

### Each Other

A Novel

By Pamela Erickson

Copyright © 2012 Pamela Erickson

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This novel is a work of fiction. All of the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictionally.

Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Cover Art Copyright © 2012 Robert Connery

## CHAPTER ONE

MARYLAND 1891

An eastern gale blew in hard off the Atlantic that night last April. It came with little warning. I was awakened first by the pounding rain and then by a loud rapping sound from the front hallway below. Looking back as I write this, recalling those events for you, it is difficult to bring alive the violence of that storm, unusual for spring.

Finally in the din, I managed to distinguish one sound from another and struggled to maneuver myself, still thick with sleep, down the steep wooden stairway that led to the hallway below. Clutching a small oil lamp with one hand, I held on tightly to the polished banister with the other. At the bottom of the stairs, my feet found a familiar path that led to the heavy front door of the house where loud intermittent knocking sounds continued, but with more hesitation. In those few seconds I thought back to my work during the War nearly thirty year prior, when predawn visitors were common occurrences at my doorstep. In those times, quiet knocks came in distinguishable patterns and were accompanied by barely audible phrases —in passwords —that only I could discern. It was on those nights that I opened my door and my home to strangers: fellow spies who sought shelter, food, and very often. a disguise to enable them to move across the lines, north or south.

Finally alert, I set down the small lamp on a table in the entrance hall and approached the door. It was obvious that my visitor had begun to tire of knocking but kept it up with the hope that he'd eventually be heard. I remember hesitating for a moment with my hand on the latch, wondering who could be at my door in the middle of the night. By then the knocking had weakened to a dull thud. Looking at the lamp and the meager light it cast, I leaned into the wooden door frame and boldly unlatched its heavy lock.

A weary and very wet messenger nodded once and looking a bit relieved, he pulled a roll of thick paper from his sleeve.

"Miss Ann Cunningham?" he asked expectantly. "A message from Mrs. Lydia Dodd. Please hurry, she doesn't have much time."

***

In response to the message's urgency, we got an early start, just before dawn broke. The roads were rough and thick with mud which caused my driver to take a circuitous route through the city to find passable roads. Finally, the horses and carriage came to an abrupt halt in front of a stately home. With the dawning light I could see the white Georgian white pillars and porch that stretched the full width of the home. Gray clapboards created a monochrome palate for the deep blue shutters that trimmed each white window frame, the front door, and the dozen or so steps that led up to the porch. Bulbs, like tiny green spears, pushed through the damp soil poking between the posts of an iron fence and winding up the bordered walkway.

When the carriage door opened, I gladly rose to a full standing position, tugged at the large brim of my dusky green hat reserved for formal affairs, and gathered up my full skirts the best I could to avoid the muddy street. Remembering the night's rain, and the unexpected messenger, I was relieved to see the day was clearing; an omen perhaps, for what might lie ahead. After all, this was the house of Lydia Dodd, a woman I had hoped never to meet in my lifetime, or even in the hereafter. I could not change a thing; it was clearly time for our paths to cross.

Turning to the driver, you'll remember I said, "I don't know just how long I'll be here, but please, wait right here for my return."

"Certainly, Madam," was his reply.

Opening the latched gate, I remembered passing through this neighborhood before, but I had never had a reason to stop in. I knew the location of the Dodd home, but only passed by, looking at it hesitantly, pretending disinterest. Stepping firmly upon the wet path, dewy grass met the edges of my skirt despite my efforts to keep them dry. At the top step, a servant opened the front door and nodded slightly with his head. He was a tall gentleman, who wore a waist coat and silk ascot. His starched collar and smooth, relaxed appearance told me that he was the family butler, a man who managed the house and its affairs for one who could not.

His face showed many years of composure and I found comfort in the softness of his features, his aging jaw, the color of smooth, rich chocolate.

"Welcome, Miss Cunningham," he stated, offering a slight bow and closing the door behind me as I entered the wide foyer. He was expecting me. "Please forgive Mrs. Dodd for this urgent call but as her messenger may have told you, it is uncertain how much time she has left."

I nodded in acknowledgement of this information, and at the name of 'Mrs. Dodd' I grew more uneasy.

" _Your_ name, Sir?" I inquired.

"Forgive me, Madam. I am Edward."

Edward took my cloak and hat and hung both on the coat rack beside the front door as I patted my auburn hair, pulled up and back for the occaision. It was as I was pulling at the fingers of a glove to remove it, that I consciously drew in a deep breath. It felt as if I hadn't breathed in hours. Sighing to myself, I surveyed the enormous hallway in which I found myself. Etched grapevines in glass sidelights around the door glowed with morning sun while a clipper ship dressed the glass transom directly above. Even with the morning light coming in, a large glass oil lamp sat lighted on a polished table against the far wall. Its reflection was captured in a huge gold-framed mirror mounted above the table, doubling the effects of the lamp.

Down the hallway and towards the back of the house, I could just make out a sunny room with a table covered by a white cloth and a fresh bouquet of flowers lying beside a vase, awaiting arrangement. I felt as if I should make myself at home and arrange the flowers. Indeed, I was curious to see more, but I certainly didn't want to appear rude.

Finishing up on the other glove, I glanced at the wide maple staircase that would soon direct me upstairs. Wishing to delay the visit, I looked beyond Edward at the many oil portraits that dressed the walls above the wainscoting. The faces of men and women reflected previous years in the past, earlier in the century. Fashionable women adorned with pearls, bonnets, and undoubtedly corsets under those weighty dresses, looked out from perpetuity as did the men; some of whom were dressed in tailored finery while others were in uniform.

That's when I saw him again.

Crossing the hallway, I approached the portrait hanging at the foot of the stairway. Looking out from the still oils, he caught me by surprise like a bather emerging from a swim onto a glade of unexpected picnickers. I sensed that Edward heard my short tight gasp. I wanted desperately to touch the man framed there, suspended as he was in paint and time.

I stiffened knowing that soon I'd understand why I had been called here to Lydia's house at all. Truly, she was a woman whom I never wanted to face and I clearly had nothing to share with her.

My thoughts formed into hushed words like breathy staccato notes as if waiting to recognize a movement, a breath from his cheek, a slight smile between us. Instead, a handsome man, dressed in the graduating uniform of a West Point officer, stared back at me, in silence. An aquiline nose and high cheek bones sculpted his face, but the sturdiness of character was lightened by his eyes which seemed to glisten even from the silence of the oil paints dried long ago on an artist's easel. Quietly, as if in a holy place, I gazed at the portrait with keen intent, then glanced wistfully towards the front door as if another guest was about to appear.

Stepping back to take in the whole of the portrait, Edward must have caught my far off stare.

Edward, still standing by the coat rack, cleared his throat.

"Madam?"

"Yes," I murmured quietly as if coming out of a dream. I handed Edward my gloves and smoothed the tailored pleats of my dress.

"To Mrs. Dodd's room," Edward stated as he approached the staircase. With one glance up the maple staircase and another glance at the portrait, swallowing hard, I followed him up to Lydia's room.

***

I am writing to you tonight as I have been for several weeks, recalling stories of the war and those treacherous times of states' rights and union,

of slavery and freedom, of sacrifice and conviction, and of blood and great deprivation. I tell you this story with some trepidation, I must admit but I know that it is time for you to hear it all.

Staring out into the darkness from my desk, I can smell the marsh on each warm breeze that meanders through my window. Thick with grasses and every insect that can battle tides and salt, the marsh's scent is pure earth and water. Many find the scent abhorrent, but I find it strangely reassuring. Out there under the sky and blankets of stars on nights like this one, the land's honesty whispers in contented tones like that of a comforted lover in tidal moonlight.

The last weeks have passed slowly and I've had difficulty sorting bundles of memories tossed and tumbled like jetsam from an ocean floor where they've been resting for decades. Fingers of times-passed have become interlaced with today, 1891, and despite the lines in my face and the physical changes evident in the mirror, that young woman of the War three decades ago is in me. I will finally share the events that led up to that visit with Lydia, your father's legal wife. You'll see how this is our story of those months in 1862, and of the people who came from across time itself, I'm certain, as a reminder that we are made of spirit, and soul, as well as of flesh.

## CHAPTER TWO

Northern Virginia Spring,1862.

"Sing that one again," yelled a disheveled man who sat with his buddies around a table of cards in the smoky tavern.

"Sing _Bonnie Blue Flag_ and we'll join ya" he called out.

The requester's voice was barely heard above the crowded audience applauding the revue that closed the place for the night. With the curtain down, people were settling back into their drinks and their discussions. There was always a lot of news to parley now that the war was a year old. In northern Virginia, just hours from Federal territory, there was plenty of fodder for war stories. The Rebels hadn't been expected to hold their lines because of the strength and numbers of the enemy.

Looking back, Manassas had been an early victory, a surprise really. And, since it was located less than twenty-five miles from Washington, the victory seemed even more remarkable. Volunteers had rushed to depots throughout Virginia to don gray uniforms and support the convictions of states' rights. While other Rebels had joined up to fight to preserve the region's fortunes and economy through the preservation of slavery, even though most Confederate soldiers owned no slaves themselves.

Train lines carried soldiers to the west and south over rolling hills and farmlands which, one by one were being ripped open, harshly exposing the bloody fighting fields and burying grounds of that grisly war.

The small, quiet town of Marsh Station where I found myself had come alive with activities supporting the war effort. Boarding houses had been quickly established and military tent communities dotted the riverbanks and fields. In town, the bordello and tavern businesses flourished. Barbers, grocers, liveries and laundries were busy nearly all the time. A military hospital and prison had been built just out of the valley over the rise, to accommodate the spiraling numbers of wounded and captured men.

In the tavern where I sat, intimate conversations transpired between strangers. The ever changing lines of battle provided hours of discussion by the men who gathered around the sticky tables and the long thick wooden bar. Finally, the evening's formal entertainment had ended along with most of the card games. Newly formed friends were bidding one another "good-night" while others appeared to be finding a young lady with whom to spend it.

We had just finished our final performance together as a theater troupe, and were seated at a table along a wall where the smoke and the arguments weren't quite so thick. Leaning back against the wooden chair, I breathed in deeply and closed my eyes to the predictable confusion in the dense, smoky hall. Realizing how tired I felt once I allowed myself to relax, I remembered a reason to get home: a visitor would be arriving after midnight. I knew that I couldn't stay at the bar very long, but I wanted to listen to the political discussions that inevitably ensued around a table of drinks and acquaintances during a war. Besides, I couldn't appear too eager to leave. It wouldn't be right.

Jostled out from under my thoughts, I opened my eyes as the barmaid nudged me with a mug of beer.

"Looks like you could use a little refreshment," she said pausing. "Besides, the drink is on him," nodding her head towards a man seated across the room. I looked and caught his eye, raising my glass in his direction. Somehow I hadn't noticed him. And, he was worth noticing.

I sensed that he had been watching me for a while with his brilliant eyes. High cheek bones sculpted his face and his chestnut hair was thinner on top than that of the young boys who got off the train with twisted masses of unkempt hair. He had the smooth, distinguished bearing of an officer, a presence not easily forgotten.

Just by looking at him sitting there, I knew that he was a man who could break my heart between sunset and sunrise, but even so, I boldly returned his gaze for a few impossible seconds. Looking away, I breathed in again, trying to appear relaxed. Then, I sipped my drink and pondered him for a moment. He sat alone with his drink in hand, his long legs crossed at the knee. As I raised my glass to take a sip of beer, he raised his slightly and nodded with a slight smile. A pistol rode his hip and I saw then that he wore the uniform and rank of a Captain of the Confederacy.

'One of JEB's boys', I thought to myself.

I nodded in return and then gave my attention back to the men and women of the troupe who had drawn more chairs to the table than would fit. I listened, half-heartedly to their conversations about the war and the latest land swap between enemies.

"This war can't last much longer. It'll kill both sides off, then where'll we be?" said one man, the lead singer of the troupe.

"Without anyone to make babies, we'll be a country of old people," said another.

Sipping my frothy beer, I remembered my friends back home and wondered, like everyone else, how this war would end and what the nation would be like when it did.

Recognizing the late hour, with a lull in the conversation and an urgency to get home, I pushed back my chair to leave.

"Good-night, everyone. Be well." Then, stopping the waitress as she passed by, I asked her, "Could you thank the Captain for me and let him know, unfortunately, I have to be on my way."

"This time, I will honey because I know you're Kate's friend, but next time I'll charge you for messenger services." She gave me a wink and went on to deliver another round of beers balanced on her tray.

With hugs all around I turned to leave, and briefly met the Captain's eyes one more time as I passed near his table. My skirts rustled entirely too close to him on my way out.

Leaving the tavern, I also passed Katherine at the bar. Katherine, or Kate as many called her, was the proprietress of the establishment, and she's offered me the company of one of the uniformed men who stood nearby her.

"Annie, one of these gentlemen will be happy to see you to safety," was the way she put it.

"Thanks Kate, but I'll be fine," I assured her, and left without a note of hesitation. The men, first so hopeful, looked disappointed.

Tethered horses stood closely together outside the rail that formed a border between the street and the planked sidewalk. Two drunken soldiers chortled in a heap against one corner of the tavern. One, a reeking private reached out to paw me as I walked passed them with a sure step; I veered far out of his reach and called over my shoulder to him, "You're not what I had in mind, boy, " knowing full well that they were too drunk to come after me. Someday, I vowed to surprise them and wear spurs and boots in self-defense.

I lived just a few blocks from the tavern, off the main street where the shops ended and the homes, though small and close together, had yards adjoining one another with wide open work areas and fields behind them.Turning a corner, away from the center of town, my footsteps were silenced as the wooden planks gave way to a dirt path that bordered the street. Only the quiet swish of my dress could be heard, along with an occasional horse's neigh from a darkened stable nearby.

I was used to walking alone. By then, I'd lived in Marsh Station for just three months; I knew few people there and trusted even fewer. The ones I did know were the only friends I needed. I had traveled with the theater troupe for a month or so as a means of getting settled in a southern town between Washington and Fredericksburg without raising suspicions since I was a single woman, living alone. I settled in that little depot of Marsh Station to perform where the troops were quartered overnight before the next train out. It was essential for me to establish myself and stay in one place for a while. With few rooms available in local boarding houses, I got very lucky meeting Kate and renting one of her properties. Kate made it clear to her neighbors that I was sharing the house with her, but since the war began she had essentially been living above the tavern and only occasionally came to the house for a few belongings or to share a meal with me. Still she had her room there at the house.

The Virginia night was quiet against the darkness. Only a thin crescent hung at the edge of the sky and though it was April, a chill ran through me. I turned another corner and walked passed several quiet, dark homes; the occupants both free and slave. A low gate marked the path leading to the side door of the house. From that side, a porch opened onto a large work yard, that separated my property from the next. I approached the steps and reached for my key when suddenly, without warning, a tall, willowy figure stepped out from the shadows right into my path.

## CHAPTER THREE

Startled, I jumped back then and saw a distinct figure at my side. Reaching for the door handle, I instinctively looked around us and into the yard, and then I whispered a question, testing my visitor.

