Spy in a Little Black Dress - By Maxine Kenneth Page 0,16
to Audubon Park.
This morning, Jackie woke up early and, without nearly enough sleep, went to the B and B’s high-ceilinged dining room and had a quick but fortifying southern breakfast of biscuits and gravy, hash browns, and the best chicory coffee that she had ever tasted. After that, she took a cab to Professor Grimsby’s house, a matchbox affair located on the far side of Magazine Street, the major shopping district for the university’s Uptown neighborhood. And here she was, smack in the middle of an uncannily faithful reproduction of a Civil War battle.
The professor picked up a cast-lead soldier in blue and held it up in front of Jackie. “Say hello to Colonel Chamberlain,” he said to her. “He commanded the left flank. Most historians would say that Chamberlain’s decision to charge downhill and take the battle to the Rebs was the turning point in the Battle of Little Round Top. They would also probably agree that the Battle of Little Round Top was the turning point in the Battle of Gettysburg. And that the Battle of Gettysburg was the turning point in the Civil War, paving the way for the Union victory over the Confederacy two years later. So you might say,” Professor Grimsby went on with a slight catch in his throat, “that this man, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, not a professional military man but a minister and a history professor at Bowdoin College in New Hampshire—a scholar who defied his school superiors by enlisting in the army—was responsible for the North’s ultimate victory in the Civil War.”
Carefully, gingerly, with something approaching reverence, Professor Grimsby put the miniature Colonel Chamberlain back in place on the battlefield, surrounded by the Union troops he commanded. Jackie understood that for the professor, history was far from something that had happened a long time in the past. In describing the colonel’s heroic action at Gettysburg, it was as though he were talking about an event that had taken place yesterday.
“Did my man fight here?” Jackie asked, trying tactfully to ease the professor back to the reason she had come to see him in the first place.
Professor Grimsby looked down at the diary pages Jackie had sent to him and said, “No, I believe he died elsewhere.”
“So you’ve had time to read the diary?”
“Yes, and thank you for allowing me to see it.”
He sat down on a dining room chair and motioned for Jackie to seat herself in the one across from him. She assumed that the professor was a bachelor since what wife would have put up with her eccentric husband transforming their dining room into a Civil War battle scene?
He picked up a pipe from the sideboard, filled the bowl with tobacco, tamped it down, and lit it, puffing on it as he looked over the pages. Thinking about her boss, Allen Dulles, and his beloved Kaywoodie, she wondered what it was about men of a certain age and their pipes.
Once he got the pipe going, the professor continued. “There’s not a lot of detail to go on. But there are just enough clues so that not only can I tell you where he died, but I can also furnish you with his name.”
Jackie couldn’t believe it. This was more than she had expected to hear. “Professor Grimsby, you’re amazing,” Jackie said with twin notes of admiration and gratitude in her voice.
“Don’t thank me,” Mr. Grimsby said, pointing to the stacks of official-looking papers making tall piles on the neighboring sideboard. “Thank the U.S. Army for keeping such thorough records.”
Jackie waited for the professor to tell her the man’s name. But from the way he sat back in his chair, she knew that she was in for a little lecture. Well, if that was the fee he was charging for giving her the information, then it was a small price to pay.
“I started by trying to get a fix on his unit. I based my findings on certain dates in the diary entries. For instance, September 12, 1862: That’s the date of the Union attack on Harpers Ferry. That’s confirmed by this reference to John Brown’s body, since he was the abolitionist who tried to take over the armory there back in 1859. Next comes this date, May 15, 1864, the Battle of New Market. During that battle, the Confederates were so undermanned that they were forced to conscript cadets from the nearby Virginia Military Institute. Beardless fifteen-year-olds were sent into battle that day; can you imagine?” The professor sounded indignant.