"Civil War," answered Perlmutter. "I'd like to study any records that might throw some light on the mysterious loss of a Confederate ironclad."
"Sounds interesting." Moore motioned to a seat in the electric car. "Our Civil War records and artifacts are housed in buildings about 2 kilometers from here."
After a final security check and a brief meeting with the Curator-in-Charge, Perlmutter signed an affidavit stating that he would not publish or make public any of his findings without government approval. Then he and Moore moved off in the electric auto, passing a small crew of men who were unloading mementos and keepsakes people had left at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Photographs, old army boots and uniforms, buttons, watches and wedding rings, dog tags, dolls, each object was cataloged, tagged, and placed in plastic wrappers on endless shelves.
The government threw nothing away.
Though he had seen part of the subterranean expanse on his previous visits, Perlmutter could not help but be astounded by the incredible size of the place and the tier upon tier of storage bins full of records and old artifacts, a great many of them from foreign countries. The Nazi section alone covered the size of four football fields.
The Civil War memorabilia was housed in four three-story buildings-the concrete ceilings of the depository were 15 meters high. Placed in neat rows in front of the structures, different types of cannon from the Civil War stood as pristine and immaculate as when they were sent to fields of battle. They were mounted on their carriages and hitched to limbers that still held shot and shell. Immense naval cannon from such famous ships as the Hartford, the Kearsage, the Carondelet, and the Merrimack were also on display as if for inspection.
"The records are kept in Building A," explained Moore. "Buildings B, C, and D hold weapons, uniforms, medical relics, and furniture once belonging to Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, Lee, Grant, and other famous people from the war between the states."
They stepped from the vehicle and entered Building A. The ground floor was one vast sea of filing cabinets. "Any papers pertaining to the Confederacy are on the ground floor," Moore said, sweeping his hands around the cavernous room. "All Union records are filed on the second and third. Where would you like to begin?"
"Anything you have on the Texas."
Moore paused to thumb through several pages of a directory he had carried in from the vehicle. "Confederate naval records are kept in the blue files along the far wall."
Despite the fact that no one had been through the files in years, and many cases never since storage, there was surprisingly little dust. Moore helped Perlmutter zero in on a packet containing the known history on the ill-fated ironclad.
Moore pointed to a table and chair. "Make yourself comfortable. You're familiar with the regulations regarding the care of records and know that I'm required to remain close by to monitor your research."
"I'm fully aware of the rules," Perlmutter acknowledged.
Moore held up his watch. "Your permit to conduct research at ASD ends after eight hours. Then we must return to the curator's office where you will be driven back to Forestville. Do you understand?"
Perlmutter nodded. "Then I had best get started."
"Go ahead," said Moore, "and good luck."
Within the first hour, he had cleaned out two gray metal file cabinets before he found an ancient yellow file folder containing records of the Confederate steamship Texas. The papers inside revealed little historic information that wasn't already known and published. Specifications of the warship's construction, eyewitness reports of her appearance, one sketch by her chief engineer, and a list of her officers and crew. There were also several contemporary accounts of her running battle with Union warships during her historic dart: into open seas. One of the articles, written by a northern reporter on board a Union monitor that took hits from the Texas, had two lines cut out. Why the censorship, wondered Perlmutter curiously. It was the first time in all his years of researching on Civil War shipwrecks that he had come across a display of censor's scissors.
Then he found a brittle news clipping and carefully unfolded it on the table. It was a deathbed statement given by a man named Clarence Beecher to a British reporter in a small hospital outside of York. Beecher claimed he was the only survivor of the mysterious disappearance of the C.S.S. Texas. Beecher's dying words described the voyage across the Atlantic and up a large African river. The ship steamed comfortably past hundreds of miles of lush shorelines before entering the outskirts of a great desert. Because the pilot was unfamiliar with the uncharted river, he mistakenly turned off the main channel into a tributary. They steamed on another two days and nights before the Captain realized the mistake. When coming about to return downriver, the ironclad grounded, and no amount of effort could set her free.
The officers conferred and decided to wait out the summer until the fall rains raised the river again. There was a limited supply of food on board but the river would provide the necessary water. The Captain also bought goods from passing tribes of Tuaregs, paying with gold. On two occasions large bands of desert bandits made the mistake of attempting to attack and loot the grounded warship of its seemingly inexhaustible gold supply.
By August, typhoid, malaria, and a starvation diet had ravaged the crew, decimating their numbers until there were only two officers, the president, and ten seamen who could still walk.
Perlmutter stopped and gazed off into space, his curiosity snagged. Who was the president Beecher referred to? He found it most intriguing.
Beecher went on to say that he and four other armed men were selected to row down the river in one of the ironclad's boats to try and find help from the outside world. Only Beecher barely survived to reach the mouth of the Niger River. Nursed back to health by merchants at a British trading outpost, he was given free passage to England, where he eventually married and became a farmer in Yorkshire. Beecher said he never returned to his native state of Georgia because he was certain to be hung for the terrible crime committed by the Texas, and he had been too frightened to speak about it until now.
After he breathed his last, the doctor and Beecher's wife shrugged off his final-statement as the demented ravin
gs of a dying man. It appeared that the reporter's editor had only printed the story because of a slow news day and a lack of editorial to fill up that day's paper.
Perlmutter reread the article a second time. He would have liked to accept it at face value despite the skepticism of the wife and doctor, but a quick check of the crew showed there was no Clarence Beecher present during muster immediately before the Texas left the navy yard at Richmond, Virginia. He sighed and closed the file.
"I have all I'm going to find here," he said to Moore. "Now I'd like to hunt through Union navy records."
Moore helpfully returned the files to their respective cabinets and guided him up a steel stairway to the second floor. "What month and year are you interested in?" he asked.
"April 1865."
They threaded their way through narrow aisles stacked to the roof with cabinets on top of cabinets. Moore produced a ladder in case Perlmutter wanted to probe files in the upper stratosphere and directed him to the proper cabinet.
Methodically, Perlmutter began expanding his search from April 2, 1865, the date the Texas cast off from the pier below Richmond. He had his own system for research investigations and there were few who were better at scratching out leads than him. He used dogged persistence along with instinctive reasoning to narrow down the deadwood from the consequential.