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    In the Blood
    In the Blood
    In the Blood
    Ebook317 pages4 hours

    In the Blood

    By Scott Skipper

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    About this ebook

    This fictionalized account of my ancestor's remarkable life will probably get me struck from the Thanksgiving guest list, but those who aren't related will be amazed and amused. Then again, are you sure we're not related? Washington was born when John Quincy Adams was president and he died the week before the Titanic sank. During that long life he did some outrageous things. This account follows his early days in the Carolina low country, running from county to county avoiding the whipping post, through his Civil War battles, the misery of Reconstruction and his personal tragedies. In the Blood is based on fifteen years of genealogical research and punctuated with a little good clean fun.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherScott Skipper
    Release dateMay 21, 2012
    ISBN9781476112602
    In the Blood
    Author

    Scott Skipper

    Scott Skipper is a California fiction writer with a broad range of interests, including history, genealogy, travel, science and current events. His wry outlook on life infects his novels with biting sarcasm. Prisoners are never taken. Political correctness is taboo. His work includes historical fiction, alternative history, novelized biography, science fiction and political satire. He is a voracious reader and habitual and highly opinionated reviewer.

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      Book preview

      In the Blood - Scott Skipper

      In the Blood

      The Story of George Washington Skipper

      Scott Skipper

      a descendant

      Cover Art by Sandy Skipper

      Tombstone photograph by Sandy Skipper

      Wedding portrait from the family archive

      Copyright 2012 & 2018 by Scott Skipper

      All rights reserved

      Smashwords edition

      ISBN 9781476112602

      License notes

      This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment. It cannot be resold or given to another person

      Please respect the rights of the author

      Table of Contents

      Preface Author’s notes

      Chapter 1 Brunswick

      Chapter 2 Lawson

      Chapter 3 Marina

      Chapter 4 Wilmington

      Chapter 5 Columbus

      Chapter 6 Helen

      Chapter 7 Georgetown

      Chapter 8 Camp Marion

      Chapter 9 Munfordville

      Chapter 10 Catoosa Springs

      Chapter 11 Furlough

      Chapter 12 Chickamauga

      Chapter 13 Missionary Ridge

      Chapter 14 Winter Camp Dalton, GA

      Chapter 15 Atlanta

      Chapter 16 Franklin

      Chapter 17 Carolina

      Chapter 18 Postwar

      Chapter 19 Reunion

      Chapter20 Winnie

      Chapter 21Terror

      Chapter 22 Scandal

      Chapter 23 New Family

      Chapter 24 Census

      Chapter 25 Monroe

      Chapter 26 Generations

      Afterward 2018

      Bibliography

      Preface

      The documents that tell this story leave a great many holes. George Washington Skipper, who was my great-great-grandfather, certainly led an extraordinary life, but he must surely have attempted to cover his tracks. Naturally, I cannot know his thoughts or motivations so in what follows, for the sake of entertainment, I have usually chosen a sensational explanation for the things he did. The facts appear sensational enough and I cannot imagine a person whose life looked like this man’s was not driven by certain devils. Where parts of his life were mundane rather than ignore history I have elected to recount these things in passing. The few digressions into events of other family members are inserted in correct order to maintain genealogical accuracy hopefully without detracting from the flow of the story.

      As well as I can remember all the characters really existed in the right times and places to have possibly done the things that I accused them of doing. However, this is a work of fiction, and if I besmirched the character of someone’s ancestor I apologize.

      This story contains numerous references to promiscuity. There is a reason for this. For those not conversant with DNA as it is used in genealogy, Y DNA is passed unchanged from father to son. Therefore, with rare exceptions on account of random mutations, all male descendants of a male progenitor should have identical Y DNA. Thus it follows that if you have identical Y DNA you ought to have the same surname. In the pool of my DNA matches, this is not the case. The several men with whom I share a Y chromosome have unknowingly lent their various surnames here to the female characters who will be having dalliances with Skipper men in the following pages. It is possible that the non-matching surnames could be explained by an unusual number of adoptions and name changes, but I’m not buying it. The full name of no living individual is used unless by pure coincidence.

