I relocated from Philadelphia to Richmond Virginia in January of 1991, with the intention of painting Civil War battlefields which then—as now—were under threat from real-estate development and the edge-city big-box commerce. The subject seems to me a piquant metaphor for how the American landscape has always been a quarrel between civic responsibility and property-rights; economic priorities versus environmental sustainability. Suddenly with our nation divided again, all that work I did almost thirty years ago seems more apt than ever.
Under the present quarantine, I have reconfigured my 1990-1994 journals to unpack my travels and artworks into a prose narrative. After two months of work, I am a bit astonished to behold a three-hundred-page first draft for a memoir of the American landscape. One of the durable friendships I formed was with noted Virginia artist Willie Anne Wright; a painter whose path had led her from the easel into photography. When I first met Willie Anne she was traveling to reenactments to make pinhole photographs of the participants. Other photographers had figured out wet-plate processes, catering to the hobby by producing 19th-century style tintypes and ambrotypes. The pinhole camera made more sense because of its mobility, and compatibility with readily-available film-stock. Period photographers were encumbered with complicated tentage, dangerous chemicals and persnickety clients. On July 1, I had driven the route of J.E.B. Stuart’s cavalry circumvallation around McClellan’s Army of the Potomac with local author Ben Carlos “Chuck” Cleary. One of the stops we made was at the grave of William D. Latané, the only fatality on Stuart’s ride. Nether the death of an obscure cavalry-officer, nor his unorthodox burial seemed worthy of legend.
As reports of how Latane had perished in equestrian single combat like a chivalric knight of old, an epic poem was composed in his honor. The poem inspired a painting, which was reproduced in engravings that hung in Southern parlors as patriotic icons—celebrating both a martyr to The Lost Cause, and the forbearance of women on the home-front. Latané’s grave seemed like a perfect subject for Willie Anne, who had shifted her focus from reenactors to historic sites, years before Sally Mann took aim at Civil War battlefields. And so, the story unfolds.
“With a shout and a roar, the leading squadron, that of Capt. William Latané, dashed forward and threw itself squarely against the Federals. For a few minutes, there was a mad melee, sword against pistol; then the Federals made off. A brief second stand, a short distance to the rear, ended in the same manner. When the clash was over, Captain Latane was dead, pierced by five bullets. The Federal Captain who had met him in combat was said to have been wounded badly by a blow from Latane’s saber.” –Douglas Southall Freeman–Lee’s Lieutenants. Chapter XX
Satuday. July 26, 1992 had been beastly hot. This was most unfortunate because the program for the day was to demonstrate the back-breaking task of making fascines. Arriving early in the morning, we cut vines and briars alongside the dump behind the National Park Service utility shed at Fort Harrison/Burnham. Despite wearing heavy knee-boots to defy the fangs of lurking copperheads, I took a few hits from from angry yellow-jackets. The park ranger overseeing this frolic declared that my tormentors must have been confederate hornets. Piling our heaps of vines, briars, and brush into the back of a government pickup truck, he headed down the road to Fort Brady, dumped out tangled cargo, and made camp.
Fort Brady is part of a daisy-chain of interpretive units in Henrico County, administered by the Richmond National Battlefield Park. The earthen gun-battery and bombproof had been constructed in October, 1864 to prevent the escape of Confederate naval vessels bottled up at Rockett’s Landing in Richmond. Commanding a stretch of the river known as Trent’s Reach, Fort Brady’s Parrott Rifles and 15-inch Rodman guns outgunned rebel Columbiads posted atop a high bluff on the opposite shore known to the locals as Mill Rock. In 1862, Robert E. Lee hatched a crackpot scheme to pack the bluff with explosives. Enemy gunboats would be lured upriver, followed by a blast that would cast debris into the narrow channel, blocking their escape. The captured ships would be mustered into Confederate service, and their crews taken prisoner. The hitch in Lee’s fantastical plan was a present shortage of raw materials for the manufacture of black powder. Patriotic tea-parties were underway at the time, to collect urine for the production of saltpeter. I wondered. How many hot diuretic beverages would need to be consumed, by how many ladies, to yield sufficient quantities of Potassium Nitrate, to produce enough gunpowder, to blow up Mill Rock?
