Red River

The next day, Monday, Israel and Sam talk about the service. Sam is hopeful that the Federal troops will arrive and tells Sam how much his sermon on education meant to Noby. However, Israel cannot afford to send Noby to school, like Sam does with his sons, Green and Jackson. Instead, he asks Sam to promise Noby a place in his school. Sam promises but is unsure when, if ever, he will get to build a school.

They go see Eli, who tells them that there are only 80 guns to protect over 400 people. Eli wants Sam and Israel to be officially deputized to encourage more men to join them. They are interrupted by the bell calling everyone to a general meeting. Judge Register, the elected Republican judge, calls the session to order and issues a citation to Sheriff Nash for trying to stop the rightful Sheriff Shaw from taking office. He hopes that the citation will alert the Federals in New Orleans to their situation. The judge then calls for more deputies to volunteer themselves. Due to McCully’s speech the previous day, 19 more men sign up, taking the total number of deputies to 35.

More men join the resistance fighters but send their families away for safety. Sam takes Polly and his boys back to their home in The Bottom. Leaving, Polly calls Sam “Mr. Tademy because she knows how much it means to him” (103). He draws strength from his name. In his former life as a slave, it gave him the strength to know he could be a leader and would one day be free. He learned his family name as a young boy, when his father came to visit for the first and only time. He had run away from his master and wanted to take the family with him. Before leaving, he talks to Sam and his brother, telling them about the Nile River Delta in Africa, where they come from. He tells them: “we got a real name, a family name. My father tell me, and now I tell you” (105). The story of their name is all he has to give them. He tells how his father came from Africa as a free man working on a boat and that their real name is “Ta-ta-mee” (106). He tells the boys to one day shout their name so they remember who they are.

On his way back from taking his family home, Sam meets McCully, who asks why he didn’t volunteer to be a deputy. Sam says it makes no difference; he is there just the same. McCully is still convinced that the Federals will come, but Sam argues that “if the governor of Louisiana on our side, why it taking this long to get troops here? […] What if he want to stir up the fight, so’s to get more votes next election?” (109). McCully dismisses this concern because “not even a politician got a heart that cold. They Republican, and they owe us” (109).

During a coffee break the next day, McCully and Sam sit with Israel under the Pecan Tree. Israel tells them that Judge Register and most of the other white men are going to leave for New Orleans to get Federal help—including the elected officials the black men are protecting at the courthouse, except Sheriff Shaw and Levi. McCully is angry but is determined that “this our town. If we got to kill for them to understand, that the way it got to be” (112).

When Israel was young and a slave, his job was to deliver water to the other slaves working the plantation. One day, the overseer blames Israel for his water bucket breaking and spilling. When Israel protests, the overseer whips his face, making a deep cut that will be a scar all his life. He then kicks Israel, who loses his temper and shoves the overseer in a fit of rage. Israel takes the whip and runs away. Later, Israel is whipped for his actions. Thereafter, the overseer whips Israel at least once a month. As a result, “the constant beatings accomplished exactly what the overseer had intended. They leeched the fight out of him. They caused Israel to defer to white men. They made him always afraid” (115).

Israel helps escort the white politicians to their boat, and they escape toward New Orleans. He thinks of how “they are alone, the colored men of Colfax” (116). 

The day before Easter Sunday, Sam is helping to build bulwarks around the courthouse. It has been three days since the judge and the carpetbaggers left, and there has been no word from them. Even Sheriff Shaw is rarely around. That night, the barricades built, Sam meets Israel and McCully under the Pecan Tree again. Israel has seen hundreds of white men gathered nearby at Summerfield Springs—they outnumber the black resistance and are armed with guns and a cannon.

That night, there is the sound of people outside the courthouse, but it is not the White League. It is the wives and families of many of the men, including Polly and Lucy. They have come for a sunrise Easter Sunday. When Sam protests that they should be at home, Polly says that “home where you is, Sam,” and points out that they are partners, facing all things together (123). Sam says that Polly has no right to tell Green and Jackson what to do, as they aren’t hers by blood. This hurts Polly deeply, but she recovers and refuses to leave.

The first time Sam saw Polly, they were both walking from Alabama, heading west. He was traveling with Green and Jackson, and she happened to meet up with them and then followed. She offers to help Sam carry the boys in exchange for food and his protection. He relents and “they just fell in together, as simple as that, and Polly walked beside him all the way from Alabama, step for step” (127). When they arrive in Colfax, Sam finds work and they settle down. To convince Polly to stay with him, Sam tells her: “I got a strong back and these children, and something else almost nobody else got. I got a name as old as any you ever herd, go all the way back to Egypt” (129). He tells her: “Ta-ta-mee,” which she hears as “Tademy” (129). She agrees to stay with him because “the past don’t matter no more. We gonna start up a future with that name” (130).

On Easter Sunday, 1873, Sam and Polly join the others for the dawn service. The crowd “feels the urgency,” and they join hands without speeches or politics (130). In the middle of the first hymn, the sound of hooves interrupts them. A black rider tells them that the white men are “coming down from Summerfield Springs. Dragging a cannon on wheels. We got maybe one hour. White men already in Smithfield Quarter with guns” (131). Levi Allen orders the men to mobilize. Sam points out that the women and children should leave, but, according to Allen, it’s “already too late for that now” (131).