      Additional photographs and images of historical documents can be inspected, in fact, downloaded, at:

      Skipper Genealogy

      Chapter 1

      Shadrach was Isaac’s second. The duel took place in a clear spot along the Rattlesnake Branch of Town Creek. Isaac hadn’t gotten much sleep and was in no mood to appreciate the fine morning that was dawning in North Carolina. His hands shook a little but not half as much as Shadrach’s.

      Ya shoulda refused the challenge, Shadrach told him.

      You know damn well if I had refused the Old Man would have me horsewhipped.

      At the end of a whipping, ya might be alive.

      Isaac took a flask from his pocket and took a long swallow. I’ll be all right when the time comes. Here, want a swig?

      I guess I need it as much as you.

      George Knowles was already at the river when the half-brothers arrived. He sneered, I was beginning to think y’all weren’t gonna show.

      Isaac didn’t answer as he climbed from the wagon. Shadrach reached the ground and approached Knowles’ second who held the case with the dueling pistols. Let’s git it over with, he said as he selected one without examining it. He poured some powder into it, rammed down a ball and wadding, filled the pan and checked the flint while the other second did the same. The duelists took their weapons and paced to their respective places.

      Knowles’ second said, The challenger shall have the first shot.

      Knowles raised the pistol took aim and fired. Shadrach looked straight ahead at the turgid water flowing in the Rattlesnake Branch. When he didn’t hear an outcry he looked at his half-brother and saw that he had been missed clean. Isaac made an impatient gesture to him. He shook his head slightly and remembered his role.

      Have ya received satisfaction, Mr. Knowles? he called shakily.

      No, I ain’t, was the reply.

      The Old Man had coached his eldest sons on the etiquette of the duel as he believed it to be—not that he had fought one—so Shadrach was obliged to respond, Mr. Skipper, you may return fire.

      Isaac shrugged and took aim but could not hold the pistol still. He drew a breath and closed his left hand over his right and still the gun shook. Knowles looked impatient. Finally, he took aim by crossing the target and pulled the trigger. The ball hit him in the lower left side smashing his pelvis—the impact spinning him to the ground.

      The second ran to him and sliced his breeches to examine the wound. Help me git him in the buggy, he shouted. If we can stop the bleeding he might live.

      Isaac was in a state of shock, but Shadrach went to Knowles’ aid, and the two seconds hoisted him to the carriage seat. The second snapped the buggy whip and the horse started at a canter. Shadrach collected Knowles’ pistol and put it into the velvet-lined case. Looks like you git a nice set of dueling pistols, he told his brother.

      Isaac shook himself from his stupor and answered, I’ll return ‘em.

      Best not. After what you did to his daughter and now to him I think ya oughta give him wide berth.

      His daughter wanted it.

      That may be true, but now he’s gotta raise your bastard and this might make it a little hard for him to forget about it.

      Yeah, Shad, you take ‘em back.

      Like hell I will. It was bad enough standing second.

      Well, then I’ll give ‘em to the Old Man. He’s like to need ‘em someday.

      Shadrach smiled. There wasn’t enough left inside him to laugh.

      § § §

      Isaac, Sr. saw the wagon rolling up the long carriageway and noted that two figures sat upright on the seat. Must have turned chicken, he said aloud to himself. When the wagon reached the steps to the verandah he said to his son, I expected you to be stretched out in back. Disgrace the family name, did ya?

      Cut me to the quick. Here, I brought ya a trophy. Isaac handed his father the Tantalus with the pistols.

      Well, I’ll be damned. Knowles dead?

      Not the last time we saw him. Might best send a boy around later to inquire. If he dies I suppose there won’t be no way to keep it from Catherine. Can I git breakfast here? I’m in no state to go face her yet.

      The Old Man said, I reckon. Shadrach, you hungry?