"What brings you here?"

"The new moon can never shine bright enough," came the response.

"All right then, let's see what we can find for you."

I opened the door to the darkened kitchen. Reaching for matches, I struck the side of the stove and got a flame. Lifting a lamp's chimney, I lit the trimmed wick and before long it cast its clear light on us.

My visitor was a woman. Standing in the middle of the kitchen she not only looked taller than most women, but taller than most men as well. Removing her hat and putting down her bag, she shook out her short hair and began to unbutton her jacket.

Two lamps were necessary. Striking another match, I repeated the process and turned down the flame on both lamps so as not to soot the glass. The lamplight lit up the simple kitchen and revealed a wooden table and chairs and a large wooden cutting board with clumps of carrots beside it. Jars of dried beans and spices were arranged neatly nearby. From the beams overhead, dried herbs of various colors hung in bunches like newly dyed wool. Pungent fragrances wafted across the kitchen and followed us as we moved through the house. I always hoped that my "guests" as I called them, would find comfort in my humble, but homey surroundings.

"Follow me," I gestured, picking up the smaller lamp. "You need a uniform?" I asked her. She nodded.

"That's exactly what I need, do you happen to have one for me?" she asked hopefully.

Leading the way down the hallway and into my bedroom, I set the lamp on a chest of drawers and stared down at the old trunk that sat at the foot of my large bed. I'd been fortunate to find a room to rent at all, much less a house that came fully furnished. The trunk was the only furniture I'd brought with me.

My visitor, a thin woman, probably about my age, in her mid-twenties, looked gaunt as she stood beside me, fatigue dominating her face. We'd never met before.

"What is your name...I mean your given name?" I asked her. Then realizing I hadn't had the courtesy of introducing myself, I managed, "Oh, I'm Annie. You've probably been told my other name too: I go by 'Gardener'".

"So, I've heard," she said. "I'm Constance Lambrecht, but I go by Dan," she replied, "'Daniel Pierce' is my name for now."

To look at Constance, one could not readily identify her features as female, particularly in the untailored jacket that she wore. Her features were large, not delicate. It was her mouth that could give her identity away if an observer paid close attention. Certainly her full lips had weathered along with the rest of her features, reflecting the natural aging process that comes from hardship, living in the woods by day and travelling by foot, often at night. I could see in the way she held her expression that she had worked at finding a position with her neck and chin that tightened her mouth forcing her lower lip down to look less feminine, more severe.

Working for the Union, Constance and I called ourselves spies but mostly we gathered information, secretly of course, and passed it on through our newly established channels that guided information from south to north and back again.

With the lamp on a side table, we knelt down in front of the old trunk looking at it as if it was a shrine in some sort of religious ritual. The familiar trunk had a heavy lid and as I opened it a faint smell of cedar wafted out from inside. In the soft light, portions of paper pictures pasted on its inside walls were memories of ports and places that the vessel had been. Deep within the shadowy interior, I found a soft, summer quilt and placed it at the end of the bed.

"You can use this to rest for the night," I said to her.

The next layer of clothes included a pair of knee length pants, a topcoat, and a long flowered dress.

"These are the costumes I used with a theater troupe," I told her.

Laying those items on the wide bed beside the quilt, I again returned to the trunk, digging still deeper to find what I needed. This time I pulled out two folded uniforms, one gray and one blue and we carefully laid them out side by side on the bed, comparing sizes, as if putting the dead to rest. Stretched out before us, the uniforms looked more like the withered remains of young soldiers lost to battle. I thought of my youngest brother Joseph, dead nearly a year already.

"These uniforms," said Constance, "They look like those boys in the field," she paused. Then added, "After a battle."

We stood silently, standing over the bed as if it was a burying ground.

"I lost a brother nearly a year ago, at the very beginning of the war," I said. "My sweet, little Joseph." Turning sharply to shake the memory I turned to Constance and asked, "Well, what'll it be tonight? Are you headed North or South?"

"South, near Richmond, to gather information on prisoners at Belle Isle."

***

My principles against slavery coupled with the memory of my brother were what led me to shelve all my personal plans and explore spying instead, as a personal duty. It was a natural response for me to work directly for the war effort given the thousands upon thousands who were bound to my brother in death.

For years, I had been deeply moved by the powerful writings and speeches of William Lloyd Garrison and the optimism of young men everywhere who, when the call for troops came up, left their families and lovers, homes and fields, workshops and trades to follow their convictions. With seeds left unplanted, those men, young and old, walked away from all they'd known and all they'd loved to follow a vision for their country and join up. If seen from atop a bluff, marching together through deep valleys those brigades looked like locust driven in thick clouds to consume the next fighting field. Most of the men who joined the war effort, despite being unschooled, knew that the issues of independence or of unity divided them into Rebels or Federals. And, at the heart of it, whether spoken about or kept silent, the fiery issue of slavery divided them too.

Indeed, back then I was a willful woman. Impulsive too. Far away from my hometown in northern Massachusetts I volunteered to live in the rolling hills of northern Virginia, a Confederate slave state, to create a safe house or station for spies who passed through the area. My vocation, working for the North, demanded that I take tremendous risks at times. Fear had its way with me, but I soon realized that it was capable of paralyzing my every action and draining me of all my reserves, exhausting all my energies. I had to purposely substitute defiance and blind hope for that paralyzing fear that tended to catch up with me in the middle of the night. I told myself that if I didn't have hope and convictions to rid myself of my own fears of being caught or the Confederates winning, I would jeopardize myself and the others.

Falling into bed that night, I remembered Joseph, my younger brother. He had been an early enlistment in the war and at barely sixteen years old, an early casualty of it as well. Unwilling to lie about his age, since the requirement was eighteen years, he and his buddies went to a neighboring town, and wrote 'eighteen' on the soles of their shoes.

When the inspection sergeant questioned him about his age he replied, "I can assure you Sir, I am over eighteen."

Devastated as I was, when the news of his death came, I was even more convinced that I had to find a way to support the Union's effort. On his behalf, I had to turn my beliefs into actions. I decided to become a spy. Spying had never been employed in any American war in a systematic way; it was a brand new role, especially for women, in a strange time when a nation was at war with itself.

The house was quiet except for the slow breathing of Constance who lay asleep in the next room. I couldn't sleep. An hour earlier Constance and I sat altering the hems of the uniform she had chosen and talked about our work.

I told her about my younger brother.

"After our Mother died following a brief illness, I had become a mother-figure to Joseph," I told her. "He was the child with shaggy blond hair, who smelled of soap and flannel after his bath. He followed me around the house and insist that Sarah and I stay with him before sleep, reading to him, making him warm milk and honey like Mother had done and giving him small chores so he knew that he was part of the household and that we were still a family. One time he brought two chickens in a small cage through the back door and released them in the kitchen to distract the cook, just so he could get a few finger dips of chocolate cooling on the counter. Trouble though he was, I loved him dearly and his death cut me deeply." I paused and looked up from my work. "That was the main reason I joined the war effort, to remunerate his death. That and to fight slavery." Constance listened and nodded.

Then I asked her, "What about you? Why did you join up as a spy?"

Constance looked up for me, and without pausing said, " Staying home wasn't an option. I wanted to do something that could further the efforts of the Railroad, Underground , of course and this was the kind of thing that was needed: Gathering information and moving between the lines. Sometimes it is a bit more than I bargained for and I long for a quiet evening back at home. This comes close, Annie. Thank you."

While Constance enjoyed a simple supper of bread, cheese and apples along with hot tea, we whispered quietly reflecting the very late hour and the still night. Our conversation was comforting to both of us and comfort, any kind of comfort was welcomed.

As she ate, I continued my story.

"So, after Joseph's death, I discovered my own purpose in this ungodly war. I decided to join the informal network of Union spies and moved where I was needed: from my home state of Massachusetts first to Washington and then through the guise of the entertainment troupe, here to northern Virginia. I don't know about you, but I've learned a lot from following my nose and trusting others in the network to pass on messages from one safe house to another. We don't exactly have any directions; our network is all too new for that."

"Yes, and it's exhausting, isn't it? I wish I could stay here with you for a few days Annie, I could really use the rest," Constance explained. "But instead it's best that I stay on the move and carry on the work I'm doing. Your location here between Richmond and Washington is a good one for us, you know. It's a good strategic location, especially for women like me who have to dress as soldiers to cross the lines from time to time. I may be back again soon, if you don't mind. It is calm here and far away from the mess of fighting and living out in the elements day after day."

"You're welcome here anytime and tell the others too, "I said. "But I've got to find more uniforms, and soon. I'm not exactly sure how to do that. These came with me from the north."

Warming her hands on the porcelain pot, she poured another cup of tea for each of us. Contentedly we sat like young kids on the carpet in my bedroom, sewing and talking.

"I feel lucky staying put for a while," I said. "It can't be easy or very safe traveling around everywhere like you have to do."

"You are lucky Annie, but what you're doing is extremely dangerous too. One slip and your identity could be uncovered. But listen, I have to tell you something, maybe you've heard this?" she went on. "One gal I ran into last week in a Federal encampment told me that women had been seen fighting side by side with their husbands, disguised as men, of course." I looked up, surprised by the news.

"No, I hadn't heard that, "I remarked.

"You've got to wonder, do you think it was a profound love for their man or their personal convictions that led those women to choose the battle front over the home front?" she asked.

"It must be a bit of both, don't you think?" I said.

"Either that or they thought about the hardship of war without a man at home. Oh, and, Annie, I have news about a woman you know," Constance said, a smile crossing her face. "Guess with whom I spoke last week?"

I had no idea. "A woman, hmmm, someone who visited me here?"

"No, do you want me to tell you?"

"Wait, someone I went to school with?" I said.

"No, I'll tell you. I spoke with your sister, Sarah." Constance replied.

"Sarah, you saw Sarah? When? Where is she? She wasn't injured was she?"

"No, she's fine and she had just heard about you being in Marsh Station. We got out a few maps, charted my course, and figured out that you would be right on my way."

"So it was Sarah who steered you here?" I asked.

"Yes, and she said to tell you she's fine. Using the old depots of the Underground Railroad for our network is going well and she wants you to know that. She also told me to tell you that she may be headed down here in a few months and oh, she asked me to give you this note. I nearly forgot I had it."

Reaching far into the toe of her boot, Constance brought out a piece of folded paper and handed it to me. I held it and placed it on the bed for later reading. After our talk, the hems finished, we went to bed; Constance on the living room floor, which came with my apologies. Kate's room was not mine to use or offer. After all, she owned the place.

"Are you kidding?" she asked me when I apologized for the floor as guest space, "This is luxurious; warm, dry and no bugs or snakes."

Lying in the dark bedroom with the dimming light of the lamp, I waited until I heard Constance's breathing change to that of sleep and then I carefully peeled apart the fragile note from Sarah. The paper was as thin as if peeled off an onion. I wanted to take my time. I'd only heard from Sarah two other times in the past four months and I missed her terribly.

Gardener,

I am well and pray the same for you. Our plans are moving forward and I hope this war ends soon so that I can convince you to come west with me and find land and a man for each of us. In that order. I plan to visit in your territory in the next few months, by the hot season anyway.

Love, Cat

She remembered. That's why she signed the note, 'Cat'. Growing up our mother used to describe us as two cats curled up together, sharing the same chair. We'd share a hammock on warm summer days and quilts in the clutch of winter. It was always Sarah whom I turned to when I needed comforting, and I missed her fiercely. When we both decided to join the spying effort, Sarah and I agreed that no matter what, we would look out for one another by staying in contact through notes, and through other spies, whenever possible. Certainly, such contact could have been forbidden, but the network was new and makeshift and we felt that the contact with one another was essential to keeping our sanity. Moreover, we agreed to work together, despite the distances, helping one another's efforts so we would never feel completely alone. Who knew how long the war could last? Many had predicted ninety-days after the bloodless battle of Fort Sumter, but that time had come and was long gone.

Sarah's note reminded me that the two of us were from a long line of strong-willed women who repeatedly stood up for important social causes: Causes like education for women and the rights of women to own property and to be divorced. Being born to the middle-class gave us the pivotal ground that we needed to support both political and social issues that challenged the status quo. I remember how excited my mother and our Aunt Grace had been when they returned from a lecture or a rally. They'd talk in the parlor until way past bedtime while Sarah and I listened even if it meant hiding behind a couch to avoid detection. When we turned twelve and fourteen, they'd decided that Sarah and I were old enough to attend the lectures with them. Their favorite orator was the Abolitionist and former slave, Isabella Baumfree, known to most of her audiences as Sojourner Truth. She was a marvelous speaker, dynamic and confident. I never tired of those times and it gave me such pride to know that the women of my family shared strong values about the rights of people, and especially, women. My mother encouraged political discussions and the social changes taking place. I know now that Mother and Grace were clearly a few decades ahead of their time.

In my upbringing I was well-educated but never a scholar. However, my grandmother gave me confidence any time she could. She knew that it was confidence that empowered women, and they often had to find it in themselves instead out in the world at large.

Sitting in the kitchen shelling peas she'd say: "Annie, remember this: you're smart and you also have common sense. You could dig yourself out of a well if you needed to. You have the talent of running a household or running a town meeting, and you'd be well-suited to both."

My father respected our efforts and as a young woman, when I was just eighteen, I was honored that my father had invited me into his thriving business. He had made the same offer to my brother, Jacob. Not one for shops and manufacturing, Jacob couldn't deny his love of ships and shipyards and I couldn't help but notice that his time in tree houses as a child were easily translated to climbing the masts of clipper ships either when they were in port for repairs or on the gray-blue seas of the Atlantic bound for distant ports around the world. A few years later while Jacob went to sea to serve the Union, I went south to do the same, and my father assured me that his offer would still hold until my return. Sarah wouldn't have any part of our father's business.

From the next room, Constance's restful breathing was evident against the backdrop of the peaceful April night.

I often thought about life after the War. I didn't see myself going after land in the west as Sarah had proposed, but nothing was certain. Like Father, I loved the culture of the big cities and envisioned a life in one of them. Maybe Boston, but perhaps New York or Philadelphia. If the North won, or _when_ the North won, I would have a chance to try any new career idea that came my way, and live just about anywhere the East had to offer. Cities dotted the Atlantic seaboard like constellations fallen to the ground, but as young as I was, I never thought very specifically about where I'd settle down, and I did not think about where I would land if the South won the war. It just wasn't possible.

The parameters of spying and spy networks had never been tested before in any other war, but Sarah and I would test our limits of self-reliance, character, and most of all, pure will. I had to remain focused so as not to create my own demise. Or, for that matter, the demise of anyone else.

With thoughts and memories unfolded, finally exhausted, I began to drift into a deep sleep. Somewhere in the distance a dog barked. Then, except for the ticking of the clock, silence.

## CHAPTER FOUR

Nearly a week had passed since my visitor had come and gone before dawn. She'd left reluctantly with a gray uniform folded tightly in the bottom of her bag hidden beneath a large clump of fresh parsley.