By 11:00 the mercury crept into the upper nineties. The air was thick with moisture. We blamed the blistering heat for an absence of visitors to witness the work that was about to get underway. Making fascines involves several steps. Stout timbers are first driven into the ground at a 60-degree angle, with care taken to ensure equal inclinations. These are then lashed or bolted together. Three of four of these crossed-bars are set in an alignment at intervals of one yard apart. To prevent them from shifting, a straight narrow board or sapling may be lashed to the underside of the crossed bars. Into this V-shaped cradle are piled vines, briars, and branches—all along its length. A stout chain five to six feet in length is secured at opposite ends to a pair of trail-spikes; tapering wooden staffs used to maneuver the back-end trail of a cannon-carriage. Two men face one another at opposite sides of the brush-laden cradle. One man hold both spikes, before passing one of them under the cradle to his partner. Holding the spikes upward with the chain below the brush, each man passes his spike to the other, catching as much of the brush as he can, against the edge of the trail-spike. Both men then push their spikes downward, so that their tips pass each other below the brush-pile. This action compresses the brush into a tight bundle, which is then secured with vines, twine, or hempen rope. This process generally starts and one end, then moves down the line from cradle to cradle, until the plant material has been compressed and bound to form a fascine. Ends are dressed with a back saw. Using a process dating back to Roman times, otherwise useless slash and brambles can be transformed into a lumber substitute for the construction of shelters, fortifications, or even road-surfaces. The chore was backbreaking. So humid was the air that our woolen uniforms were unable to wick. Perspiration soaked our shirtsleeves, as it streamed off our bodies. Producing two or three lumpy specimens in this wilting heat gave us a grudging admiration for our sweaty forebears. The Park Service historian returned around 4pm, to give nodding approval to our work. Trudging back into camp, we drained what seemed like a cooler full of sports-drinks and collapsed. I regarded the blazing cook-fire with a tinge of absurdity, given the searing heat of the last six hours.
On Sunday morning, we spent a tranquil morning recovering from our toils. Willie Anne Wright appeared in the afternoon to pinhole the scene, along with her husband Jack; an MIT graduate who saw action in Europe during the Second World War, as part of a Bailey-Bridge detachment. Their daughter Anne, and granddaughter Audrey tagged along, as did their son-in-law Chuck Savage, who had been commissioned to shoot regional character photos for the 1993 Richmond telephone directory. Willie posed Alex Johnson, Howard Bartholf, and me, in a pastiche after a wartime photo by Matthew Brady. Between setups, I recounted my road-trip with Chuck Cleary, and our visit to the grave of William Latané. I suggested that we might take a ride up to Hanover County later in the week, to take a look. Willie was intrigued, but I could sense a hint of trepidation in her agreeing to the plan.