      No, Pa, I don’t feel like much of anything. I’ll put the wagon away. He did what he said and then wandered to the soggy old bay lake to be alone. Shadrach sat down on the stump end of a tree felled by some forgotten hurricane. Some cooders felt the tree move and slid into the still water. It was quiet enough to hear the slight splash each one made as it slipped from the log. As a boy, he came to the bay whenever he had need of contemplation and as often when he needed to get out of work. Sometimes he caught the bullheads and frogs, but most often he looked across the oval pond and let his mind drift into a future where being the bastard son could be forgotten.

      His thoughts turned first to the events of the morning. Isaac was five years his senior and the firstborn of Isaac Skipper, Sr. of Brunswick County. His half-brother had a plantation, two legitimate sons, a white bastard, six half-breeds, and a wife who somehow endured it. Furthermore, he had recently begat a bastard on the body of George Knowles’ daughter, and not more than two years back, he had done the same to Lester Johnson’s wife who later fled the county. Shadrach was thirty-five and lived alone in a shack on the Old Man’s plantation behind the slave row. He hardly ever saw a woman socially.

      Later he dwelt for a time on his pet obsession—his failure to the hand of Civil Jacobs. Shadrach had found it impossible to muster the courage to make Civil aware of his feeling for her—but Franklin Ward had no such insecurities. His memory was clear of the day Ward bested him in a horse race and proceeded to spend the rest of the evening entertaining Civil. They married shortly after that and Shadrach lived under an empty sense of lost opportunity.

      Well, Franklin Ward was dead—dead now a good six months and Shadrach figured his widow rightfully ought to be ready to consider suitors. She had a son and should be thinking of the boy’s welfare. All women knew a boy needed a man’s influence. Six months was surely enough time to mourn when a boy’s future was at stake. He rose from his contemplation log and followed the path back to the road walking at the margin of the weeds so as to not have to think about avoiding the puddles in the wagon ruts. He had enough of a deficit from which to recover and didn’t need muddy boots adding to it.

      § § §

      Civil was making soap in a three-legged pot. Billy Ward was chasing a small mongrel dog around the yard. He was running too close to the fire and Civil scolded nervously while stirring the soap with a wooden paddle, Billy, now take that dog around back.

      Shadrach walked right up to her. Afternoon, Mrs. Ward. That’s a fine looking boy ya got there. Shadrach didn’t care very much how fine the boy looked. He was staring at a fine looking widow and was beginning to feel a little unsteady. Civil had delicate, well-proportioned features with a rather stern set until she smiled.

      Mr. Skipper, how nice of you to call on me. She met his stare with a beguiling smile that softened her look of continual pique, and his unsteadiness congealed a little. In fact, somewhere in his inexperienced soul, he was emboldened.

      Civil received Shadrach but insisted that a year of mourning must pass before serious talk of courtship could be entertained. In the meantime, it was discovered that George Knowles recovered, though with a bad limp, and removed his family, including his wayward daughter and her newborn son, to Bermuda. Isaac was relieved, Shadrach shook his head in amazement at how his brother emerged unscathed, and the Old Man just laughed.

      Shadrach and Civil were married on May 12, 1824. Franklin Ward had built Civil a perfectly suitable house on a piece of land adjacent to Isaac’s, and Shadrach did not see any reason to set his construction skills in competition with the late Mr. Ward. He got down to serious subsistence farming, kept chickens, and raised hogs. Civil continued to make soap which she sold, and she made pies and bread and a good home. Shadrach also made wine. He grew some grapes on a crude arbor behind the house and became proficient at fermenting a palatable, if somewhat sweet, burgundy which he imbibed in daily moderation.

      Prudence Emily was born eleven months into the marriage of Shadrach and Civil. It was on April 7, 1825, to be exact. Shadrach had tried to hasten that arrival by several months, but Civil would have none of it until the vows were solemnized and properly witnessed. Two years and six days later Noah Washington was born. It was a hard labor that started on the full moon. The boy came to the light two days later on Friday the thirteenth of April, 1827 which was Thanksgiving Day that year as well as Good Friday. Civil considered the unlikely alignment of all those portents to be a bad sign. Shadrach considered himself to be a fortunate man with a pleasant future.