Standing in garden boots, ankle deep in turned soil, my mind was wandering in long trails like the ragged roots of the weeds I was unearthing. I knew that by now, Constance would have utilized the "tracks" of the old Underground Railroad and other spies, still called 'conductors', like Sarah, would be guiding her between safe houses until she reached her destination.

Looking around I was grateful for the winter garden that Kate had planted in the fall. Now I figured I'd have to quadruple its size to grow the produce and herbs that would be needed for my work. Cabbage, lettuce, parsley, carrots and beets had provided a small income at the grocery and, more importantly, the vegetables provided cover for the delivery of my intermittent messages to the grocer who passed them on to the Union. My herb garden was another matter. I needed to find seeds or wild herbs for my long-term plan.

In between digging and planting I pondered if Constance had gone safely and without incident or if her real identity had been discovered by the Rebels? I would not allow myself to dwell on that. When I caught my thoughts falling between pragmatism and pessimism, I tried to shake them free and told myself that my visitors, the spies who had become friends or acquaintances in this lonely effort, would be protected. Thinking such thoughts allowed me to reassure myself that my work remained secret and that I wasn't in any danger. But if my messages were discovered, what then? I couldn't take that mental path. It was too uncertain and would haunt me if I let it. So I moved, unconsciously perhaps, to my more immediate concern: 'What could I do to keep the weeds down in the garden?' It seemed that those unwelcome visitors grew each night by the light of the moon, because by morning they were choking off yet another row of plantings.

Warm morning sun reflected the season. It was early May. Rising farther to the north each day it came up a bit earlier. On clear mornings upon waking, I made it a habit to step outside, onto the porch, my hands wrapped around a steaming cup of tea to survey the day. Spring seemed to feed my chemistry with energy as if the world was awash in new colors freshly mixed and dabbed to liven up the darkened corners of my spirit, made gloomy by war. Besides the other daily chores of making bread, washing, and keeping the house in good repair, my garden needed attention; the attention that every new garden needed at that time of the year —composting and turning the soil, removing rocks and adding low fencing, and determining the best placement for new seedlings. Fresh new shoots, carrot tops covered with dew and glistening spider webs, greeted me as I pumped water to fill an enormous spouted can.

On clear days young slave women utilized the common work yard adjacent to the garden for doing the laundry of their local masters and if possible, a few thin articles of their own. On the other side of the fence, freshly cleaned sheets snapped in the cool morning breeze. One of my fondest memories of those days was hearing the low singing of the women as they worked. Pulling myself up from the soil and standing erect, I stretched my back and decided that a cup of tea at the garden table was just what I needed.

In minutes, my hands cleaned up and a pot of steaming mint tea on the table, I decided to speak to the young laundresses. Walking towards the fence I wanted to call to the slave women who stood stirring a steamy tub of laundry with a thick club-like stick. If it wouldn't give away my position, I'd say, "Good morning. Beautiful day."

Head down gazing at the tub below, the woman looked up at me briefly and gave a shy nod. I did say quietly just above a whisper , "I'm Annie, your neighbor," I said, in the direction of the other woman hanging socks and undergarments on the nearby clothesline.

The two slave women looked at each other and back to me, then looked down, determined not to have to answer, unaccustomed to such conversation with a white woman. Sensing their embarrassment, wondering if I'd been foolish to think it was all right to make this introduction, I turned away from the fence, sat down and poured myself a cup of tea. Their discomfort reminded me of their life led as chattel to a master and his business. Farms and plantations were the places where breaking the spirit of a slave was a science and creating fear had become an art.

I closed my eyes and breathed in the flowering trees near the house. In the quiet morning, the rhythm of a slow—walking horse caught my attention for some reason. Opening my eyes once more I saw a cavalry man approaching. His gray uniform created a landscape for his uniform's glinting brass buttons as he walked his horse up the packed dirt road. The horse was a tall chestnut, probably eighteen hands high who appeared to be enjoying the relaxed pace of the morning as much as its rider.

I recognized the rider's face though it was shaded by the brim of his jaunty hat. It was the captain whom I'd seen over my beer at Kate's a week before. Setting down my teacup, I rose from the table, smoothed my skirt and walked to the edge of the yard as if to inspect a flowering bush.

Slowing down, the Captain stopped his horse in the street on the other side of the shrub border from where I stood.

"Good morning Miss," he said, tipping his hat slightly.

I could see his face more readily. Clear eyes, smooth skin, and a confident smile accompanied his greeting. The double braids of his sleeve insignia were evident as he raised his arm to touch the brim of his hat offering me a nod as well. However, the clearest sign of rank was one that I had had to memorize and distinguish months earlier in my hasty training, the decorative collar badge of the Confederate officer. His collar had three bars indicating the rank of Captain. From where I was standing I could see the shiny buttons that had caught the sun as he approached. Even from that distance, I could see another mark of the Rebel uniform. Each button was marked with the sign of the Confederacy ...the capital 'C'.

He was sure with his movements, tightening and loosening the reins of his horse as the creature chewed at the bit or shook his neck and mane. I looked at him quite directly and felt my earlobes warm, my neck tighten.

"Good morning, Captain. It appears that you are not running off to any battles this fine day."

"It is a beautiful morning, isn't it? Just thought I'd take Chesapeake here out for some exercise. Got to keep her in shape during these quiet times." He reached down to the horse's neck and patted her as he spoke.

"I imagine your work is either quiet or quite frantic," I responded.

"It certainly is," responded the captain with a pause. Then he added, "By the way ma'am, I enjoyed your performance last week, Miss..."?

"Cunningham. Annie Cunningham. And you're Captain...?"

"Dodd. Warren Dodd, "he responded. "It is indeed a pleasure to meet you, Miss Cunningham. Will you be performing again soon?"

"I'm afraid not," I replied. "The troupe with whom I worked decided to return to Richmond after all. Apparently, the place is so dismal now performers have been given top pay to stay there and raise morale, and they're not picky their audience."

"Will you be leaving soon then?" Dodd asked.

No. Not now. I rather like it here. With all the moving around I did with the troupe, I became exhausted. I needed a quiet place to plant my boots for a while," I replied.

"I'm sure that your staying is Virginia's gain indeed," Dodd grinned. "It's a pleasure to meet you. I hope to see you again, Miss Cunningham." He nodded and prodded his horse forward. "Good day." The "ay" was drawn out slightly from looking back over his shoulder as he moved on.

"Good day Captain," I said. My eyes followed him up the road. Then, under my breath I repeated to myself, "I hope to see you again, Miss Cunningham. Looking up again I added, "And, I hope to see _you_ again Captain Dodd."

Turning back to the yard and humming to myself I returned to my resting spot and sipped the last of my tea, but I couldn't have missed the exchange of looks the laundresses gave one another as I returned from speaking to the Captain. Donning my work apron, and with a trowel that I pulled from the ground, I bent over the new seedlings. I was happy to finally meet that man, even if he was a Captain for the Confederacy.

"I hope to see _you_ again" I whispered aloud.

I was flattered when Kate, my landlord and also the proprietress of the Three Lanterns Tavern, told me later that Captain Dodd had inquired about my whereabouts a few days after he bought me that drink. She had only offered him the general location as not to completely disrespect my privacy and she said that the rest was up to him to find me or not. He had walked Chesapeake up and down that square block area several times with no luck until that morning. Later, he told me that if he had been a Private he would have offered to dig my garden for me. But I reminded him that if he was a Private, he would be living in the mud, not gardening in it.

Gardening was not just my work and sustenance. It was truly my muse. For an hour I contented myself with digging the soil, turning it over to warm and transplanting the seedlings that had grown sturdy on the kitchen window sill, while outsmarting the cold, wet spring beyond the glass. Laying out the garden patterns in my imagination was like applying texture and color to a canvas, with new productions each season. Flowers and vegetables, herbs and berries, all required forethought and constant care for their growth. In wartime, especially, it made more sense to plant lots of vegetables given the precarious nature of supply lines and food stuffs. And of course, I saw to it that I planted all the herbs I could find room for. It was my living apothecary.

In more northern climates, planning a garden and securing the beloved seeds occupied the minds of folks for months during the winter. From just after Christmas until the first skunk cabbages of spring when daffodils, too, showed their smooth necks like green cormorants emerging, people traded seeds. Then they drew out their ideas into garden plots on long sheets of paper at their kitchen tables and recalled the patterns the sun traced across their yards in summer. Quite different from its winter route. Thoughts of gardens and designing spring landscapes were the lifelines that pulled winter residents out of their gray doldrums with visions of color that a garden, planted in spring and ready to be harvested in summer, could offer even the sourest of souls.

Standing ankle deep in soil and mulch my thoughts drifted between Captain Dodd's visit and the placement of my herbs. Personally, I delighted in having a mind that fluctuated between fantasy and practicality. One balanced the other. Anyone who knew me would have agreed with the words of my mother, who when I was a child, used to tell me that my "daydreams made for a lithe spirit." Without my daydreams, I would have been as serious as a wooden plank because of the depth and density of my thoughts. Especially since loneliness was beginning to gnaw at my spirits like the acidic stomachs of hungry southern soldiers distanced from supply lines. Loneliness, alone, did not attract me to the captain. I'm convinced that chemistry had an overwhelming voice, deep within my veins. And, his eyes. It was something about those vivid clear blue eyes that found the core of me.

Hearing the approach of a carriage I set aside my tools quickly picked up the corners of my apron and wiped the sweat from my face. Hands grimy with soil, I brushed them off as best as I could. By that time, I saw a woman dressed in white who arrived like a flapping dove preparing for its descent; she stepped down from her carriage, and out -paced her footman who had rushed to intercept the carriage door. Lucy Talbot didn't seem to notice my state of grime and disarray. If she did, she never let on.

Though breathing fast, she spoke with alarming clarity, color rising to her peach cheeks, her hat neatly secured around her head with a gauzy scarf. And as Lucy lighted from her carriage I noticed a glow in her lightly powdered face, a pink hue spreading over her porcelain cheeks. A mole below an outer corner of one eye, resembled a ladybug or beetle pausing on the petal of a rose.

"Annie, Annie, I had to come tell you," Lucy called, catching a breath and then going on, "Samuel has sent word that he'll be home tomorrow, on leave for at least the next ten days. We're so excited with his news that I'm personally visiting each guest this morning and inviting everyone I know to a dinner party in his honor. It'll be tomorrow night. Please tell me you can make it. I want all our dear friends there to welcome him home. Kate had to decline, but you'll come, won't you?"

"Of course," I said without hesitation, "I'd love to come. Can you stay for tea, Lucy? It'll just take me a bit to heat up some water, the stove is still hot," I said.

"Thank you dear," Lucy replied, "But I must be off. I still have several more visits to make this morning and plans for tomorrow's party will take all afternoon and probably half the night."

Pulling me close to her Lucy went on, "It's been so long since we had a party like this. Back before Manassas, I believe, even before I knew you. Oh, do come. We'll dance and eat prawns and crab and anything else Cora can procure for us, and besides, maybe you'll meet one of our handsome friends to keep you company."

With a nod Lucy turned in her full skirts, and raised a gloved hand, waving it and talking as she walked. "Wear something you'd feel pretty in, dear, and we'll have a grand time indeed."

With that, Lucy called out the window to her driver, "To the Stuarts," then turning, she blew a kiss and shouted, "See you at six. I'll send a carriage for you." Then off with a kick of dust, Lucy's coach departed.

Looking around me as if to carefully piece together the tornado that just blew in and out again, I took notice of the sky. Clouds were building for a light shower.So, Samuel was coming home. How odd that he had time off. After all, last I heard, he was headed for the Mississippi to thwart Union advances there.

It always struck me as curious that from the first day that we met Lucy and I had become such close friends. We'd met months at the mercantile store while purchasing ribbon. She would never have been there herself but accompanied by her maid, she had wanted to pick out fabric and ribbon to supplement what her tailor had purchased. She'd brought her fabric and turned to me casually to ask about whether the pale blue ribbon would be better than the cream to match her fabric. We weighed the two against one another only to settle on a creamy yellow when all was said and done.

Turning to me, Lucy thanked me for my assistance and asked me to accompany her to the tea room just down from the tavern. There we got to know one another and I introduced myself as Kate's cousin, and living at her house for the time being. I sensed in that short time over tea that Kate was very lonely. Relatively new to the area herself and without children, her husband had gone off to fight and it was just she and her slaves running the plantation. Her father-in-law lived in separate quarters on the land but really there was no one to keep her company except her women's guild and their get-togethers to help her pass the time.

Our backgrounds couldn't have been more different if we had been time travelers and come from different centuries. Lucy having been brought up in a wealthy southern family, had married a peer, Samuel, and both of them were used to their black slaves doting on them for their every need from morning until past supper.

Lucy had gotten the impression that I was from a distinct and wealthy family in the Washington area, undoubtedly another rumor that Kate had started and later filled me in on. Kate was known in the community since she was a rarity, a stylish female business women who stood out in the small down and ran the only real meeting spot, a restaurant and theater. I'm sure that Lucy gave little thought to any of the other services provided there and managed to remain innocent or look the other way as I had. Over tea, Lucy filled me in that she had heard that I had left the Washington area, specifically Arlington County, Virginia because of a feud with my father. Kate had also added that I studied medicine, thus giving reason for my visitors at all hour if anyone had taken the time to notice. It would also explain my work at the hospital. I offered little information about this fictitious story unless I was asked, and Lucy asked me few details. Overall, Katherine's inventions made it easier for me to keep my stories straight. I was good at following a script but I had to be extremely careful. A few simple slips or inconsistencies about my actions or identity could lead to suspicion and danger – not just for me but for all of us who were in Rebel territory working for the Union. I had to mind my every word.

As an actress of sorts, spying tested my ability to create a fictitious personal history and then live the part. At the base of it all, I had to live out lies and deceive my new friends. I rationalized it by thinking of myself as an actress; an actress with a clear mission, one who with the help of many others working together, could save lives and advance the Union's cause, or so I hoped.

My attention to deception was ironic. Prior to the war, the characteristic of honesty in a person would have gauged their level of honor for me. Honesty developed a relationship of trust and without trust we had no character, I assumed. Boiled down to that logic, one's character was based on their level of honesty and personal integrity. If only the world could be explained so logically it would be a gentler place but the war challenged everything we knew. As a spy, I had come to realize that deception was a necessary path to a victory for the Union, for an undivided nation as I saw it and ultimately, the future of the nation without enslavement.

Practically speaking Lucy's friendship offered me comforts that would have otherwise been unavailable and most importantly, her friendship offered a sense of attachment, an anchor to the small community of Marsh Station. Without Lucy's kindness and good humor, my efforts would be dogged with drudgery and laced with fear. Instead, I fed off of Lucy's childlike bounce, as if I were holding on to a kite string in a strong gust, moving on the ground, mirroring the kite's twists and turns.

Wiping my hands again on my apron I threw it over my shoulder. Pausing, I looked down at my rough hewn hands with fresh soil under each fingernail and thought back to Lucy's and the Captain's visits. My hands were symbolic of what magic I would have to render to prepare myself for the party.

