The Thread Collectors

The following morning, William invites Teddy to perform with him. He feels protective toward the boy, who reminds him of his younger self. Recalling how his mother communicated with him through rhythms after her mutilation, William resolves to help Teddy use his drum to express himself.

Jacob introduces William to Abbott as a “master musician.” William and Teddy take the stage to play an original composition of William’s. The audience receives the music extremely positively, and the officers demand several encores. Afterward, Jacob congratulates William, saying that “they didn’t see you or Teddy up there [...] they only heard the music” (88).

Jacob is reminded of the last time he played for his mother Kati, who was on her deathbed after a long illness. Delirious with morphine, Kati mistook Jacob for Samuel, who was still in Mississippi, and asked him to play the violin. Jacob obliged, playing her several Bavarian folk songs from his childhood. When he put the violin down, Kati uttered her last words: “I love you, my son” (90).

Miss Hyacinth awakes Stella from a nap. She informs her that Miss Emilienne, another woman from Rampart Street, needs Stella’s help. Miss Emilienne’s brother, Jeremiah, is planning an escape, and Miss Emilienne has requested that Stella embroider him a route. Stella agrees to do so but says that she is out of thread. Miss Hyacinth brings her a colorful shawl, which she unravels to use for the embroidery. When the map is finished, Stella delivers it to Miss Emilienne herself.

In New York, a group of 16 women assembles at Lily’s home for the quilting bee. Most of them have husbands serving in the Union Army. Lily’s first few attempts at quilting are poor; her mother died in childbirth, so Lily never learned what are considered basic feminine skills.

Lily soon improves and finishes her first quilt. On the back, she embroiders a quote by Frederick Douglass (My Bondage and My Freedom, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass): “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” (98). The next quilt she makes is the stars-and-stripes design for Jacob. She cuts a piece of fabric from her nightgown into a heart shape and hides it under the quilt’s center panel to symbolize her love.

As William prepares his setlist for the following night, he tries to draw inspiration from his memories of clandestine meetings with Stella, back when he was still on Frye’s plantation. On Sundays, William would head to New Orleans’s busy Congo Square to meet Stella in the marketplace. Ammanee would act as their guide, leading them to secluded areas where they could be alone for an hour or two. William relished both the chance to see Stella and the sound of the music Black musicians played, ancestral rhythms that made him feel close to his mother. As Jacob watches William and Teddy perform, he comments on Teddy’s silence. William tells him that Teddy is “talking [...] with his drum” (101).

Later, Jacob writes to Lily, relaying the rousing success of the night’s performances. William and Teddy performed several songs that wove in African rhythms. Though some of the Union officers reacted negatively at first, the music soon drew them in, moving them to “venerable elation.”

Ammanee enters the St. Anthony of Padua Church, where she has worked for years as a cleaner in exchange for a few coins or pieces of food. Ammanee once felt safe and welcomed in the old church. The clergy was known to be kind to enslaved people, and the bishop, Father Turgis, used to preach God’s love for all his children, Black and white. After Father Turgis was conscripted into the Confederate Army, however, his preaching changed.

Nowadays, the church serves as a secret meeting spot for local men who align with the Confederacy, including Frye. Many of the men who meet at the church keep mistresses on Rampart Street, enhancing the appeal of the location. Ammanee gets down on her knees to scrub their footprints off the ground, feeling that they have “defiled such a holy place” (104).

Jacob has been away for seven months, and Lily worries for his safety every day. She reminds herself to be brave, a mantra first taught to her by her father after her mother’s death. As a child, Lily searched for female role models in stories about strong, outspoken women like Joan of Arc.

Lily recalls her first memory of seeing Ernestine Rose speaking to a mixed-gender crowd about the evils of enslavement. Though many men in the audience jeered, Ernestine remained calm, declaring, “I will not be silenced” (107). Ernestine’s speech moved Lily to offer the Kahns’s printing presses up to an abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator.

After learning that Union hospitals are running low on clean bandages, Lily convinces her quilting group to redirect their talents toward sewing homemade bandages.

On the day of the march toward Port Hudson, William wakes Teddy, who has slept through the reveille. He chides Teddy for his slowness, asking if he slept in when he was on the plantation. Teddy replies in a “crystal-clear” voice that he has never been enslaved. William apologizes for his assumption and encourages Teddy to talk to him during the day’s journey.

As the Native Guard marches toward Port Hudson, Teddy tells William about his past. Teddy and his family were free Black people, living in a comfortable home on Dauphine Street in New Orleans, where his father, James, and mother, Phebe, owned a well-off tobacco shop. Teddy’s childhood was a happy one until the night that five white men broke into their home. Phebe managed to hide Teddy under the bed before the men hogtied her and James. The men raped and strangled Phebe to death, then dragged James out into the street, where they hung him from a lamppost. Upon realizing that he was alone, Teddy began to run toward Camp Parapet.

In May, Stella’s pregnancy begins to show. To keep her mind occupied, she continues to embroider escape maps for neighbors and friends. Janie advises her to tell Frye that she is expecting his child. Stella asks what will happen if the baby comes out with dark skin. In response, Janie brings up the Union soldiers moving toward Port Hudson. Their best hope is that Frye will be killed in battle before Stella’s baby is born.

