Violet Storm
A Novel of South Carolina During Reconstruction
by
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Suddenly the front door crashed open and a young Yankee soldier, carrying only sidearms, bounded in. His streaked face was more muddy than bearded, and strands of dirty blond hair ran down from beneath his tattered kepi. His dark blue uniform was worn and muddy, and the only shine on his shoes was from water puddles in the street. He looked about quickly and then spied Violet who was standing perfectly still near the center of the parlor. As Evelina ran to a neutral corner, the intruder walked to Violet and said with a slur, "Well, what do you think of the Yankees now?"
Violet answered coolly, "Do you expect a favorable opinion –especially after you have entered my house uninvited?"
"No, dammit, but you are afeared of us and that’s enough."
"No, I do not fear you," said Violet in a calm voice, looking the soldier steadily in his eyes.
"Not yet?" asked the soldier derisively, implying she soon would be.
"Not now. Not ever."
With one hand he grabbed Violet’s arm and with the other thrust his revolver into the side of her head. Violet did nothing that might trigger the deadly weapon. She had resolved never to panic again, and she held to her resolve.
"Now, ’ere you afeared?"
Violet answered firmly and calmly, "No, I am not afraid of you. I only look upon you with complete contempt. Now I can appreciate why our brave men have been fighting so long...to protect us from the likes of you, you damn Yankee."
"Oh, Lawdy, Miz Violet," moaned Evelina who had sunk to her knees in the corner, trembling with fright.
"Now hold on there," said the soldier to Violet, ignoring Evelina’s outburst.
Violet kept right on talking, her voice at a low pitch, "Is this an example of Yankee gallantry and bravery, going around attacking unarmed women?"
"We just want to scare you people so you will stop afightin’ and end this war."
"Well, I’m not afraid of you. I’m furious with you." She curled her lips and spewed forth a torrent of invective, "You damned, insolent wretch. You yellow puppy, you infamous dastard. Are you a total son of a bitch, or do you have a mother?"
"Law, Miz Violet, ya done cook our goose now!" whimpered Evelina.
"Now you be careful whatcha asayin’!" the soldier warned.
"Tell me soldier, if that’s what you are, what is your mother’s name?"
Without even thinking he blurted out, "Edna Murray."
"And where are you from?"
"Iowa."
"Where in Iowa?"
"Cedar Rapids, but why are you askin’ me all this?"
"Because I am going to write to your mother and tell her what a bastard she has for a son, a man who would hold a revolver to the head of an unarmed woman!"
The soldier looked surprised and then lowered his pistol. He said, "Aw, shucks, Ma’am, I meant no harm. Like I said, we just want to scare you so we can get this war over with."
"Then get out of here," she said. "Leave this house."
Releasing his grip, he said with respect in his voice, "Dammit, lady, you have pluck enough for a whole regiment." He turned and bolted out the door.
*-*-*
At the appointed time Blake Farley drove up in an old dilapidated buggy drawn by a scrawny nag to the back door of Fair Oaks. With hat in hand and head bowed, he approached the back door of the office. Brent invited him in and showed him to a chair near the fireplace. Violet and Brent took chairs in front of him.
Haltingly, Farley began to speak, "Miz Violet, Senator, I know I’ve done lots of things I should not have done. Now, I want to say that I’m sorry. I want to apologize for any inconvenience I have caused you and beg that we can make a new start. I hope you can forgive me and maybe help me get back on my feet."
"Why you son of a bitch!" exploded Brent. "You have more brass than a brass monkey!"
Violet’s face flushed as she added, "You have your nerve coming around here asking for our help after all you have done...taking all of our reserve cotton and turning it over to the Yankees, and keeping half for yourself. You were taking food out of the mouths of women and children...and then stealing cotton right out of our fields. And taking Brent to court on false charges, scaring the family and me half to death! Why don’t you go back to your damned Yankee Carpetbaggers and your fellow Scalawags and ask them to help you?"
Brent continued the barrage, "You damned Scalawag, you knew what you were doing, and you didn’t give a damn about the results of your actions!"
Farley flinched and hung his head, not looking either Brent or Violet in the eyes. He replied lamely, "But I really meant you no harm; I was just trying to look out for myself. Like anybody else would do."
"And just what in hell were you trying to do at the grand jury?" Brent exclaimed. "Weren’t you trying to get me sent to prison on those trumped-up charges?"
Now Farley looked directly at Violet, "I’m truly sorry about the cotton, Miz Violet," he replied, "but I was getting in desperate straits and that was the only way I saw out. And Senator, I am truly sorry about the grand jury, but they were making me do it."