I let out a sigh, and thought as I gathered up the tea things, "At least I might be able to get some information on troop movements."

## CHAPTER FIVE

Despite a long day of chopping wood, pruning bushes and making bread, before I allowed myself to feel tired, I had to come face to face with the fact that I felt in-between; a feeling that winds down deep inside, being so intangible and hollow it cannot be mapped. The only comparison to that empty feeling was when I had experienced childhood homesickness. I longed for the familiar sight of Father's tall clapboard home and its rolling yard. I longed for conversation with people I loved and for affection and human touch. No matter how I tried, my day's activities in and around Marsh Station couldn't overcome the lonely ache I felt deep in my chest.

While in March Station I craved the news from the northern cities, and the world's perspective on the war. I wanted to do what I had always done in the spring: compare the newest fashions in Harper's advertisements with the displays at Stanwood's store. I loved to fashion my own designs on my glorious sewing machine, an invention that freed me up from hours upon hours of hand stitching. That magical machine was waiting for me far away, locked away in a back bedroom, beyond Father's study. I knew that I couldn't possibly have brought it with me on my mission, but it would have been be so helpful with my work of the last few months.

Of course tiny Marsh Station was no Boston or New York and didn't offer popular shows. Even though it had been ten year since I'd since a performance Charlotte Cushman or my very favorite vocalist, Jenny Lind, I still remember what a thrill it had been to see them on a city stage. I had to wait out this war, or more realistically, make my way through it and then, when it was over, navigate back to New England to all the attractions and the culture that I missed. Patience, rather than impulsiveness, had, by necessity, become my navigator.

Putting my needs aside also meant living a life of secrecy and ultimately, risk, for the Union. It was clear: our Federal troops had to take the southern capital at Richmond before autumn so the whole thing could end and we'd be done with it. One of my goals was to help that happen in any way possible.

***

At times I was nearly convinced that I was not cut out to be a spy. But in a sense, like a young private, I had to keep marching, following the ruts of wagons before me. Clearly, I was involved too deeply to leave and my destiny was woven into a bigger plan, still uncharted. Gathering useful information was the part of the job that I liked best. When I was assisting other informants by giving them safe harbor and food, I rarely considered the risks involved. But the times in between, when my work slowed down and I had just the mundane tasks of daily life to tend to, those were the days and often weeks when loneliness swept me up and wrung me out in its dry, bitter wind. War deprived me of close friends and personal comforts, fine foods and wines, good books and shows. Routine was my fast friend. The patterns of chopping wood and hauling water measured time and filled the gaps between housing and feeding other spies who crossed my doorstep.

Clearly, the only thing that kept me sane and somewhat steady was the depth of my convictions and the sheer will to believe there could be good days ahead without the human tragedy that was all around me. I knew in what I believed. First and foremost I believed in the abolishment of slavery. That's why I was here and not living in relative comfort back in Massachusetts. Other reasons were given for the War's cause, but my cause was to abolish slavery and in so doing, restore the Union.

Having grown up in the same community as William Lloyd Garrison I had located and reread his first editorials and columns on abolition. I'd also read every article on report I could find on the Women's Convention of 1853 where Garrison spoke. Even while Lincoln insisted that resolving the War Between the States was about reunification and not the slave issue, I knew that slavery was an institution of denial and hypocrisy. Documents outlining our independence from the British Empire had been circulated to the continent modeling our new government, and served to underscore our infancy as only a _semi-civilized_ , independent nation because of our dependence on the insidious institution of slavery.

Beliefs born out of the dignity of the Abolitionists and the Quakers gave me both motivation and comfort. I believed that my daily personal sacrifices and my work as a spy had an impact on the war effort.

Though the ugly war found me at a young age, I had strong convictions against slavery even then. I wished, by my work, to be an Abolitionist. I could not just stand by watching one race of people being forced to give their lives generation after generation over to humiliation, indignity and bondage. It was all I could do to maintain my composure when I saw slaves at work in a field or on the street and not scream at their overseers and rant at the injustices suffered each day by a populace beaten, starved and sold into submission. The Southern economy was based on counting slaves as property or capital. Trade in humans was a chief commodity and to me what was called "states' rights" seemed merely a rationalization for cruelty and profit.

The North wasn't clean of slavery either. Though not institutionalized, it was a subtle yet ugly presence in many wealthy households. The wealthy households of coastal New England enjoyed the profits of the triangle trade of rum production and sales so the northern states were by no means pure. Then there were the laborers working in city factories in dangerous jobs without protections, and many of them, just children. Not truly enslaved, they were free to leave their hideous jobs but were often too poor and depleted to do so. There was no purity in either North or South but clearly slavery, unaccepted by European nations on the continent had to go, and swiftly.

It was way past dark when I finally put my feet up to relax with a book. Settling back into a soft chair, I found my old bound friend hidden under the flattened cushion of the chair: _Whittier's Poetry_. I had to read the book's preface every time I picked it up. It was about John Greenleaf Whittier, the Abolitionist poet. He was a Quaker who expressed in his poetry a love for humanity and held strong sympathies for the war on slavery. Hence, my reason for hiding the book. Even the smallest details could give away my true identity sending me off to a humid southern prison rank with vermin and wormy hardtack. Or,worse. Though no female spy had been hanged, the assumption was that the punishment was not ruled out.

Reading my favorite poems, reminded me of the importance of my work to free the Union from slavery wherever it was found, north or south. I must admit,I loved Whittier's poetry because it reminded me of everything I loved about New England. When reading his work I drifted off in my imagination to the waters of northern Massachusetts, where the Merrimack River meets the sea with its roughhewn coastlines and steeple-clad town squares. I read a few stanzas in soft whispers to the cat on the cushion next to me as she purred contentedly, but honestly, I wished that cat could have been my sister Sarah sitting there instead. Sarah and I never hesitated to tell each other everything – from our thoughts on politics to fashion. As children we often read to each other before falling asleep. We shared stories of the American Revolution and its heroes who outsmarted British sea captains, pretending to direct them into the port of Boston, but instead seizing the ships for the colonies. Sarah made up bedtime stories for me —stories that told of her working with the original Underground Railroad and hiding slaves as they escaped from their cruel masters. In fact, we were very much aware of the work of the Railroad all around us, and we kept our secrets to ourselves. Mother wondered how we could eat so much food and stay slender, when in actuality we were sneaking it to the neighbors who harbored runaway slaves. Theirs was just one house in a long line that connected the farms and safe houses from southern plantations, all the way north to Canada.

When the war came, Sarah and I did not need to be convinced that the Union was worth fighting for, but it was the social causes more than the political ones that drove us to enter the new spy network, a very risky undertaking.

Shortly after our brother Joe died, our father, Seth Cunningham, had withdrawn wholeheartedly into his business affairs. He was a hatter and with a prosperous business to be had in Boston, he moved his shop there. He liked to be "in the thick of it," as he often said. The small town had gotten too close and there were too many reminders of Joseph, his youngest child, whom he had encouraged to stay home a few more years before he enlisted.

Sarah continued the work in association with what remained of the Underground Railroad. She preferred to stay north rather than move into the Confederacy as I had chosen to do. She had two reasons for this: her thick accent could give away her identity and become a source of curiosity for Southerners, and she had worked hard to establish means to pass information and guard the old safe houses of the Underground Railroad. The grand homes of sea captains that dotted the eastern seaboard, homes with multiple parlors, back stairways and attic rooms made hiding escaped slaves much easier. Many fine mansions lined the streets of port villages and towns up and down the coast of New England leading like a trail of breadcrumbs to safe harbor.

A dog barked in the distance, horse hooves clomped outside the window on the packed earth, and I drifted off from my book to dreamlike memories and back again, fighting sleep. When the clock over the mantle chimed two, I jumped up having heard a light rapping sound that came from the back door.

Pulling a blanket from my shoulders, I stuffed the book down into its cottony cavern and carried a lamp to the door. "Yes?"

"Radishes are coming up in gardens all around here," came the cryptic voice behind the door.

"So they are, by the dozen," I replied, not opening the door but standing just beside it.

Then I heard the instruction.

"Look for the peddler coming by in the early morning. He may need to trade with you."

Then the voice left like an apparition dissolving into moonlight. With only the ticking of the clock to meter my breath, I knew that I had one last chance to write a note and send it before it was too late.

Would anyone believe me that McClellan could take Richmond in the spring of 1862? All our information confirmed it, now someone just had to convince the General himself.

## CHAPTER SIX

Next morning I awakened knowing that it might be too late. Dressing quickly, I opened the kitchen door to hear all the street sounds, waiting for one that might sound like a clattering peddler's wagon. Pulling down a large basket nailed to a beam overhead, I then found the note that I'd written under a crock on the kitchen table. Hoping that Sarah would receive it and pass it on, I read it once again:

Add white bricks to chimney tops for visitors to see.

Blue army at Richmond awaiting many more to be.

Now's time to move in by foot and cart. No time to waste.

Make haste, make haste.

Troupe abandoned this little port.

Now —alone —of sort.

Plan to aid the captured dear,

_Spring is arriving with gardens here_.

She would translate it and know that the white bricks signaled to traveling spies certain safe houses as they had done before for runaway slaves, also that the Union would more than likely be taking Richmond and that although the acting troupe had left town, I was staying on to aid prisoners – my new plan for the duration. I'd have to first work at the adjacent hospital and then make my way without raising suspicions to the Union prisoners next door.

The kitchen's trap door led to a cold cellar below. There I found a clump of carrots, a few onions, parsley, other herbs, and half dozen new potatoes. Placing the note in a small green bottle and putting it at the bottom of the basket, I covered it with the vegetables and herbs along with a loaf of bread wrapped in a piece of cloth. In a cupboard I found a pot with a detached handle and placed it over the top of the basket. It served as a decoy to get the peddler's attention, lest anyone be watching us. With the preparation completed, I was ready for a cup of tea.

After filling the kettle and feeding the wood stove, I heard a tinkling sound, matched by a heavy creak of a wooden wagon. A horse neighed indignantly as it meandered up the road, its rider, no doubt, giving it a crop or two on its backside. Several people were up and out early, walking into town, to find their day's business as the train arrived and left again .

Opening the screen door, I saw a peddler's wagon approaching. Perching the basket on my hip, I quietly swung open the outer gate as the old wagon slowed down and came to a complete stop. Reigning in two mules, the thick wooden wheels of the tarp-covered cart looked like it had already traveled the Oregon Trail and returned. Pots and pans hung from its sides, and were still swinging from the suddenness of the stop. The mules twitched and chewed at their bits, as if to communicate their dissatisfaction with the whole arrangement.

"Hello mister," I called to the driver. "I've been trying to find someone to fix this old thing," I said holding up the broken pot. "Could you do that for me or just make a trade perhaps?"

"Just you wait, little missy," said the driver climbing off his platform. "Let's go see what I have in the back here."

The old man hobbled from side to side walking like a rocking horse that had gone askew. His short bowed legs carried him to the back of the wagon that was designed with a hinged plank opening outward. As he passed me, I noticed the large wad of tobacco in his cheeks that bulged up and down as he chewed. Out of his gray stubble on his face, pouches of lined skin framed large brown eyes. I followed him and waited as he initiated the ritual of entering his shop on wheels. Just inside the wagon was a stool that the old man put down on the ground creating a step with which to enter the back of the weathered coach. He pulled himself up with a curved tree branch crudely mounted as a handle to the side of the wagon. A faded red cloth provided the canopy for the cart, which was dark inside except near the back entrance that allowed outside light to enter.

Bending over to take my basket, he offered me his rough hand and helped me up. While my eyes adjusted from the bright morning light outside, I saw that the old man was motioning to me to move farther into the wagon, where there was barely room to stand.

"Here, I'm supposed to give this to you," he said in a hushed voice, handing me a green bottle, sealed at the top with wax. "This one is for you," then pulling out a brown bottle he said, "And this one is for the town grocer."

I thought to myself as a way to remember, brown for Bean. The green bottles were for personal information, the brown for the government's information. Accepting it, I shook the container and nodded.

Patting the basket I made a request of the peddler. "Please make sure everything gets to the next stop. They'll move it on to my sister, the small bottle, I mean. The bread and vegetables are a decoy, of course, but you may want them to eat only the way," I said in a hushed tone.

At the mention of food, a sound came from the wall just ahead of me; a thumping sound, and then, silence. The old man pulled aside a shabby blanket and opened a hatch in a false wall. Just on the other side of the wall I barely made out two black faces, appearing to be a mother and her son.

"I had no idea you were there," I whispered. I moved a little closer in the darkness and handed the loaf of bread to the woman who nodded.

She whispered, "Thank you ma'am."

"Are you getting enough air?" the wagon driver asked quietly. With a nod his two secret passengers nodded their heads up and down. "Fine then," was his reply. Closing the panel, he whispered "We put air holes at the back of my platform. No one could ever find 'em unless the wagon was torn apart by a cannon."

Then clanging about with other pots and pans he found an old pot to make the trade look complete and handed it to me just in case someone had been watching us as we climbed out again. In minutes, the covered cart was creaking off. The mules clambered on, resigned to their fate as their master clacked the tight reins against their hides.

With the bottles tucked back in the basket, I returned to the house letting the screen door slam behind me. I shook the bottle again and looked through the glass. Sure enough there was a notes inside. Turning my head, I smashed the bottle in the kindling box and carefully extracted the note. It was in Sarah's hand. The note read:

Fine here but haven't heard

Good or ill, please send word.

Must know soon

_As I'll see you when the roses bloom_.

Sarah was planning to visit me! She was worried. She hadn't heard from me and wondered why. But she planned to leave her post and move south to see me sometime in early summer, the blooming time of northern roses. For her, planning a visit must also mean that she had to have practiced away her New England accent. For her sake and that of the rest of us, I hoped so. I certainly hoped so.

***

It was just after six o-clock when Lucy's carriage arrived at the gate. It had taken me all day to haul and heat water enough for a bath and to iron a dress and petticoat. In Marsh Station, I had to do everything myself. I'd worked on my hands: oiled them, cleaned and reshaped my nails. I was ready for a festive evening.

Lucy's carriage and driver meandered through the small dusty town of Marsh Station then pulled up a hill where a twisting path wound up to the Talbot plantation. There the sky opened up to the green rolling hills and beyond to the river, tinted pink by the setting sun. It was a luscious spring evening, Virginia's best. I lighted from the carriage while birds chattered in the trees with their last conversations of the day, reminding me that the challenges of war did not remove all familiar aspects of everyday life. However, I wasn't quite prepared for the surprise that the war would offer up as I entered Lucy's party.

Cut dogwood branches encircled the front doorway and I was greeted by a doorman at the entrance to the grand foyer. A quartet was warming up towards the back of the house sending strains of unconnected notes forward. Half a dozen slaves were occupied, lighting scores of thick candles and oil lamps throughout the hallways and dining area, casting light about like so many stars.