Friday, July 31, 1992. I collect Willie Anne at her house in the Fan district. We drive to Hanover Court House, grab lunch at the HoundsTooth Café. En route, I regale her with thrilling details of Stuart’s ride around McClellan, and how Style Weekly editor Ben Cleary and I had retraced the route at the beginning of the month. Following the same route, we come to Summer Hill plantation, where legend has it that George Armstrong Custer had gallantly delivered a supply of rations to the womenfolk during The Late Unpleasantness. Mrs. Ruby Newton had just come in from the garden, gone in for a nap and none too eager for guests. As it was on her land, we sought permission to visit Latane’s grave. She said we were welcome to do so, and kindly gave us directions. I refrain from telling her of my visit one month prior. Cleary and I had stopped to call on her, but found no one at home. Getting back in the car we drive back to River Road, which curves leftward in its descent to the floodplain. Flanked on both sides by farm-fields, the road comes to a T-intersection. Straight ahead lies a band of trees along the Pamunkey River. To the south, fields stretch into the distance. The ground rises gently, forming low bluffs on the right. At the tree-line we make a ninety-degree left-hand turn, and then left again onto a grassy farm-road running between the fields. Now heading west, the fields on either side are planted with corn, with stalks eight to nine feet high. I ask Willie if being in high corn was the same as being in high cotton. She couldn’t say. We turn right onto another farm-road running north between the fields. Patches of the maize the size of city blocks had already been harvested, hewn to a stubble. Through one of these clearings I behold a cluster of trees. Following another bumpy farm-road, we come to a grassy lane, turn right and find ourselves at the edge of a small family graveyard. Willie is amazed at the remoteness of the site, comparing it to the spot where Stonewall Jackson’s arm is buried, on the Lacy farm near Wilderness Church. Getting out of the car, we walk around the little park. Planted with boxwood hedges, an ancient tree towers overheads, providing welcome shade. Arrayed within the walls we find an orderly collection of eighteenth-century stone sepulchres, but no sign of Latane’s grave. Nestled within a clump of shrubbery we find a cast-iron state historic marker set atop a stone altar. Its text unfolds the tale of Latane’s death, and his burial by the Brockenbrough women. Setting her homemade wooden box-camera on a tripod, Willie makes half a dozen exposures. Finally, I am ready for my closeup. She readjusts the camera. I lean on the marker. With utmost gravity, Willie says, “Now. Hold still!” “Don’t forget to get the ghost,” I shoot back. “That’s not funny!” she replies with a pained look. “Hold still. Don’t talk.” Thirty seconds elapse in silence. A dragonfly buzzes around my head. As Willie covers the aperture with a strip of black tape, a mosquito bites her. Whatever enchantment had drawn us to this place, the spell had been broken. Hastily we pack up and return to the car. Taking the dedicated access road back to River Road, we head back to Richmond. On the return trip, the car clutch starts to slip. Willie Anne casts me a worried look. “I don’t know, James,” she says. “Maybe we shouldn’t have disturbed Latané, and now we’re jinxed.” I laughed it off. Leaving the transmission in third gear, I massage the gearbox. At full stops, I manage to get from first gear to third. Dropping Willie Anne back at her home, I swing by the video store and rent “At Play in the Fields of the Lord,” a cautionary tale that in hindsight seemed apt for the day.
August 4. Tuesday. Willie Anne invites me to dinner with her and Jack at their home in Richmond’s Fan district. Their daughter Anne, her husband Chuck, and their daughter Audrey would be there. My contribution to the Fort Brady reunion was a bottle of 1987 Seaview Semillon Chardonnay from Australia. Once we all had assembled, Chuck unveiled his photos of the First New York Engineers at Fort Brady, and gives me copies of those that will be published in the Yellow Pages to be released in the fall. Willie presents me with several pinhole photographs; her reprise of Matthew Brady’s three soldiers, and several others. I inquire about our cornfield adventure. Willie pauses and replies, “I don’t know if I ought to show you this one. It’s kind of spooky.”
She pushes the glassine sleeve across the table toward me. I slip out the photo. In the foreground is Latané’s Douglas Southall Freeman-era cast-iron historical marker. I stand beside it, leaning on my right elbow, wearing an Amish straw hat. Over my shoulder, emerging from the foliage is what appears to be mustached face, under a dark hat-brim. I look to Willie. She stares back, eyes wide open. “It’s him, James. Once we got out there, I had a really bad feeling.”
Thinking back to Friday, all had been well until we interrupted Ms. Newton’s nap. I remember driving out to the graveyard, posing for the photo, my wisecrack about ghosts, Willie’s mosquito bite, the nervous ride home, my failing clutch. Had these things been coincidental, or perhaps just bad luck. Later in the week, I went to Virginia Historical Society to locate a portrait of Latané. The primitive likeness I recovered from a newspaper at the time did not look unlike the ghostly features in the photo. On repeated occasions, I tried to get Willie to return, but she always refused, and to this day will not budge.
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