HISTORICAL FICTION
My daughter-in-law has been suggesting I read Numbering All the Bones for a couple of years now. So when I picked it up and saw that Ann Rinaldi was the author, I knew that I was in for a real treat. I was not disappointed. Numbering All the Bones is the story of thirteen-year-old Eulinda, a house slave and daughter of the master of Pond Bluff plantation, situated just outside of Andersonville, Georgia at the end of the Civil War.
The book begins with Eulinda staring at a ruby ring inside a pawn shop window in Washington City. Seeing this particular ring sends Eulinda flashing back to the plantation and her early years when the master’s first wife hates her and her mother so much that she accuses Eulinda’s little brother Zeke of having stolen the ring to justify selling him away. After Zeke is sold, Neddy, Eulinda’s older brother, actually steals the ring believing the Mr. Hampton’s wife “owes it” to them for selling his little brother. He believed that this ruby ring would be a nest egg with which they could someday start a new life.
When Mr. Hampton’s first wife dies and he takes on a new wife, Eulinda is given a place at the dinner table as a part of the family and taught to read and write by “Mistis.” Yet, as Eulinda grows up, she realizes that Mistis is only putting on an act, and always has an ulterior motive to anything she does. Because Eulinda lives in the “big house” she is never really trusted or accepted by the slaves, she has to walk a thin line between two very different realities. There are times when it seems as if Eulinda’s real father has feelings for her, like when he goes to the Andersonville Prison to get her dog back to keep the men from eating it. Yet, he never seems to have the mettle to stand up for any reason. Even after finding out that Eulinda’s brother, Neddy, who ran away from the plantation to join the Union army is a prisoner in Andersonville, Mr. Hampton tells Eulinda that Neddy acted as if he didn’t know who Mr. Hampton was, and so he let him stay at the prison rather than bring him back to the plantation.
When the war is over Eulinda stays on at the plantation out of loyalty to Mr. Hampton for a while, but eventually she ends up working for Clara Barton at the Andersonville prison as Clara’s secretary. This part of the story recounts how the prisoners were buried and how Dorence Atwater, prisoner-turned-clerk, had kept secret records of the dead at the prison and returned to help document the account of Andersonville along with others. Alongside her secretarial duties, Eulinda helped paint grave markers. So, when the time came to rebury the colored troops, she had help finding her brother Neddy’s grave to look for the ring she would find with his bones, as the message he had sent her stated. Many freed slaves and ex-soldiers came to work at the prisoner of war camp for food and a place to stay. When a family came and a baby boy was born and then named Zeke, just like her brother who had been sold, Eulinda took it as a sign that the ring should go to this young black family to start a new life. Eulinda left Andersonville with Clara Barton and continued on as her secretary in Washington, starting a new life for herself in the north.
This story could have happened, and one feels like surely it did, as it is richly filled with real people and authentic situations of this time period. My daughter-in-law has taken her students to the Andersonville prison after reading Numbering All the Bones. There, they found the graves of several people in the story, and were able to vividly experience elements of this prisoner of war encampment as it was so long ago, giving them a rich and satisfying experience with this book.
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