“Nobody cares anymore, Ruffin.”
“Of course they do! If you would stop reporting about the war and the war and the war, people would care! They want to know that the rest of Richmond is still continuing even without the war, that its society is still in full bloom! Look!” I grab the paper on his desk, flipit over to the last page and point out the education ads. “We are still advertising for finishing schools.”
“I think you’re afraid.”
I gasp at the air. I am afraid, but not of death, for I cannot die. I am not afraid of the war. I am afraid of being known. “How – how dare you accuse me of cowardice!” My indignation is true.
“Then you’ll go relieve Durham and have him come back here to his wife and child before he gets himself killed.”
I know Durham. He doesn’t get himself killed unless he truly means to do it.
“Do you understand?”
I grumble and throw open the door. At a desk, I pick up a notebook and some pencils and go to secure a horse from the paper’s stable.
As I ride to Manassas, I see people moving south – wagons and men and women walking with their slaves, and wounded men. Many wounded men.