Welcomed by Lucy's butler, I was led into a parlor where a small fire had been started in the hearth and guests crowded around a man seated in a wing chair off to one side of it. The intimate group turned to welcome me, their newest guest, while the seated man whom I assumed must be Samuel, stayed put, not standing like the other gentlemen. Before I could even reverse my thoughts on his rudeness, I saw why he couldn't easily stand to greet me. His leg had been removed at the top of the knee and a bandaged stump was visible.

Lucy jumped up from her seat next to her husband. "Annie, you've arrived my dear. Do come in." After the formal introductions offered all around, Lucy pulled me aside as if to guide me out of the room, and then spoke over her shoulder to her husband.

"One moment Samuel darling, would you mind if I ask Annie into the kitchen to taste the soup? She is a fine cook and I just need her opinion on the seasoning."

With her at my side I saw what Lucy had tried to cover up; her eyes were swollen and puffy from crying all day since Samuel's arrival home.

Poor Lucy. She had to be in shock herself. She clutched my elbow firmly and led me away form the other guests. Finding a hiding spot in the butler's pantry just off the main dining room, we stood facing one another. For no apparent reason she trusted me implicitly.

Lucy began. "Oh Annie, I knew I could talk to you. I've wanted to run over to your house all day but with the party, and oh ...I couldn't run out with poor Samuel having just arrived...Annie, I had no idea. He wrote in his letters that he had been wounded and in the hospital for some weeks, but I never guessed... He never told me he'd lost a leg. When he said that he was coming home, I thought he had fully recovered from whatever wound he'd had." With that Lucy's voice broke and I held onto her and stroked her back.

"Oh, you poor thing, what a terrible shock for you, shhh," I replied. "War has its way of surprising us over and over again doesn't it? There now Lucy dear, there's nothing you can do that you aren't doing already." Lucy sobbed on my shoulder and then I held her at arms length by her shoulders. Lucy looked at me eye to eye.

"We mustn't let the hostess go to pieces just now, though don't you feel better, getting it out?"

"Yes, I do," Lucy replied. "But what about our future, how will we manage? Will we ever be able to have a family and care for them too?"

"Lucy Talbot, you'll have to be strong. And fortunately my friend you _are_ very strong. Now listen to me. Your husband had most of a leg removed. Last I knew men didn't make babies with their legs."

Lucy stopped. She wiped her swollen eyes, looked up at me and laughed. Her eyes glistened with tears but I detected a glint and even a sparkle as she smiled back at me.

I continued. "Answers will come in time and right now with Richmond about to fall, none of us are sure what those answers will be. But have faith you, they will come. Right now Sam needs your strength... and your love. You've made a handsome party for him."

Handing her a napkin from the top of a stack of freshly pressed linens I added, "Here dry yourself a bit, and we'll head back so that you may welcome your newest guests."

Lucy, finally composed for the time being, slipped out into the formal dining room and headed back towards the parlor.

Leaving the tea services and china of the butler's pantry, I paused there for a moment to take in the ambiance of the room. With the chandelier lit and the table set, fine china and crystal goblets sat poised waiting for the superb meal to begin. Silver place settings caught the candlelight where based on each setting, I could foresee a feast of at least five courses. Quietly stepping around the table, I found my place card at the far end of the table, close to Lucy's. Just beside it and to the left was another place card set above the finger bowl. Its announcement rang echoes in my head: "Captain Warren Dodd," I said to myself.

## CHAPTER SEVEN

"I'd like to propose a toast" said the Lieutenant across the table. "To Samuel Talbot, to his beautiful and devoted wife Lucy, and to the future of their home and all Virginia..." raising his glass the young man in uniform stood looking at the couple who sat at the head of the table.

"Hear, hear," went up agreements by the crowd, then with raised glasses and sips of the wine, the meal began.

"One moment" said a guest at the other end of the table. An older gentleman slid back his chair and pushed up his bent frame with the help of the table.

"A toast, "he continued. "To the hope that our own faithful Virginian, Robert E. Lee, sought after by the Union's President, be moved to Richmond to repel the bastards who sit outside our capital."

"Hear, hear," we repeated.

Meanwhile I was thinking to myself, 'It's interesting how relative the terms 'bastard' and 'hero' are in this war. What would Lucy think of me if she knew? Which one would I be to her and to Samuel?' Indeed, I thought I knew the answer.

The toast completed, and a ritual sip consumed, house slaves brought in the first course of the evening to the guests just as a belated Captain Dodd arrived. Warren Dodd sat down to my left just before the delicate broth of clams, rice and onions was served. He looked polished and handsome, hair combed, his uniform was clean and his boots were polished. It was clear that he had rushed over and I saw him briefly apologize for his tardiness with a slight bow and mouthed an 'excuse me' towards Lucy as he sat down. She didn't seem to take notice of his timing, being engrossed as she was in every word that Samuel uttered to those sitting near him.

'And rightly so', I thought. Spoon poised in mid-air, I caught myself staring at Samuel's wooden crutches against the wall, still taking in his amputation.

"How are you this evening, Miss Cunningham?" the Captain asked, leaning closer than he needed to.

I slowly turned to my new dinner companion, "Very well, thank you. And you Captain Dodd?"

"Fine, thank you. I was delayed by a dispatch problem, but it's taken care of now and I can relax. Ah, and this meal. It cannot compare with our usual fare of beef tea and battalion baked beans."

"That's fine alliteration, Captain. "Is it your normal fare?"

"Call me Warren, please. And yes, our cooks use only the very best of dried everything, from beef to beans. May I call you Annie or do you prefer Anne?"

"I've always gone by Annie. It was given to me by my father," I replied.

I could see by his humor and comfort with our conversation that Captain Dodd was pleased with himself and also pleased with the evening. Perhaps he liked my company. I found him charming, but annoyed that he seemed so unexplainably appealing.

"Please forgive my boldness, Annie, but it is my hope that you will give me the honor of a dance after this fine meal," he said looking down and then up and directly into my eyes as he had done before.

Returning his gaze with my own, I felt the same connected feeling that I'd experienced when I saw him over my drink at Kate's tavern. My inner voice told me to pull back, to disengage from him. I had to remain alert at all times. I couldn't let myself get caught up in the bouquet of the evening even though it was very, very tempting. After all, I was somewhat vulnerable: my days had been far too serious and my nights, too lonely.

Refocusing, I thought to myself about the main reason I was even attending the party... to gather whatever information I could. Yet like navigating through thick fog, Warren's request hung in my mind like a reverberating horn at sea. I just wanted to relax, to enjoy the party and the company of a handsome man and I wanted to feel beautiful in my own right. But I knew that I couldn't relax. I had to stick with my plan: to find out about troop movements and details of the Rebel army, and never, ever do anything stupid that could put me or my associates in jeopardy. I sipped my soup and thought about how to answer the captain.

"It has been quite a while since I enjoyed a dance, Captain. Indeed, I accept your request," I replied, sipping my soup and glancing back towards him with a wry smile.

As soon as the plates were cleared for one course, another specialty appeared set before us, and wine, from the Talbot's cellar, filled the goblets of each guest. I sipped my wine slowly and tried to keep my head clear. In between conversations with the gentleman to my right, Lucy's father -in-law, March Talbot, I noticed that Warren too, was enjoying both the food and the conversation with those around him.

The abundance of food surprised everyone around the table. The Talbot's friends, both men and women remarked on the elegance and preparation of the meal. Duck in a thick peach sauce was followed by a meal of baked chicken with cornbread stuffing, ham, baked sweet potatoes and spring greens. The table conversations outlived the enormous feast, which in its finality was accented with fresh fruit pies, nut cakes, and coffee. Few residents had seen a meal like that one in well over a year. Food in great supply had been shipped to the front lines farther south or to the west to feed the regiments. More shipments were needed to replace food when it was lost to cut rail lines or to the Union blockades. My mind wandered to the slaves. What did Lucy feed the men and women who served us?

Though I never heard about troop movements that night, I overheard the conversations of Samuel and his father. Apparently, Samuel had been shot at Shiloh near the Mississippi border. The Confederate army under General Albert Johnston had surprised 40,000 Union troops and met with appalling losses for both sides. Fortunately, Samuel had escaped with his life unlike the General. Johnston was another victim of the rifled musket.

"That sucker has a spin on it that can shatter bone at better than four hundred yards," Samuel told his father much to the chagrin of Lucy who left the table until she could regain her composure. The party had indeed lifted Samuel's spirits as did the wine.

"Sometimes I can feel an itch in that damned leg," he said as he adjusted himself in his chair. With a wince, Sam settled into a new position, looking up to see of Lucy's whereabouts.

"My God," March replied, "This war won't see a bayonet charge until all the bullets are gone. Grant thought he'd whup us good, but we showed him, it's not goin' to be that easy. At least not in the west. If McClellan can get Richmond, and he's only twenty miles from doing it, then he's got balls that we've never seen before. I heard that since Jeff Davis heard about the size of McClellan's army, he's been preparing for Richmond to fall. But God knows, I wish Davis were here tonight. Then, I'd say to him 'Let's take 'em on like we did in Tennessee.'"

Lucy, having returned, looked at her husband, then back at her father-in-law and shook her head as she looked down at her plate. "All those boys," she said. "All those boys."

Turning in our direction, March leaned forward looking across me to Warren and asked, "Whata ya' think, Captain Dodd?"

March having had more to drink than his companions at his end of the table added, "And a man like you should be a line officer. What's wrong with them? When are they going to bump you up to Major or hell, to Lt. Colonel?"

Lucy, looking pained once again, must have thought about interjecting a comment to diffuse her inebriated father-in-law, but decided against it

"I'm looking forward to a promotion, Sir. You know, I left the army for several years to assist my father in his business as a merchant, and then returned when big changes began to occur, when it was evident that war was inevitable. As far as the supplies Sir, it's the rules. They think a man like me would have trouble taking a shot in a hurry."

March, looking towards the officer as he was speaking noticed that the captain's left hand, holding up his goblet, was missing digits down to the knuckle. He swallowed and grew quiet.

I nearly chocked on the sip of wine I was enjoying when Warren lifted his glass. It was the first that I noticed he had lost the top digits of two fingers. These two small digits were the reason that Warren wasn't leading men into battle, but serving their needs in supplies. Quietly, I found it a blessing that he was not in the heat of war all the time.

"Thank you for the vote of confidence," Warren said in March's direction. "To the people of Richmond," he went on, a toast. The others recovering from the captain's surprise revelation seemed relieved to raise their glasses as well, along with the captain.

"To the people of Richmond, to their endurance and courage as they face what is coming," Warren said.

"Hear, hear," chimed in March along with the rest of the table.

Once the dessert was consumed and the last of the coffee sipped and gone, the men pushed back their chairs and assisted their partners up as well. Servants busied about, then waited in the shadows for the guests to amble out to the covered porch.

Warren stood up in back of my chair. "Miss Cunningham, that dance?" he asked.

Overhearing this, Lucy looked up at Warren's face then down at me, and grinned in approval. Turning to Samuel, she said "My darling, let's go to the porch and listen to the music with our guests."

Rising from my chair and taking Warren's arm, I followed him across the wide hallway and onto an enormous porch off the back of the Talbot's stately home. In the moonlight the porch had become an elegant evening ballroom. Lanterns and candles cast a soft light across the floor and around the perimeter, while in the gardens, torches lit up pathways that led maze-like through the early flower beds. I heard a distant fountain though it lay hidden in darkness. An occasional toad croaked somewhere in the evening, and moths glided over the cool grass. We moved towards the middle of the floor joining other couples in time with the music. A series of waltzes echoed the lively mood of the evening and entertained the guests while the Talbots sat at one end of the porch trying to relax and enjoy the evening together.

Warren and I moved to the middle of the dance floor surrounded by other couples, slowing to the more relaxed rhythm of the band. One hand on his shoulder, his at my waist, I felt excited, our other hands met and fingers folded into one another's, I wanted to be closer to the man and found a reason to move in a few inches towards his chest.

"It's so sad what happened to Samuel," I whispered into Warren's ear. It was the first time I identified his scent; clean and cedar-like. My chin, just below his shoulder, I had to look up to be heard. "What a shock poor Lucy endured when he arrived home like that."

"What? Lucy didn't know Sam had lost a leg?" Warren pulled away and looked down at me. "He hadn't written her to let her know?"

Gently, I moved closer to him.

"No, when I arrived Lucy had been crying. Her eyes were swollen. Then she pulled me aside, away from the others to tell me what had happened upon Samuel's homecoming. I guess he's lucky to be alive. Most men who lose a limb die in the hospital, don't they Captain?"

Warren appeared wistful at the news. "Yeah, my God," he replied, "but I had no idea that Lucy would have just found out about the news today."

Finally the music ended which allowed the guests to mingle with one another for light conversation. The familiarity with which we spoke during the dance caught me off guard. I spoke to Warren as if speaking to a friend. He took my hand and led me down the porch stairs, away from the others. As we walked through the scented garden, I felt like an adolescent; I wanted to touch his hand, his wrist, to explore the lines on his palm and then tell his future. 'If not for the damned war,' I thought, 'Perhaps we could plan a future together, but being on opposite sides, that simply wasn't possible. Politics get in the way.' But I did like his attentiveness or, was he just charming me? I thought about my options to myself, 'Did I need to catch his attention with a bit of charm of my own, or should I present myself without facade, charming or not? Perhaps he would think me dull.'

Those thoughts passed quickly and I found myself sitting on a low wall, palms down on either side of myself, looking up to the night sky. With the captain seated beside me, breathing in deeply, I was calmed by the slow pace and warmth of the spring evening. Next to me, Warren let out a long, relaxed sigh.

"At least he left Shiloh with only a leg gone. Many, many others weren't so lucky," Warren said aloud. I heard that Shiloh alone took more men than the Revolution, 1812, and the damned Mexican War put together."

"My God," I responded. "I didn't know."

Our conversation came easily and gently, soothing our war-tired spirits. I felt a familiarity, a kind of trust with this man, this Confederate captain whom I should be questioning, not trusting on any level.

Warren, looking towards the party said, "Miss Cunningham, please forgive my lack of formality. I didn't mean to insult you by speaking so casually. I..."

But before he could finish I looked over at him and leaned into his arm and side. I replied, "Please don't apologize, I find comfort in talking with you, and these days with everything being so unsure, when daylight to dusk is unpredictable, I welcome this relaxed conversation. Let's face it, these are strange times in history, and one thing we've got to do in is to hold onto our humanity." Maybe I'd said too much. Maybe it sounded too academic, but, Warren didn't seem disturbed by me in the least.

"All right then," Warren said rubbing his palms on his thighs, "May I walk you home this evening?"

"Why certainly, but didn't you ride your horse here?"

"No, I loaned him to a friend for a few days. That's what detained me earlier."

After a few more dances, even a lively reel, we thanked our hosts and took leave of the other guests. Setting off down the hill we walked side by side taking in the beautiful night. From the hilltop, the forest blocked any view of the town, and with the sounds and smells of spring all around us, we followed the road as it wound us down and around, and approached Marsh Station. While discussing what we did with our days and I had to keep reminding myself not to let my guard down for a second, not to reveal any of my secrets. It would have been so easy to do.