      § § §

      Anyone who knew anything about the Skipper bloodline knew at a glance that Isaac, Sr. was the patriarch of a diverse and profuse family who all bore a prominent resemblance to one another. The Old Man had been born in July, and Isaac, Jr. had a mind to put on a celebration. All the Skippers, the Bentons, the Liles, and the Cumbos who could make themselves available met on Isaac’s plantation one Saturday afternoon on the seventh of July in 1829. Two hogs roasted in pits over slow coals. Just about half of the gathering tippled. The others were tea drinkers. Shadrach being of the former group was listening to bawdy jokes with a knot of his cousins and half-siblings while Civil, being of the latter sort, gossiped with her younger sister, Eady, who was recently married to Ben Roberts. Two-year-old Noah sat on her lap.

      Have you heard poor Catherine’s latest cross to bear? Eady asked Civil.

      I don’t believe so.

      There will be another Skipper bastard sometime this year.

      Well, surely she must be used to it by now.

      She never lets on. I swear I could not be so strong.

      Civil looked thoughtful then said, I suppose a Benton is more accustomed to handling this sort of thing than we Jacobs.

      Eady chuckled conspiratorially behind her fan.

      Civil’s curiosity was piqued. Is it the same Negress as the last time?

      Well, yes. In fact, she is serving at the table here today. I tell you, I cain’t believe that Catherine can put on a brave face while that little darkie lays a plate in front of her with a belly already showing.

      At least she is a mulatto. So far all of her issue can pass for white.

      On Christmas Eve in the slave cabin that sat farthest from the main house, Lawson Kennar Skipper was born to Polly, the mulatta woman who was Isaac Junior’s concubine.

      § § §

      As time passed Civil became increasingly pious. She considered Shadrach’s intemperance to be a mortal sin. If she did not exactly believe that sin was contagious, she was concerned that it might rub off and so she grew increasingly distant. Shadrach’s frustration drove him evermore to the jug.

      On a day in April, after the crops were in and the animals all fed, he went back to the bay and sat on the log. The cooders were not there but a carp splashed in the shallow water and an egret stalked a frog in the grass. The air was heavy with the thick, fetid scent of the swamp. The future had again disappeared, and the present had a dismal cast. Taking the cork from the jug he carried, he took a deep swig, and then he took another. On the tenth or twelfth an idea began to materialize.

      By the time he reached the Old Man’s farm, it was starting to get dark. He walked the long way around the barn and kept away from the house where light shone from the windows, and shadows passed on the curtains. At the last cabin on the slave row he listened by the rude door and hearing nothing, knocked.

      Yassuh, said the voice that he had come in hope of finding.

      Lizzy was the Old Man’s concubine. He had bought her when he was in his fifties, and she was a child. It was not clear to anyone but the two of them how many children she had borne him. In truth, it could not have been very many. Lizzy did not suffer the signs of excessive childbirth.

      Massa, Shadrach, Whatcha doin’ here? she said sitting cross-legged on the dirt floor with a single candle burning in front of her.

      Lizzy, he began to feel unsteady again, I hear you’re a hoodoo.

      Who tole ya that?

      Well, folks all say so.

      Well, suppose’n I is. Whatcha want?

      See it’s my wife, Civil. She has sent me from the marriage bed. I was looking to git one of them philters or what-not to make her willing again.

      Lizzy rocked on her haunches and laughed out loud. Ya don’t need no hoodoo, boy, alls you need is some dark meat. She grabbed the drawstring at the waist of Shadrach’s breeches and pulled the loose end. Her hand was in his pants and pulling on his member before he had a chance to get nervous about it. Lizzy rolled Shadrach onto his back and straddled him. She positioned his neglected phallus with aplomb and began rocking. Given one and one-half year without a woman’s touch, the encounter was not long, but it was loud. At the end, Lizzy stroked his head with kindness, and he clung to her feeling somehow pulled from the brink of the abyss.

      The door crashed against the wall on its leather hinges. The Old Man’s prominent nose stood in profile against the fading light. Boy, you vex me! his father bellowed.