Brent came back heatedly, "Nobody was holding a gun to your head. What do you mean, making you do it?"
Farley looked at the floor, then the ceiling, and then briefly at Brent, and said, "Senator, you are regarded as one of the opposition senators, and Mr. Moses and his friends were trying to consolidate their power, and if I didn’t do their bidding in accusing you, they were going to seize all my land for claims of back taxes and seize my store and everything."
"Well, you picked a hell of a way of doing it," said Brent scornfully.
Farley leaned back, took a deep breath as though calling up reinforcements and said, "Miz Violet, Senator, we were all in a terrible fix after the War when the Yankees came in. I guess none of us knew how we were going to cope with the situation. Many people said that the old South was gone. Nothing would ever be the same. They said it would be futile to try to go back to the old days, that the best we could do was to make our peace with the new order of things. They said that even the great plantations never would be able to make it without slave labor, and that all these would be broken up into small parcels. I had very little land. I only had my store, and I never would be able to live on that if the Yankees and the freed Negroes shut me out."
"Some of us had to get along on less than that," interrupted Violet, "a lot less. There were days when the children and my sisters and the servants and I had to live practically on water flav
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About the Book
Violet Storm was beautiful. She also was strong and intelligent. She stood firm and defiant against Yankee soldiers who overran her South Carolina Plantation, against Scalawags who stole her cotton and tried to take her land, and against suitors who wanted to steal her person during the long absence of her husband, Brent Sutler, in the Confederate Navy. Many volumes have been written about the Civil War; not so many about the Reconstruction-the twelve years of Yankee military occupation and Scalawag-Carpetbagger government that followed. For many Southerners the Reconstruction was a worse ordeal than the War itself. It was worse in South Carolina than in other states, perhaps because South Carolina was the first to secede and the first to fire a shot-at Fort Sumter-in the Civil War. This is the story of a woman who was determined to hold her family together and to bring back a measure of prosperity during those trying times. How did people cope with the Reconstruction? Some, like Brent's brother, went to the Far West or Mexico to get a new start. Some, like Violet's sisters and some of the neighbors, moved to the city. Some, like the neighbors across the way, resisted change. Some resorted to active resistance in vigilante groups. Some, like Violet's grandmother, lived in their memories and hoped for the best. Some, like the slaves who never returned, drifted to cities and became pawns of their alien masters. Some collaborated with the enemy and became Scalawags. But Violet and Brent were determined to hold to the best of the agrarian Old South and also to adapt to new conditions. They combined their efforts in maintaining a plantation with free labor and new machinery, running a mercantile business and a railroad, and participating in state politics. And still they found time to found a school for promising but impoverished children, black and white. Violet always insisted that Southern civilization had not been swept away by the Yankee conquest any more than the Athenian civilization had been swept away by the victorious Spartans, any more than the Greek civilization had been swept away by the Romans, or than the Roman civilization had been swept away by the Visigoths. This is a saga of a fictional though true-to-life family in a setting of historical authenticity. It offers broad insights on one of the most significant periods in American history.
About the Author
James A. and Anne Marshall Huston make their home in
Lynchburg, Virginia. He is a native of
Fairmount, Indiana. A great grandfather
served in the Mississippi cavalry and a grandfather in the Indiana infantry in
the Civil War. James was educated at
Indiana University and New York University, with terms at Oxford in England and
at Fribourg in Switzerland.
Anne Marshall was born in High Point, North
Carolina. Later her family returned to
her mother’s home state of Virginia where Anne spent a large part of her life
in Williamsburg. Two of her great
grandfathers served in the Army of Northern Virginia. At present, she is the Recorder of the Military Service Awards
for the Capt. Sally Tompkins Chapter of the United Daughters of the
Confederacy, Matthews Court House, Virginia.
She is a graduate of the College of William and Mary and completed her
doctoral studies at the University of Virginia.
During World War II, James was operations officer of
an infantry battalion in Europe. He
taught history at Purdue University for twenty-five years, and for twelve years
was Dean of Lynchburg College in Virginia.
Anne Marshall has been an elementary school teacher, reading specialist,
and reading consultant. She has taught
graduate courses at the College of William and Mary and the University of
Virginia, and undergraduate and graduate courses at Lynchburg College where she
was professor of education and director of the graduate reading specialist
program.
Both have professional books and articles published
in their respective fields. In
addition, James is the author of an earlier historical novel dealing with the
rivalry of Tecumseh and William Henry Harrison. Together the Hustons wrote a short novel, set in the Battle of
the Bulge in the Ardennes during World War II.
But so far as they are concerned, Violet
Storm is their magnum opus.