"What are your duties with the cavalry, Captain?" I asked.

"For now, I live in a converted barn reserved for the officers and I oversee supply movements to the front lines – all kinds of supplies – from food to medical equipment. I have to move out from time to time and sometimes for weeks at a time, but I've been able to be stationed here in Marsh Station for awhile because the train comes through here and now with the hospital, I'm always trying to round things up here, supplies, boots, foodstuffs and medication even it takes a bit of hmmm...negotiation, I guess you might say. What about you, Miss Cunningham?"

I paused to gather my thoughts for a few seconds but I had my response down pat. "I love to garden and grow herbs and I hope to begin working at the hospital as well. I'm taking a rest after traveling with troupe."

I couldn't tell him that my real motive was to work with the prisoners housed next to the hospital, the Union prisoners.

We walked through the small town and passed the tavern with its new collection of drunken soldiers outside. As we talked, time itself seemed to take on a new dimension. I had no idea if our walk had taken thirty minutes or three hours. My attention had gone to my finger tips as they had become hooked in the crook of Warren's elbow. I was focused on what it felt like to be close to him, to gently nudge his elbow into my body as if pulling on the rein of a horse. When he reached over and grasped my hand from time to time, he made me aware of senses far beyond my wrists.

From town the dirt paths quickly wound us back to my house even though he'd taken the long way around. Standing by the low fence looking at each other, I thanked him.

Turning to go, Warren hesitated and then turned back towards me. He reached out and slipped his arm around my waist. Drawing me to him slowly, I could feel his palm spread at the small of my back. "Annie, will you join me for dinner tomorrow night?"

I paused and deliberately took a deep breath. "Ah yes, but how about if join me here at my home, Captain, at seve?." Before he could answer I added, teasing, to lighten the tension of the moment, "I make a mean beef and bean dish I think you'll love." He laughed.

"Seven it will be," Warren said grinning. "Good night." He loosened his reach around my waist and I stepped back, still looking at his clear, smiling eyes. There, right there, his eyes caught me and refused to let me go.

Despite my firm convictions, my political persuasions, and my reasonable character, when my eyes looked directly at Warren's once again, I was nearly his. I rationalized these conflicting thoughts by thinking he'd have been suspicious if I had denied his invitation. It was good for my work to get to know a Confederate Captain.

"Good night, then, and thank you for the lovely walk home." I said as I turned to leave. My key in hand, I unlocked the door, and nodded to him once more before I entered.

Lighting the house had become a ritual with an edge. I couldn't help but listen more acutely and check cautiously behind every door. That evening I wavered between deep contentment and confusion. My cat, or more precisely, the cat that came with the house, dashed in with me and she immediately claimed my reading chair as her own. I joined her and spoke quietly to my purring friend as I thought out loud.

"How could I be so stupid, my dear? He's a Captain of the Confederacy for God's sake. He's an enemy after all," I whispered. "How can I be clear-headed and get the information I need when he makes me feel like this?" The kitty looked up at me, completely disinterested in my words and closed her eyes while I rubbed her neck.

"We can't meet alone tomorrow night. I'll have to invite a few guests. That's what I'll do." Picking up the cat to go to bed I blew out the oil lamp and headed down the hall.

## CHAPTER EIGHT

Next morning, I went out to the garden as soon as I was dressed. It was a clear morning with a soft breeze from the west. Grabbing carrot tops I pulled clumps of bright orange roots out of the brown earth. Having harvested all the spring vegetables that I could, leaving other plants to mature with time, I worked the earth with a pitchfork. After laying hay mulch I cleaned the carrots at the pump and checked their condition for sale. After cleaning myself up a bit I brought my bounty into the kitchen to the table where I sat down and wrote a note. Looking up from the paper, I instinctively drew the curtains over the window beside the table. When I did so, I noticed the woman in the adjacent yard; a slave woman was hanging out the landowner's laundry. I could swear that she always hung the same brown blankets and white sheets the same way on the line, almost in a pattern on the clothesline. Then, I went on with my deed, hoping that my note could reach the next depot north where there was a direct link to the federal army. We'd been asked, through the network to assess the position of the army and send word as soon as possible.

The note read:

Rebel troops are arriving by train from the west

McC has enough men to move now

Richmond in the next week would be best

Delays hurt the effort –anyhow.

Cotton reduced to entice the Continent

Feds must act soon or lose the upper hand

Aid to prisoners inland

Much sentiment.

— _Gardener_

I had to find a way to move the note northward, and quickly. There was only one choice at the time. Folding the message over itself, I placed it at the bottom of a basket and covered it with vegetables. Then, I changed out of my garden clothes, left the house and carried my wares into town.

A wooden planked sidewalk met my heeled shoes with a resonant and hollow sound. I shifted the weight of the basket on my hip trying not to attract attention to myself. Two blocks up I could see the new arrival of Confederate troops and the train behind them. An acrid scent of the coal engine was carried down on a light wind. It bit my nostrils and burned my eyes, but it passed quickly and I continued walking, shifting my basket as I needed to be careful not to spill the vegetables and expose the note. Around me, activity was building like bees in sunlight. The troops poured off the train, some dazed, new to war, others looking around, taking in the layout of the little town checking out their prospects. I had hoped to get to the grocer's before the crowd from the train station managed to get there first. Women were rushing up the street to meet the arriving soldiers, many with freshly picked flowers in hand, while horses and carriages dodged those men who stood in the street as if asleep and unaware of their approach.

The rail line had been the main reason that I had chosen the little town of Marsh Station to be my home during the war. I had been given other choices of small towns along the train route, but Marsh Station stood at a crossroads between the cities, the towns, and the watersheds of northern Virginia. Its access to the north made it a vital link to Washington and it was also, we hoped, an unsuspected courier route for spying activities. With Richmond to the south, we could get information easily, but keep a distance just the same.

In the early months of the war with spying as a new strategy, the Union had found sympathizers, who were also accessible business people in the towns, to serve as the eyes and ears of the Federal government within the Confederacy. Henry Beard, the grocer and owner of the mercantile store with whom I sought to trade, was one such man. He had worked with me since my winter garden had begun to produce and we used it as a cover for notes that would be passed north. Another agent, K.O.Quimby, was a local telegraph operator who was able to send messages through the South and sometimes, divert them to the Federals. I'd never met him; I'd only heard about him.

Two newsboys stood out front of the store waiting for their prospective clients to gather up their gear and approach the mercantile store for candy or writing materials so those who could write, could send letters back home. The two boys looked to be about nine and eleven years old and by their features, they had to be brothers. Their hair was clipped short, their cheeks rosy, and both wore short pants and tattered hats. I looked up to see three Confederate soldiers approaching me and I soon found out that they expected me to greet them with a heroes' welcome believing that the basket I carried was a gift intended just for them.

"Hey darlin', that must be for us," said one.

"Oh, fresh carrots and what else are in here," said another soldier, putting his gritty hand on the side of the basket. He smelled like sour compost and soot. Undoubtedly his skin crawled beneath the thin fabric of his worn uniform.

"Probably picked by her boys this morning," stated a third.

"Hey sugar, how about a kiss along with these goodies? After all the ladies up there hung all over us before we could get our hides away from 'em."

Anticipating their effrontery I tried to sidestep the three stinking soldiers but they made a line blocking my way. I began to itch just looking at them. As they reached out to grab the basket I pulled it away from them and retreated a few paces nearly going backwards down a couple of stairs, but I held on tight to my wares. Nothing was lost. The vegetables and the note were intact. Catching myself, I walked down off the sidewalk and onto the street avoiding contact with the men completely while the newsboys stepped out in front of the soldiers, thankfully distracting them.

"Read all about the war, mister. One penny," said the youngest of the two.

"Hey why ain't you fightin"? asked the soldier in the middle. "I seen kids your age out there with us."

The older newsboy stepped up to the soldiers and replied, "When we run outta news, we'll join, okay? Now, how about that paper sir?"

"Give the boy a penny Johnny and we'll see what it says about the North so we can go back mad as hell. We always fight better that way."

"Okay, but you gotta read it to us, hear?

With that said, the soldier dug a coin from his pocket while another spit in the street. Soon they were on their way to get a drink at the tavern.

Inside the mercantile store it was quiet for the moment. Items lined the walls as thick as bats in a cave. Shoes and boots, lamp oil and spades, crates of apples, bolts of fabric and ribbon, pots, pickles, wax, jars, crocks and, in front by the cash register, a display case of colorful candies and other sweets.

A young clerk assisted a woman measuring fabric. I set my brimming basket next to the doorway marked 'H. Beard, Grocer' and knocked loudly. The door opened a few inches responding to the weight of the knock. Poking my head around the door I knocked lightly again.

"Mr. Beard?"

"Yes?" said a man's voice from behind the door.

He opened it after a pause, "Why, Miss Cunningham!" "How nice to see you. You are doing well, I presume. Have you come to shop or sell this morning?"

His voice had a smooth drawl like sweet warm whiskey

"Yes, yes, I'm fine. Thank you. And, I've come to do both today, Mr. Beard...shop and sell. I've brought a basket of carrots, a few cabbages, radishes, and some potatoes. They're fresh from the garden just this morning, the end of my winter garden. I imagine you'll want to look through them while I shop around a bit. I just need a few things."

"Of course, let's see what you have," Beard said. "I've needed some more fresh vegetables. These will do just fine I'm sure. I'll bring them in and have a look for pricing while you gather up whatever it is that you need."

"Certainly. I did see a train just in so I'd better get to it. I'm sure it'll be busy in here this morning."

With that the young female clerk at the front counter looked up seeming to notice me for the first time and smiled, probably thinking about the young soldiers who would be paying her a visit in the next few hours. Then she resumed with a customer, cutting fabric from a thick bolt.

Beard disappeared into his office with the basket of vegetables. In my mind's eye, I imagined his ritual. Closing the door, he'd put the basket on his desk and with his back to it, lest an uninvited visitor came in. I bet he reached down into the basket, extracted the note from the bottom and read it over briefly, instinctively looking over his shoulder again as he did so.

Putting the note in his pocket, he left his office, and approached the register. There he took out several bills and came over to pay me for the goods. I had stopped in front of the fresh chickens that hung in the meat section.

"Thank you, Mr. Beard." He smiled and returned to his office. Then, turning to the clerk, "I'd like that large chicken and two pounds of rice please. Oh, and do you have any bread in?"

"Just came in twenty minutes ago, and we haven't even had time to put it out yet," came the reply.

"I'll take a loaf, please. Oh, make that two. I didn't get any made this morning," I requested.

Packing up my groceries in the basket that I had brought with me, I bid my goodbyes and left in the direction of home. Just as I was passing the Three Lanterns, Kate, or Katherine as many called her, was leaving and we laughed as we had nearly collided right at the doorway. Kate was a tall woman with a hat cocked on her head making her seem even taller. She was dressed for spring with a pink spray of flowers crossing the front of her chapeau and then carried down into the fabric of her well-fitting dress. Her high button white shoes and white gloves made her look very festive though rather impractical on such an ordinary morning as that one. We paused to talk with one another.

"Well good morning, my dear," I said in greeting. "How are you? I hardly ever see you anymore. I haven't even invited you to dinner yet and I've meant to do that."

"Good morning to you, Annie Cunningham," she said, pecking me on the cheek.

"Won't you join me this evening? Bring your special man with you and we'll have a meal together?" I asked.

"Oh, Annie I'd love to, really darling, but it is difficult to leave this place with all the business we've had..."

"You haven't even seen what I've done to the house. I don't think you'd mind missing a few choruses of war songs, Kate, do you? Good company and a spring feast? Look, I've just purchased my groceries. Besides, you may be in for a surprise when you see who else is coming."

"Well Annie, you know how to spark my curiosity. All right then, I'll come, but I must bring my gentleman friend and we won't stay late. Besides, maybe the neighbors need to see me around there once in a while."

"Fine then, I'll see you about seven?"

## CHAPTER NINE

I was grateful that Kate had agreed to come to dinner on such short notice, though she knew nothing of my plan: I had to diffuse my feelings for Warren as best as I could, and inviting outspoken guests was one way to do that. Arriving just past the hour, Katherine Raleigh walked through the door as I opened it to her and passed me as if to search the premises for contraband.

"Hello, Annie," she chirped.

With a stride of an officer, she strutted into the hallway, her long flowing flowered dress swishing behind her. Her escort, Mr. Wells Davidson, greeted me and bowed. He introduced himself as it was obvious that Kate was preoccupied inspecting the décor.

"Wells Davidson, Madam. It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Cunningham. Katherine has told me of your graciousness," the gentleman said bowing.

"My pleasure, I'm sure, I replied.

"My dear, you've certainly brightened this place up." Kate said as she swung back through the hall after the preliminary inspection. "Why, when I first told you of its availability, my only fear was that its drabness would be depressing for a single woman such as yourself. You see, Wells, Annie has added new curtains, more light, and what is it? You've changed the furniture around, is that it?"

Wells followed Katherine into the living room looking around and then at Annie. Katherine continued her wandering from room to room. Her booming voice called to us from the dining room, "And look at this beautiful table. I knew that you had a knack for entertaining. Wells, you've got to see this centerpiece," she said reentering the hallway and then the living room, letting out a huge sigh.

"Please, sit down," I said motioning to the sofa and chairs. "I'm expecting another guest shortly." We talked for a few minutes passing time about the onset of spring, the weather and the past winter.

A knock sounded at the door and I turned from them. "There he is now."

"He, eh?" said Katherine. "This is good, Annie, very good."

"Good evening, Captain," I said opening the screen door to Warren. He stepped in holding a bouquet of flowers and a bottle of brandy. "What do you have there? You didn't have to bring all this. Really, but thank you. They're quite beautiful," I said admiring the flowers. "Come in, I have a few guests whom I want you to meet."

With that statement, Warren looked somewhat surprised.

I led him into the living room and introduced my guests to one another.

"Captain Dodd, what keeps you in Marsh Station?" Katherine said in an officious manner.

Wells broke in, "Fighting for the new nation no doubt, Katherine dear," his jolliness trying to diffuse her tone.

Seating himself, Warren replied, "I'm here for General Stuart, Madam. At least for the time being."

"Yes, who knows where we'll all be if Richmond falls," replied Katherine wistfully.

"That may be very far off, Miss Raleigh," the captain responded.

"Yes, certainly," I said. "Shall we start with a drink? Then I'll check on dinner, I am sure that we can move away from the subject of war for just a little while. It's all we ever hear anymore."

"That suits me just fine, but I must ask the Captain one thing," replied Wells. What do you think of Butler in New Orleans?"

Apparently no answer was intended as Wells continued. Warren opened his mouth, and then closed it again realizing that Wells never intended an answer from him.