Stella recalls Frye’s last visit, during which he complained about the “damn Yanks” moving in on the Miss-Lou river. Frye had produced a map and showed Stella the route that the Confederates would be using to move supplies. Stella’s heart dropped when Frye pointed out an area close to Camp Parapet.

The journey to Port Hudson comprises five days of marching through forests and swampland. The Black recruits are made to carry most of the supplies. To keep their spirits up, William begins leading the Native Guard in song. Someone begins to sing Jacob’s song, “Girl of Fire,” and the entire group soon joins in. William wishes he could thank Jacob for “giving the regiment a new fight song” (122).

When the men arrive in Port Hudson, they are immediately put to work building bridges. William is once again asked to perform for the white troops. That night, William spots Jacob in the crowd. He plays an original composition to signal to his friend, and Jacob immediately recognizes the sound. When Jacob turns toward the source of the music, William waves to him.

Frye attends a clandestine meeting at St. Anthony of Padua. Afterward, he arrives at the Rampart Street cottage in a foul mood. He notices Stella’s pregnancy immediately and reacts with annoyance, calling it “a damn bother” (126). He reminds Stella that their relationship is purely transactional and tells her that he will not be increasing her allowance before initiating sex.

After Frye leaves, Stella tells Ammanee about something concerning that Frye said—he claimed that the Confederates are planning sabotage on the Union troops in New Orleans, near the headquarters of General Banks. Ammanee says that she overheard the same at the church meeting. The sisters decide that they must warn someone in the Union Army, despite the risk to their safety.

Stella and Ammanee visit Janie, who tells them that their neighbor, Miss Claudette, has been offering sexual services to Union soldiers to earn extra money. Stella suggests that they have Miss Claudette relay the information about the planned sabotage. Ammanee offers to talk to Miss Claudette herself, but Stella insists that she wants to be the one to do it. Eyeing their reflections in a water barrel, Stella notes that “one woman’s gaze was no longer stronger than the other” (129).

Stella visits Miss Claudette’s cottage, which is better kept than others on Rampart Street. She presents a handmade lavender sachet to Miss Claudette, who invites her inside and shares a slice of bread from a fresh loaf on her table. Stella tells her about the planned sabotage and asks if she is willing to pass the information along. Miss Claudette says she needs time to think it over, as involving herself in politics risks her safety. She notes that Stella has become much bolder over time. Stella replies that bravery is a choice.

Jacob writes to Lily from Port Hudson on May 30th, describing the hardships that the men are experiencing. For the first time, they are engaging in direct combat, and Grant is forcing the Native Guard to fight on the frontlines. In a recent battle, Grant sent Black recruits into an ambush zone while white soldiers waited in the outer banks. Led by Lieutenant Andre Cailloux, the Native Guard displayed extraordinary bravery. Cailloux urged his men forward relentlessly even after being struck by a cannon and only stopped when he was killed by enemy fire. The Native Guard sustained hundreds of casualties, and Jacob is increasingly worried for William and Teddy. He asks Lily to pray for them as well as himself.

It has been two weeks since the start of the siege on Port Hudson. The Union generals are using white regiments sparingly, instead sending in Black soldiers, “the men whose blood they [don’t] mind being spilled” (135). The bodies of over 500 Black soldiers lie on the battlefield because Union generals are not allowing them to be retrieved for burial. Teddy has lost his drum in the chaos of a recent battle.

Jacob visits William and Teddy at the Native Guard camp, bringing along some rations smuggled out of the white camp. William laments that no one cares about the dead Black soldiers—even to the Union generals, they are just disposable bodies. Jacob bows his head and whispers a Hebrew prayer for the dead. He tells William that “no death is in vain” (137).

The Native Guard is not allowed to retrieve their dead until 47 days later, by which point the bodies are so badly decomposed that they are unrecognizable. Looking at the corpses in Union blue, Williams’s belief that blue is a protective color is shattered. When the Native Guard arrives back at camp, Jacob has left a replacement drum by Teddy’s bed.

A letter from Lily relays news of the Draft Riots in Manhattan. After new conscription laws were enacted requiring 300,000 more white men to join the Union, five days of rioting, looting, and lynching broke out in the city, spurred by white men who resented the idea of being forced to fight in “what they call a ‘[n-word] war’” (139). Eleven Black men were lynched, and rioters burned down an orphanage for Black children. This violence sickens Lily and reiterates her promise to support the abolition movement in any way she can.

On a subsequent visit, Miss Claudette tells Stella that she has decided not to pass along the information about the planned attack. Women like herself and Janie, who have experienced being sold off, understand that “the only thing worth [saving] in this world is yourself” (141).

At home, Stella unravels the rest of Miss Hyacinth’s shawl and uses the threads to embroider a swaddling cloth for her baby. She stitches cowrie shells and blue flowers around the border, then fills the cloth with a bright green landscape. Finally, she adds a red heart with the letters S and W hidden in it.