By the following morning, December 21, 1858, Lottie Moon had made up her mind. She wanted to become a Christian, and she didn’t care who knew about it. She got up early to attend one of the special prayer meetings the students were holding in conjunction with the Reverend Broadus’s meetings. As she walked in the door, Lottie watched as one girl’s eyes grew wide. “We’ve been praying for you, but we didn’t think you’d come!” the girl blurted out. “Just you watch,” whispered another girl. “Lottie Moon thinks she’s too clever to become a Christian; she’s just here to stir up trouble.”
As the meeting proceeded, however, it became clear to everyone that Lottie was not about to make trouble; she was there to learn. Rumors were soon flying around the school; was their chief skeptic a new convert? They didn’t have to wait long to find out. That evening, Lottie attended another of the Reverend Broadus’s meetings. This time, though, when he asked for anyone who wanted to become a Christian to come to the front, Lottie stood and marched to the altar. It was official. There was no denying it. Lottie Moon was a Christian.
Lottie asked to be baptized as soon as possible, and a baptismal service was arranged for the following evening. Before her baptism, Lottie addressed the congregation and told them why she was taking the step she was taking. In the Baptist church, this was the only time a woman was allowed to speak to a congregation that included men. Lottie assumed she would never have such an opportunity again, and so she took advantage of it.
Lottie soon became one of the most influential Christians in the Albemarle Female Institute. She ran Bible studies and prayer meetings, attended church three times a week, and helped out with Sunday school when she went home for summer breaks.
It took Lottie two more years at the institute to earn a master of arts degree. She was among the first five women to do so. The degrees were the first master’s degrees ever earned by women in the South, and because Lottie graduated top of her class, she was declared the “most educated woman in the South.”
Normally such an honor would have opened a door of opportunity for Lottie, perhaps as a professor at a women’s college or headmistress at a preparatory school. However, on April 12, 1861, a month before she graduated, Confederate artillery in South Carolina opened fire on Fort Sumter at the entrance to Charleston harbor, which was manned by the U.S. army. The attack was the climax of a long series of disagreements between northern states and southern states over the interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. Lottie had heard these disagreements being discussed endlessly around dinner tables and on buggy rides, but she, like most other people, was shocked that the North and the South were now firing at each other.
Basically the North was in favor of the federal government’s having broad rights over all of the states in the Union, while the South wanted the federal government to have very limited powers. The southern states wanted to make their own decisions and fund their own projects. The North and South had already clashed over a number of issues, including who should pay for new roads and railways in the West, taxes on manufactured goods, and one issue that did not start off being very important but quickly grew into a big issue: slavery. In the beginning, the North did not want to ban slavery in the South but rather wanted to prohibit slavery in any new western states. The South was afraid that if this ban happened, there would eventually be so many “free” states in the Union that they could, and most probably would, vote to outlaw slavery everywhere. As a result, the shots fired at Fort Sumter marked the beginning of the War Between the States, or the Civil War, as it came to be known.
At first the war did not have much impact on Lottie’s life. Lottie returned to Viewmont for the summer, which turned out to be a much livelier time than the summer before, mostly because Orie had returned from her overseas jaunt. Lottie was a little nervous about telling her older sister she had become a Christian. After all, the two of them had spent hours discussing how the church was not helping the plight of women. She was in for a big surprise, though. Orie had become a Christian herself and had been baptized by her uncle James in Jerusalem! So the two sisters still had a lot in common to talk about.
Throughout the summer Orie regaled Lottie with stories of her overseas travel. “I’ve been waiting for so long to tell you this one,” Orie told Lottie one hot afternoon as they sat together on the veranda. “I was on the foredeck of the ship all alone when a sailor came quietly up behind me and put his arm on my shoulder. ‘Aren’t you afraid of traveling alone?’ he asked in a creepy voice.”
“What did you do?” Lottie asked breathlessly. This was a terrible predicament for a southern belle to find herself in.
Orie grinned. “I knew I had to show him I was capable of taking care of myself, so I pulled out my pistol from under my skirt, aimed at the nearest seagull, and fired!”
“Oh, Orie, you didn’t!” exclaimed Lottie, knowing full well her sister would do something like that.
“I surely did,” said Orie, “and I hit it, too. It plummeted into the water. Then I turned and smiled at the sailor. ‘Thank you for inquiring,’ I said in my most charming voice, ‘but I think I can look after myself if I need to, wouldn’t you agree?’ You should have seen his face, Lottie. It was as white as my handkerchief!”
Lottie laughed. Her sister might be a Christian now, but she hadn’t lost any of her spunk.
As the summer wore on, the war began to find its way into the lives of those at Viewmont, in small ways at first. The Confederate government was desperately short of money to wage war, and the newly elected Confederate president, Jefferson Davis, called for all good southerners to bring their silver currency to banks so that it could be converted into IOUs or bonds. Lottie stayed home to watch over the plantation while Mrs. Moon and Orie made the buggy ride into Charlottesville to convert all of the family’s money into Confederate bonds.
The two women arrived back at Viewmont with startling information. Confederate troops were massing near Manassas Junction to fight the Union army that had gathered by a creek named Bull Run. The war was creeping closer to home.