"I understand, Wells continued, "That he has been confiscating the property of people who wouldn't swear allegiance to the Union. Butler implied that the women there were whores; so apparently, in retaliation they're decorating the inside of their chamber pots with his portrait. Serves him right, I say." With that out, he sighed and turned to me "Now, Miss Cunningham, allow me to assist with the beverages. Katherine, Captain, what would you like?"

When the drinks were served and everyone was more relaxed, Captain Dodd turned to Katherine Raleigh who sat tall, peacock-like exposing a deep cleavage in his direction.

"How did you and Annie meet?" Warren asked.

"Oh, Captain. I thought you knew. Annie is my cousin, you see. Several months back she arranged to perform at my tavern while her troupe settled here for a time, the same troupe I might add, who had the audacity to return to the dankness of Arlington. I offered her a room in this lovely little cottage of mine. With the war and all, I'm hardly ever here myself, trying to run the business."

Turning to me she added, "Oh Annie, dear, as I said, you've done a marvelous job fixing this place up. I should hire you to decorate a few of our rooms upstairs. They could use some fixing up now that business is improving."

Color rose to my cheeks. "Thank you Kate, but I'll have to decline. My garden is keeping me quite busy as it is right now. And, I may begin working at the hospital soon." Hurriedly I added, "Shall we dine?" intentionally cutting Katherine off before she attempted to recruit me for detail at the Three Lanterns, potentially embarrassing both of us.

With that we moved to the dining room, filled as it was with candles and oil lamps. The dinner, I must say was satisfying and under the circumstances, nearly elegant. The menu consisted of roasted chicken accompanied by rice with herbs and walnuts, carrot salad, fresh greens, warm bread and several bottles of table wine, that I'd found tucked back under an eave in the cellar.

Sitting around the table, Warren poured our wine and after also giving the toast, I piped up. "Kate, I have a confession to make. I found this bottle up in the cellar rafters. I hope you don't mind."

"Mind? Why I can't even remember if I put it there. It really is a fine accompaniment to this meal. Annie, you've put together a delicious dinner here."

"It is delicious, thank you, Miss Cunningham" offered Wells.

"Superb," said Warren. After a pause, he turned in Kate's direction. "Miss Raleigh," Warren started to say.

"Please, call me Katherine, or Kate, Captain."

"Kate, then. You must hear lots of war stories from the men who pass through the Three Lanterns these days."

"Oh yes. Of course, of late, they're all about Richmond and McClellan. Will it fall? When? But what I've noticed most of all is not what they say, but how they look."

We must have all turned to look at Kate at the same time because she went on.

"No, hear me out. I must admit, I do enjoy looking at the men, but my point here is there are so many young ones, still boys, I'd guess. They come in and I have to wonder if they've ever even had a drink before, except maybe at home behind the barn. I just hope that if they ever come back through here, it isn't to the hospital just over the hill there. If they go in, chances are that's where they'll stay, if you know what I mean."

"Yes, I understand what you're saying. Those hospitals are fetid places. You might just want to reconsider working up there, Annie," he said.

There was a long pause and I didn't say a thing.

Wells, thankfully, changed the subject.

"Fly fish, Captain?"

"I do. I find it's always a good time to bring a string of trout back to the Officer's barn and have the cook grill 'em up. The men like it. A real treat for them," he said.

They discussed fly-tying at some length while Kate and I served strawberry pie and coffee.

After dessert, Katherine announced, "I promised I'd be back in time to see the new show. Why don't you join us for a nightcap?"

"No, thank you, perhaps another time" replied the Captain. "I have an early morning tomorrow."

Walking them to the door, I bid them good-night. Picking up the bottle of brandy that Warren brought earlier, I headed toward the dining room, and head on bumped into Warren who was standing just inside the doorway. Nearly dropping the bottle, he caught himself and began to laugh.

"Nice folks but thank goodness, they're gone" I said, looking towards Warren but not into his eyes. I knew that his eyes could've snagged me like a striped bass with a long hooked lure and I needed a moment to gather myself first. But I didn't get that moment.

"I've wanted to do this since I arrived," he said. Walking to the dining table and setting down the bottle he turned to me and held my hands at arms' length, smiling and looking into my eyes. Putting aside the dank days of war, discarding the weight of fatigue, and shaking off our tensions, he kissed me softly. I felt a bit surprised, but I didn't fight him or his touch.

His kisses were like rain. Quiet drops on my mouth and face after a long drought. Hushed night sounds filtered in the windows as he held me around my shoulders. We stopped and looked at one another as if coming up from a deep dive in a warm lagoon. Kissing him felt oddly comfortable, even familiar. Without the awkward stiffness that a first kiss from a new lover had brought in the past. Those sweet kisses lasted for as long as it took me to sail across the river at home with a breeze at my back. I know, because that's where I was while we passionately learned the channels of one another's lips on a spring night in the middle of my dining room.

His gentleness showed what his artistry as a lover could be. I knew then that someday, I would be an artist with him, discarding any cares or concerns about his politics, his allegiances or his line of duty.

We paused. I pulled away from him gently. "I guess we'd better get those dishes out of the way. Willing to work, Captain?" I asked.

"I'm at your command, Madam," he retorted and bowed low over one outstretched leg.

It took a few minutes to organize the dishes. Donning an apron, I found a bar of soap and asked, "Captain, could you pour the hot water into this basin for me?" I asked pointing to the dish tub.

"Of course," came his reply. Warren lifted the kettle and poured the steaming contents into the basin as I'd asked.

Handing him a towel, I couldn't resist getting a bit more information about his job.

"So, you said that you're working under General Stuart?" I asked him.

"Yes, I'm at the officer's headquarters, the converted barn I told you about, over in an area they call The Oaks. I'm in supplies, so I never know when I'll be called out. Lately, I've been working on establishing and supplying the tent communities all around here. With the hospital and prison too, we've been very, very busy."

"I see. Every day, our little town seems to grow with this war. Have you stayed then, mostly in this area?"

"Yes, but that probably won't be the case for very long. It looks like Richmond, and parts farther south will see some new action and that means supplies moving down from this area."

Are you from around here?" Then I wish I'd never asked my question. He might ask me the same and I knew I shouldn't go in the direction of creating my personal story. Not then anyway. I felt too vulnerable around him. Passion aside, I looked down, though I felt heat rising to my face.

"Maryland. Baltimore actually," he said. "And you?"

"Arlington," I answered. Still looking down, I scrubbed harder and took a deep breath. I wondered how I got so good at lying.

Late night settled in and after the dishes were finished, Warren poured our brandy and we retreated to the side porch lured by a light breeze and the new sound of peepers.

"I had never met Wells before tonight," I wonder if this is just another affair for Kate," I said.

"She certainly knows how to make herself at home, doesn't she?" Warren asked.

"That's Katherine," I said, "And even though she's hardly ever here, it is her house. But I know what you mean. She comes on a bit strong." We both laughed.

We walked into the open to take in the sky and stars. Looking up and holding me from behind, Warren smelled my hair, breathing in deeply and whispered, "Thank you for a beautiful evening, Annie."

I turned into his chest, lost myself there for a moment and then looked up at him, "You're very welcome, Captain, I'm so glad that you could join me." I said.

Affection was my weakness. More than anything I wanted to put aside the war and its details. Burrowing my face into his chest, he rested his chin on the crown of my head, his arms firmly enveloping my back. I knew that we had questions for one another, but we resisted them for the moment, satisfied with simplicity, and in those days of ugly war, the rarity of tender human touch.

***

_Week after week reports from Richmond were the same. General McClellan, convinced that his army was outnumbered two to one by the Confederacy, sat encamped with his Union soldiers within miles of the southern capital, but to everyone's disbelief, did not attack the city. He waited. He made his men wait. For weeks they waited for additional troops. To pass the time and most of it in the rain, the army sat around fires swapping stories or rolling tobacco. If dry wood could be found, the fire and its warmth was their only solace from the constant wetness of their clothes and accompanying chill. Few men had the luxury of a change of clothing, wet or dry, and the threat of snake, leech and tick went unabated. Malaria swept through the encampments like an untamed river and day after day the men wondered when they would move on Richmond. It seemed to some that the war would end not by blood, but by water_.

## CHAPTER TEN

Work for both Warren and me intensified, but for different reasons: his was to supply soldiers with food, medicinals, bedding and shelter, while mine was concocting herbal remedies and working at the hospital. In my spare time I cobbled together maps of the area and safe houses heading north. One of my long held goals and responsibilities to the Union was to find out about the conditions of the nearby prison holding our soldiers. Reports from my contacts were grim at best and my job was to figure out a way to smuggle in food and medicines and maps for escape. I knew that if I could work in the adjacent hospital at Westerly, I could eventually gain access into the prison to see for myself what was needed by the men. I could report the number and most importantly the names and health of the prisoners, get a reading as to their general conditions, and learn of specific needs. But nothing, not one thing could have prepared me for the sights I saw first in the hospital. The only thing worse viewing would have been the corpses on the battlefields with the exception that those bodies could no longer feel pain. Many of the patients with whom I worked were in such great pain that they wished for death to come to them.

I knew there was no way around it. I had to work in the hospital over the course of weeks and months so I that I could be trusted to gain access to the prison. My contacts up the line were depending on me. I knew it would take a long time and I had to be remarkably patient which was a characteristic I hadn't yet developed.

My days centered on my visits to the hospital with all the herbal remedies I could concoct. I also found that if I stuck with a routine each day, my loneliness abated. Besides my exhausting hospital work, I collected herbs as they came into season, and anticipated summer harvests of herbs in the fields and on the plantations surrounding Marsh Station. Shepherd's purse and yarrow made effective poultices for wounds, and I knew that those hardy herbs would be abundant in the surrounding countryside. In fact, Lucy had put together a troupe of volunteers – mostly women and children who were willing to harvest and process the plants —thus creating an apothecary for the hospital. A ready store of infusions, tinctures, decoctions, and oils would be essential for the next three seasons, should the war continue on that long. Sometimes women traded tinctures among themselves to lessen their work load and have on hand what was needed for their families. At my request, Lucy put out the word that herbs dried or fresh, were needed donations for the hospital. So women grew a little extra or found them on their own and new bundles arrived daily for preparation in the hospital apothecary. That's where I got my foothold and then, because of the demand for care, I assisted Westerly's staff in the stinking wards of the hospital.

My own herb garden was coming along nicely; dried pungent bundles of mint, chamomile, and fennel began to fill entire beams in my kitchen. Herbal medicine was not outside of the passel of tasks and skills that women developed from an early age. It was my mother's way and her mother's mother as well. The subtle differences of the plants and learning which parts were useful and which were poisonous, was a womanly knowledge commonly passed down in most families just like favorite recipes.

For centuries, and back beyond written history holy people all over the world, men and women alike, had collected the knowledge of plants and experimented again and again to find out which plants were effective and safe. Herbal knowledge became kin to a secret language passed between healers. Whether shaman or doctor, medicine woman or midwife, the healers gathered their knowledge of plants over time, as it was perfected tincture by tincture. Season after season produced the perennial plants offered up by earth and nature as a gift to anyone who had the will of experimentation coupled and the drive to yield to intuition. Healers were highly regarded throughout time. During the scarcity of War when all foundations from the past stood weakened from shock and deprivation, a woman with a firm knowledge of proper harvesting techniques and herbal medicine was essential to the health of her community.

My understanding of herbals was nearly as valuable to the Rebels as my espionage was to the Federals. I took for granted the power of herbal medicines until my experience in the War. I'd grown up watching my mother and grandmother pick up plants and study their characteristics while we walked our dogs down to the river.

"See the heart shaped leaves, Annie?" My mother would ask. "That's Shepherd's Purse or Mother' Hearts...good for bleeding," and she'd stop to pick the plant and show me which parts of the plant to use. "It can be used as a wound wash or to treat dysentery."

From a young age, gathering herbs to dry in the attic or making poultices to heal cuts or calm stomachaches for family members was as natural a part of my life as combining flavors to enliven a Sunday dinner.

By midsummer, Lucy's large kitchen became a kind of classroom where I had taught a dozen volunteers how to boil and infuse the precious plants that were so helpful in healing the wounds of war. I knew that the hospital apothecary could not keep up with the demands of the hospital with waves of men coming in wounded and sick from the field all the time, so Lucy's friends were essential to creating supplies and medicines of all sorts. Among these herbs was horsetail, an herb that was very good for stubborn coughs and respiratory problems, a common ailment of soldiers brought on by dampness and we'd had plenty of that.

With Lucy's help and the organization of her women friends, I'd only have to make a request for cloth, boiled jars, or freshly picked herbs, and the items would appear overnight as if she had rubbed her magic lamp and emerged as a genie who granted my wishes. So, not only did I wish loudly, but I wished for supplies in great quantity, hoping that the treatments would win the trust I needed from the hospital administrators and also the prison warden. My new challenge was to find a balance in healing Rebel soldiers in order to, ultimately, help weak Federal prisoners.

Many of the men of war with whom we worked were mere boys, their young, frail bodies had been lying in fields of blood and dirt and then carted over thick tracks of mud and ruts to Westerly Hospital. The herbs could improve circulation, or speed the healing process of a wound, but they couldn't touch the deep fissures that kept those men from being whole again. It couldn't restore a lost limb, only heal the stump. Our medicine couldn't restore the men's minds to wholeness but it could ease their discomfort, albeit temporarily.

The spring of 1862 was memorable for its rain and the resultant mud. Water ran through the streets carrying field mud from one end of town to the other. For weeks the streets were impassable channels of oozing filth. One afternoon, headed towards Beard's Mercantile, I remember seeing a carriage stuck up to its wheel hubs. Its poor horses were up to their knees in soupy brown-gray mud. It was difficult to comprehend how soldiers could survive in such weather day after day. Canvas tents provided little relief from the river that fell from the sky and dripped from green canopies with rhythmic thuds. In the forests of Virginia where many of the Union troops camped, thick vines descended from the trees as if Medusa was letting down her hair.

It was midweek and I had finally finished my rounds at the hospital for the day and at the end of each long shift we removed the ribbon on the bottom on our dresses to soak them. The wide ribbons protected the hems of our dresses from the filth of the floors. Putting the soft fabric in a basin of water, the blood thinned, releasing itself to the water until the basin was murky.

I caught myself checking my unexpected reflection in the bowl. Blood and water were everywhere, not as a rite of purification or baptism, but more like dams of heaven and humanity bursting their veins in retaliation for a race gone wrong...the human race, I thought. How had we come to this? What would become of us?

"We're the only species to systematically slaughter one another and then cheer in celebration afterwards," I said to myself in a whisper. I watched the blood ooze from the fabric thinking of the sights and smells of my shift. My belly felt twisted; my eyes burned. My limbs reacted: I shook with exhaustion. I felt cold and wrung out. Keeping my feelings squelched down deep inside me, I had treated the open, gaping wounds of men whose suffering was beyond imagination, but whose memory stays with me even today. No one, should ever have to suffer the level of pain and indignity those men did.

From bed to bed and man to man I had moved about since mid-morning, checking for a slow rise in the chest of each man who lay before me, faces waxen with pain and disbelief in a world gone mad with despair.