      Shadrach feeling empowered said, I don’t see how ya can git judgmental here.

      So, you don’t? Well, let me explain! I paid for it, and I don’t want you getting it dirty! Old Isaac smacked Shadrach across the head with his walking stick. Lizzy’s ass, on the other hand, had learned a survival tactic. When castigation approached, it moved.

      After some seconds, Shadrach’s senses came back to him. Lizzy continued to stroke Shadrach’s head after Isaac left. Then she said, Now, git home. Ain’t no hoodoo goin’ do ya no good.

      The story of the knot on Shadrach’s head got home before he did.

      In the house that Franklin Ward built, Shadrach found Civil, her sister, Eady, Prudence, Noah Washington, the preacher, and the constable. I reckon the whole county knows what ya done, she said.

      Shadrach did not have a thing to say.

      The constable put a pair of leg irons on Shadrach that confined him to the footboard of his bed. The preacher went home after promising to pray for Civil’s burden to be lightened. Eady took Prudence home with her. In the morning, the constable returned and put the prisoner into a wagon along with Civil and Washington. He drove them to the Justice of the Peace in Wilmington where Civil told her story and swore an oath.

      The Justice said to Shadrach, Suh, the State of North Carolina does not countenance immorality. Adultery is a crime, suh, and adultery with a Negress is especially heinous. Do you wish to enter a plea?

      Shadrach’s head was bowed. I didn’t mean to do it.

      I’ll take that as an admission of guilt. The sentence is ten lashes.

      Shadrach met his wife’s eyes. Civil, is this what you want?

      No. What I want is to swing the cat-o-nine-tails myself, but this’ll do.

      Wilmington had a whipping post behind the jail. Shadrach was tied to it and the constable whipped him ten times as ordered. Civil made Washington watch as a lesson in the wages of sin. The terror of the sight struck him numb with shock.

      The family passed the night at Shadrach’s uncle Ichabod’s house in Wilmington. Not very much was said. Ichabod’s wife tended Shadrach’s welts and frostily made it clear that the intrusion was unappreciated. Washington sat in the gloomy parlor and never spoke a word nor did he touch his dinner.

      The next morning Ichabod took the family back to Brunswick so that his life might return to normal. On arriving home, Washington ran to the bay and put his feet into the water. Not that he understood, but his emotions were constructing a barrier that would serve him in a great variety of ways throughout his life.

      Chapter 2

      The Old Man died early in 1830. He left no will and there was much squabbling over the estate, but in the end, Isaac, as the oldest, took just about everything. Catherine died shortly thereafter which most of the womenfolk considered a merciful blessing. Isaac retired to Oak Island with his white boys and Polly. The other bastards of dubious coloring married and raised families on pieces of Isaac’s plantation at Northwest. Shadrach was having a hard time of things, so Civil sent Billy Ward to live with his uncle Michael.

      In the winter of 1832, Isaac took ill and died. Needham, Isaac’s oldest—who was also legitimate, was overseeing the farm when it happened, and Polly sent Riviera, her oldest boy, to deliver the message. Needham came to Oak Island to retrieve the body and return Riviera. He said to Polly, Y’all cain’t stay here—place is mine now.

      Ya gonna put your flesh and blood out of their home?

      Needham grimaced and said, Only half my blood. I’m fixing to marry Annie Benton and don’t need y’all getting in the way.

      Least let us stay here till I finds somebody to take us in.

      All right but be quick about it. A girl like you gonna have to move fast while you got something left to sell. Polly glared but kept her tongue while Needham continued, Well, anyway it don’t do y’all to stay here alone. Pirates sometimes lay up in the inlets. They git their hands on you and the boys, they gonna do y’all rough.

      The fort’s just over the water.

      That don’t mean pirates don’t slip by ‘em sometimes.

      When he was gone she looked at Lawson’s small face and said to herself, Honeychile, how ya gonna git by? Riviera was almost old enough to take care of himself, but Lawson would need some help.

      Needham pushed to get the will proved quickly. John

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