“I think there is going to be a lot of bloodshed, and the army will need every doctor it can get its hands on—man or woman!” Orie told Lottie. “So I signed up right away.”
On July 21, 1861, news reached Viewmont that the Union and Confederate armies had clashed in the Battle of Bull Run, the first major battle of the Civil War. Confederate troops had won the day, causing the Union soldiers to retreat to Washington, D.C. Of course, there had been a lot of bloodshed, and within a day, General Cocke had sent a dispatch to Orie asking her to help set up a surgical ward in the University of Virginia buildings. It was time for every southerner to do his or her part. Ike Moon rushed off to enlist in the Confederate army, while Lottie and her sisters Colie and Mollie went along with Orie to help as nurses.
The work was more emotionally harrowing than physically hard for Lottie, who did not particularly enjoy being around dying and injured men. Since modesty did not permit the women to touch the men, the “nurses” had to content themselves with cleaning the wards, writing letters home for the soldiers, and reading aloud to help them pass the time. Lottie was thankful when Orie asked her to handle the paperwork for the ward, and she returned to Viewmont, where she set up one of the bedrooms as the hospital office.
Lottie and her mother had to attend to many other responsibilities now that Ike was off fighting. There were gardens to be supervised, crops to be planted, slaves to clothe and feed, letters to write, and socks to knit for the soldiers. Lottie also went back to supervising her little sister Eddie’s schoolwork. She was busier than she’d ever been before.
Confederate President Jefferson Davis had promised that the war would be over fast and the “barbarian northerners” would once and for all be put in their place. Soon everyone could see that was an empty promise. The war was going to be a long, drawn-out affair. Battle lines were drawn all the way from Virginia to New Orleans.
With a continual flow of wounded soldiers arriving each day from the battlefield, Orie was overcome with exhaustion within a year. She had seen enough bloodshed and death to last a lifetime, and one day while sawing off a soldier’s gangrene-ridden arm she collapsed. She decided she needed to take a break from the daily carnage she was witnessing. Orie returned to Viewmont, where Lottie took on the task of nursing her older sister back to health.
Not long after Orie’s return, a doctor whom Orie had served alongside came to visit her. His name was Dr. John Andrews, and he came to repay a debt. When his brother died in the hospital, Dr. Andrews had lacked the money to take the body back home to Alabama for burial. Seeing his need, Orie had loaned him the money, and now he had come to repay it. He also had come to ask her to marry him. Orie was overjoyed at the prospect of marrying this fellow doctor, and their wedding ceremony took place in November.
Soon after the wedding, John Andrews was assigned to Richmond, the Confederate capital. Orie went with him. She soon discovered she was pregnant and returned to the safety of Viewmont to have the baby.
The war dragged on. Ike Moon was wounded in battle but lived to tell about it. Lottie and her sisters tried their hardest to keep the plantation going with a steadily dwindling supply of equipment and labor. Orie gave birth to a baby boy, who was quickly followed by two more babies.
The war was not going well for the Confederacy. Finally the news that everyone in the South both dreaded and expected arrived at Viewmont. On April 9, 1865, Confederate General Robert E. Lee had surrendered to Union army General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse. The war that had lasted four long years was at an end.
Surrender did not bring an immediate end to Virginia’s problems, however. Appomattox was only forty miles south of Viewmont, and soon victorious Union soldiers were swarming through the countryside, looting and burning homes and warehouses.
It wasn’t long before word reached the women at Viewmont that Union soldiers had burned down nearby Carter’s Mill. Lottie watched as her mother’s face grew pale at the news. Even Orie, who was about to have another baby, looked scared. Eventually, Mrs. Moon regained her composure and took the lead. “We must act quickly,” she said. “Viewmont will be next to be looted and burned.”
Lottie, Orie, and their mother sprang into action.
Chapter 4
Changes
We’ll get the food and clothing,” yelled Mrs. Moon, grabbing Orie’s hand and heading toward the pantry. “Lottie, you get Mollie to tell Uncle Jacob to bring the wagon to the front of the house ready to load up, and then you and Colie gather the jewels and silver and bury them somewhere.”
Lottie lifted her hooped skirt and ran up the stairs. She raced to find her younger sisters to give them their instructions. Once she had done this, she ran into her mother’s bedroom and yanked open the top drawer of the bureau. She pulled a blue velvet bag from the drawer containing the Moon family jewels. Satisfied she had them all, Lottie grabbed two pillowcases from the linen cupboard and stuffed the jewelry into one of them. As she ran out of the bedroom, she intercepted Colie standing at the top of the stairs with her mouth wide open and her eyes blank. “Come on,” Lottie said, yanking at her sister’s sleeve. “We have to get the silver.”
The two sisters headed downstairs to the dining room.
“Can you see any soldiers yet?” Lottie yelled as she caught a glimpse of Orie heaving a side of bacon onto the wagon.
“No,” she yelled back. “But they can’t be far away.”
Lottie ran into the dining room. “Here, put the cutlery in this,” she said, thrusting a pillowcase into Colie’s hands. “I’ll get the trays and the tea- and coffeepots.”