Israel is assigned to the east barricade facing Smithfield Quarter. Levi Allen gives orders, and 200 men take up defensive positions. He waits in the trenches with the others and hears the approach of the white men, who spread out, cutting off escape routes. Both sides wait in quiet until the cannon arrives, pulled by two horses. Levi orders the resistance not to waste bullets yet; the white men are still out of range. After an hour, the white men start to form ranks and one of them takes a shot, but it is far out of range. Near Israel, Spences McCullen shoots back but is also too far away. Levi Allen orders the men to wait.

Across the field, the white men load the cannon and fire it, but the cannonball does not make it near the resistance, even on a second attempt. Some black men fire back, despite Levi’s warning, but all miss. And so “the battle goes on this way for the better part of an hour, with the advantage to neither side and neither side willing to back down” (136).

After several hours of standoff, Sheriff Nash goes to Smithfield Quarter and sends one of the male residents across the field to the courthouse with a white flag to bring back Levi. Levi agrees to meet Sheriff Nash halfway between the two small armies, in the open field, as long as there is no shooting. Nash agrees, and the two sides meet. Levi demands that the women and children in the courthouse be allowed to leave. Nash demands that the black troops stand down and “return the courthouse to us white men who know what to do with it” (138). Levi refuses. Nash agrees to 30 minutes of ceasefire to allow the women and children to leave, but “as for the rest of the black devils in there who decide to stay, we are going to get ‘em” (139).

Back at the courthouse, Levi orders all the women and children to leave immediately. McCully volunteers Sam Tademy to lead them away because he knows the swamps best. Sam protests, but McCully insists, saying, “Don’t never let them forget what we done here, why we come, why we stay” (139). McCully then takes off his fedora and gives it to Sam. With help from Polly and Lucy, Sam gathers the families together into the wagons and leads them away.

Despite Sam’s misgivings, the white men let the wagons of women and children pass unharmed. Before they are far away, they hear the shooting start again. They reach the swamp and abandon the wagons, walking into a densely wooded area. Once they reach a bog near a stream, Sam stops and organizes the group to make camp. In the distance, they still hear gunfire. Soon, Sam is restless and goes exploring. Several times, he finds groups of black families hiding out in the swamp to escape the showdown in Colfax. He leads some back to his encampment and travels between others.

Back with his family, they hear the explosive sound of the cannon; Sam will always remember “a frozen moment when the thankfulness of what he has and the comprehension of what is being taken away occupy the same space” (147).

From his post, Israel watches Sam leading the families to safety. Unlike McCully and his son Spenser, Israel isn’t eager to use his gun. Several hours later, the cannon fires. The white men have moved the cannon to the river side of the courthouse, the section Levi Allen left relatively unguarded because the slippery slope would make it difficult for the army to approach. The blast takes out many men, and the white men advance from the river.

There is confusion among the black troops as men try to escape to the woods. On the roof, McCully tries to shoot the white men reloading the cannon with his Enfield rifle, but he is too far away to be accurate. They fire the cannon again, killing and injuring more. McCully tries to slow the white men, but they target him and continue dragging the cannon closer.

Israel must abandon his post and sees “two major streams of retreating men. One set sprints in a panicked, ragged line toward Mirabeau Woods, and the other runs to the courthouse” (152). Before he can join either, McCully shouts at him to fire back at the white men with their own makeshift cannons, so he returns to his trench. However, the cannon is defective and does not fire. Some of the exploded cannon fragments strike his head and leg.

On the battlefield, “dozens of colored men fall” and “a clutch of white men cheer” while “colored men run in all directions, faces frozen in confusion, terror, or astonishment” (153). Some of the men reach the tree line, and the white men do not follow them inside. However, several of them begin checking the fallen black men, stabbing or shooting those who are only wounded. Israel’s wounded leg gives out, and white men advance toward him. However, riflemen on the roof keep them at bay, protecting Israel. The white men move off, and there is soon another cannon shot, this time at the courthouse, “and the skittering, protective bullets from the rooftop are silenced” (154). 

In the bog, Sam moves his group to a new location when he hears the cannon blast. They join another camp, where people “sit stupefied around the fire, not speaking, listening to what they believe must be hell come to earth” (156). A man comes running into the camp. Sam recognizes him as Lawson McCullen, who tells them: “they killing every colored man from the courthouse they catch,” and no government troops have arrived (156). 

The field around the courthouse “is dotted with lifeless bodies of colored men strewn haphazardly around the grounds” (159). The wounded try to crawl to the courthouse, Israel among them. He has lost his rifle, and his leg gives out again. McCully comes to help him, and together they make it to the courthouse. Inside, 200 men with 40 rifles between them are now trapped; outside are 300 white men with a cannon. It has been an hour since the first cannon blast.

Israel, weaponless, helps to unjam and load rifles to keep the white men at bay. They are all protected by the courthouse’s brick walls. Israel thanks McCully for saving him and speaks with hope of the Federals showing up. McCully scoffs at this and says, “[Y]ou see the men start this fight? Where the politicians? Where the sheriff? Where Levi Allen?” (163). The politicians left, the sheriff made himself scarce, and Levi Allen rode to the woods once the cannon started, leaving the men alone. McCully expresses his hope that some of the men will survive “to make it out and bear witness” (164).

Outside, the white men start shooting from the east, covering the approach of one of their own, who throws kerosene on the roof of the courthouse and sets it on fire. McCully runs to lean out of the window to try to beat the flames out. The white men focus their bullets on McCully. He is shot three times, and Israel is among the men who help pull him inside.