One man had grabbed my arm as I reached over him to apply a poultice to his shoulder. "I'm begging you," he whispered, catching my eyes in his. "Poison me, please. It's my only hope of escape, Ma'am. I'm shattered in three places and I know poison has set in. I heard them talking about it last night. I always feared it would be like this. Please, Ma'am be merciful. Help me go."

"There now. Shhh, close your eyes. Take a breath." I looked at his heavy lids, lined in agony, but softened against my fingertips. I knew as he did that the hours he had left could stretch into torturous days and I made a mental note to consider bringing a few rhubarb leaves with me next time. I'd have to be careful not to let those toxic greens mix with any of the healing herbs I'd dole out to the other men in the ward. Could I do it? Would I?

"Go to your favorite childhood place. Do you see it? Breathe it in and dream there," I told him.

Barely seeing my reflection in the burgundy basin again, the twilight of afternoon descending, I pulled away from the memories of the day.

One of the other nurses approached me. Josie had a sweet southern accent with a bit of a drawl. She always wore a flowered apron, setting off her blond braids which she wore atop her head.

"Annie," she said. "You're not looking well, honey. Can I get you a cup of tea? Maybe you should sit here and rest. It's been a tough one today, hasn't it dear?"

"It's been dreadful, but no, I'll pass on the tea, thank you. I just need to get away from here for a while. We did have some tough cases today, didn't we?"

"You bet, darlin', but not much different than any of the other days here. Why if I didn't know that there was something better on the other side, where most of these boys are headed, I'd be ashen pale myself."

Donning a rain cape and hat, I picked up an umbrella and basket and called back to Josie who had moved down the corridor to find another nurse, "Keep the kettle on, I'll be back." It was just our way of saying we'd return.

Leaving the building, I wondered aloud "Will this rain ever end? It's been raining for weeks, I swear." It had been raining for weeks, a steady drumbeat of water as if the heavens were weeping for all the lost ones, robbed of their days. Waters rose high in the creeks and rivers. Muck was everywhere. New England's mud season seemed timid by comparison. Humidity hung in the air like thick wet sheets left out at night. And, in all that glum mess, Marsh Station's most unsavory residents, its tramps, were flushed from their transient homes in the fields or along the river. Most of the homeless were men who had lost large parts of themselves to the war. Whether emotional or physical, they seemed to have come away, not altogether mad but chinked with holes in the fabric of their souls. I'd see a few men now and then, ragged, bleary eyed, their skin thick with dirt, and their minds made dense and twisted from the horror of war.

Walking on the edge of town, I was making plans to find more herbs, bake more bread and pray real hard that the sun would return to dry out the soil and help my plants along. Planning these things kept my mind off the dank day and the drips finding their way beneath my cape. By the time I had turned up the street to my house, my dress was soaked clear through and my hat was a mass of heavy fabric jiggling atop my head and water was running in rivulets down my back; my hat's brim had become a catchment. I entered the house and quickly began to remove my wet things when the screen door opened behind me and I heard someone enter.

Expecting to see Warren or Kate, I turned and was shocked to see a man, a stranger, standing two or three feet away from me looking and smelling like last year's hay. As quick as a lash he grabbed me around the waist and pulled me to him. All I could do was to let out a muffled scream.

"Got ya now you sweet thung," he gurgled from some cavern in his throat. Reeking like a wet chicken coop, I gagged on his smell and pulled from side to side trying to loosen his grip in the dark room.

"No, no. Get away," I screamed at him.

It worked long enough for me to try to grab for an iron skillet atop the wood stove, but it was just a few inches out of my reach. I pushed away from him with a solid shoulder, and lunged again for the skillet knowing it was my only defense. He reached out to grab for me but his hands slipped down my wet dress. The old boy slid down to the wooden planked floor holding tightly to my skirt as I stretched for the heavy pan. With momentum I pulled the handle back and then down letting the skillet crash into the bent face of my attacker, fully finding my voice as I did so.

"Get out, get out, let me go you son-of-a bitch," I screamed, hoping to get help from someone...anyone.

For a moment he let go and then clung fast again to my skirt trying to pull himself up to a standing position by yanking on the cloth. Still holding the skillet, I used two hands and raised it over my head, coming down on him with greater force than the original blow. As the pan met the top of his head, and he fell backwards to the floor, I heard a loud rip and looked to see myself standing in only an underskirt to the middle of my thigh and my attacker unconscious on the floor still clutching the rest of my dress. Standing in shreds, my wet hair fallen and dripping, I stood frozen, looking around wondering what to do. I would have cried from relief, but I expected the man on the floor to move and I wanted to be ready.

Just as I was pondering my next move, standing over him with the skillet poised, the screen door opened and there stood Warren, his coat buttons polished, but his boots thick with mud. He stood looking at the sight before him taking it all in. Rain water beaded off his jacket like pond water on the feathers of a mallard. He'd removed his hat which dripped onto the floor. Looking up at me and then back to the unconscious creature on the floor, he caught my eye and began to chuckle then covered his mouth with a fist, trying to stifle his laughter in disbelief of what he'd seen.

I was upset, angry, scared and cold.

"So nice of you to visit," I stated. Then adding sarcastically, "Sir."

With that Warren stepped inside the house over the unconscious body of the bum splayed on the kitchen floor and picked the heavy skillet out of my hand setting it back on the stove.

"We should give the cavalry a few of these lethal weapons to see what they could do with them," he said grinning at me.

Turning to the bum on the floor, he lifted him from the underarms and dragged him out the door and somewhere on the porch where he dropped him with a loud "wump."

Reentering the kitchen, he pulled out a chair to have me sit down. I held on to the back of it long enough for Warren to light a lamp. Then I reached towards him and Warren pulled me to him, our shadows painting the walls.

"You fought him off, Annie. And you definitely won. Good job my dear," he said softly in my ear. "Shhhh, it's okay now." He patted my back tenderly.

My hands eased in alongside his body and around to his back. I couldn't imagine ever letting go. Closing my eyes, I heard the rain. The constant din of rain had suddenly turned into a comfort. I stood there with water dripping between us, I didn't care; all I needed to do was cry. I wept like a child, then I sobbed.

Warren stroked my dripping hair and pulled me even closer as if telling me of his caring, his concern, and his love for me. I cried harder. I was not just crying from the attack, I was crying out months of my fears, my loneliness, I cried out my tedious responsibilities. I cried for the men I had seen in the hospital that day and all the days, for the young man who begged me to bring him a gift: death.

I cried with thick punches of breath between gasps that shook me again and again, catching in my throat.

I cried for the mothers of sons, the wives and daughters of those who were once whole. I cried for a world gone mad in a grim spring where even the flowers would have to put off blooming. I cried for a life on hold. And I cried because I couldn't tell Warren who I really was, but had to work at keeping my lies in line.

When my sobbing slowed, he held my hand and opened the stove with his other hand, adding a log to the nearly burned out embers. We watched the flames rise and warm us, then he pulled me into his chest again and stroked my hair and back, kissing my cold wet knuckles still tucked in his palm.

Then, gingerly as if I was a rare flower whose petals might fall if mishandled, Warren bent down to my ear and whispered to me, "Tell me where your tub and some dry clothes are and I'll heat you a bath."

"It's down the hall in Kate's room, straight ahead. Thank you, Warren. I'm so glad you're here," I said. Then I asked, "I didn't kill him, did I?"

"No, he's alive all right, but he'll have a pretty good size lump for a few days, that's all." Tenderly, he turned me around and sat me down in a chair, pulled the curtains and locked the kitchen door. He put another chair under the door handle for added security.

It seemed a long while as I sat staring straight ahead of myself trying to make sense of what had just transpired. I wondered where the man had come from, how long he had been following me. I had no sense whatsoever that he had been following me and I was mad at myself for that. I realized that I had been caught up thinking about the conversations that haunted me from the hospital, but that was no excuse. I couldn't risk being stupid even though I had been thinking about one of my charges in the ward who had an unusual look of peace and comfort on his face when I last checked on him. He died within the next hour.

In my exhausted state I had given Warren vague directions on the things he had asked for to prepare a bath. He loaded the stove with more wood and then he pumped water into several large pots that hung on the wall behind the stove. While he went off looking for my tub, I lit another lamp and stared at it as a moth flitted near its chimney.

In half an hour, I was easing into the steaming tub set out in the middle of the kitchen while Warren went off down the hallway to find some dry clothes. How could I have known then what he would find there?

Bringing in the blanket from my bed, he set it on the chair and walked to the cupboard. With a bottle of brandy in hand and the day's twilight fading, Warren poured me a glass and then poured himself one as well. I remember he looked troubled, distant somehow. Sitting down, next to the tub, Warren sipped his drink. I was thinking that he was uncomfortable with the wounded man on the porch or by seeing my body this way.

I thought I'd feel uncomfortable in my nakedness, but the water's warmth relaxed my fears.

"You are one mighty tough lady," he said pouring me a glass. I sipped the the mellow liquor. Removing his jacket, he gathered up a cloth and dripped hot water down my back. After rolling up his sleeves, he massaged my neck turning sinew into taffy.

Taking in the comfort of the warm water and the brandy, I said, "Too bad this tub is only big enough for one of us." Looking up at him, I smiled and slipped deeper into the water.

Warren grinned too, and then he rose from his chair to check the porch.

Reentering and adding more water to a large pot he said, "He's still there, out for a while. I'll go into town in a bit and get him in a cell. He'll be off the streets for a long while. I'd bet on it."

"Are you expected to return tonight? I'd feel better if you'd stay here, just to be sure."

"With Stuart busy due to General Lee's new appointment, I don't think any of the boys will miss me. Besides, I left word where they could find me."

"You did what?" I said sitting up in the tub then looking down at myself. I covered my breasts as best I could. "You expected to spend the night here? Or, just out?"

"Not exactly Annie. I was just thinking I'd be away until late in the evening. I was hopeful, I have to admit," he paused, grinning slightly at me. "Look Annie, I know you've been through a lot today: working in the hospital, getting stuck in the rain, and then this," he said pointing towards the porch. "I just want to be sure that you are safe and that you will sleep well tonight. I will sleep on the living room floor, or in Kate's room."

"Not in Kate's room," I said. "Sorry, but it's off limits. I'm just a little surprised; I guess that you expected to stay. You expected to stay here, didn't you, not somewhere else, yes?

"No where else, Annie."

Easing up from the tub I said, "I see you brought in a blanket but could you please get me a few towels in the hallway closet?"

Exhausted, I wondered what to do next. I wanted Warren to stay, but what if I had an unexpected visitor? A spy? My life offered up such odd circumstances: if he slept on the floor, he'd be sleeping in the place especially reserved for Union spies. I wasn't expecting anyone. In my state Warren seemed worth the risk.

I knew what I wanted to do...what I truly wanted to do. I wanted to drop everything and have Warren as my lover. I wanted to turn my world over to him, far away and start a future away from war. With Warren a Confederate officer, everything was far more complicated. A slip on my part, the wrong phrase, an inconsistency in a story and he could leave my side as a lover and turn me in as an enemy. And, if I was honest with myself I couldn't justify using our relationship simply to further my espionage efforts. I was in love with the man. He too, was on the slide into love. I could tell by his looks, his touch, in his eyes. I knew it. With the war going on, and one battle raging into another, falling in love with Warren reminded me of winding through secret passages in a cave, where one maze of chambers connected to another and another keeping the traveler wondering if there would be a way out.

Brandy and the bath blurred the hard edges of my thoughts. What a struggle it was coming out of a steamy tub to wrestle with my convictions and with my feelings —in head and in heart —and I didn't have the energy to do either one very well that night. I rose from the tub unashamed as Warren entered the kitchen with a towel outstretched and wrapped it around my body, then helped me to step over the high edge of the tub. He caught me around the waist and hugged me to him, leaving a kiss on my cheek. I smiled and then went off to my bedroom to find something to wear while Warren prepared a pot of hot tea.

I had to find out more about him. I only knew that he returned to the 'Officer's Barn' at the end of each day, but I still wasn't sure where, exactly, it was. It had to be a place where he'd tie flies by lamplight at night and trade them while others played banjos and harmonicas.

Thoughts swirled through my mind like gnats over a pond. And why had he chosen a blanket to wrap me in? Was it because it was the first thing he saw or had he gone into the trunk and found the uniforms? How could I have been so stupid asking him to find me something to put on? I should have remembered the uniforms at the bottom of the trunk. Then, there was always the possibility that he hadn't seen them or if he had, that he didn't really think about why I would have them.

Brushing the knots from my hair, I decided that despite everything, I wanted Warren to stay with me that night, to sleep by my side, to comfort me. It must have been my exhausted state, but I cared more about Warren as a man then as a member of any damn Confederacy.

_June 2, 1862: After the battle of Seven Pines ended in a deadlock, General Robert E. Lee was appointed the Confederate Army's new field commander_.

## CHAPTER ELEVEN

It was the first week of June. I had just finished my morning chores; six loaves of bread were cooling in the kitchen, the garden was weeded and I felt contented folding clean fabric for hospital dressings. Those moments of solitude whether they came in morning or at dusk, recharged me after the long hours that I put in at the hospital. I'd listen to the bird sounds outside my kitchen door and breathe in the scents from my garden and the fields beyond.

My solitude was broken suddenly by a loud horse's neigh. The sound of hurried steps up the walkway approaching the porch brought me to the screen door. I sensed something was wrong and then saw Warren approaching. Stepping inside, he was out of breath. He closed the door behind us; it was odd to see him like that, so rushed, nearly frantic.

"Annie, you must listen to what I have to tell you. I only have a moment to explain," he went on. He took a deep breath. "I must leave. I have to go now. I've been ordered to bring supplies farther south, closer to Richmond and I had to come tell you right away. I shouldn't be here but I had to let you know. I'm pulling out this morning."

"When did you find out? What's happening around Richmond that you have to go? Can't you send someone else to go in your place?"

"If that were possible, I'd see to it, believe me. But it isn't." He paused. With his arms outstretched he looked at my face. With one hand he stroked my cheek, and then hugged me tightly. In that moment, pressed to his chest, I forced myself to create an indelible memory so I could keep him close. The firm hold of his hand, the scent at the base of his neck. But I knew he had to go so I pulled away and looked into his face, then to his eyes. Taking in his brow, circling about his cheekbones and down to his nose and chin, I felt as if I was a keen artist drawing the details of his face.

"Listen to me, Annie. I will send for you. Even if it's just a few days we could go away together. I'll find a place we can go, in a few weeks, I hope, I'll send a message to you that will be followed up with a carriage. If the lines aren't down, I'll telegraph you through the office here in Marsh Station. I will be contacting a man named Quimby. Do you know him?"

"Quimby?" I didn't know who he was.

"K.O. Quimby. He's in the telegraph office, Annie. Look, I'll send a message to him any way I can. But I will contact you. You have my word on it." Then he paused, "I love you, Annie, and please, please be careful." He kissed me gently and walked away as quickly as he arrived.

"Warren...," The screen door closed shut and he was gone. Cicadas buzzing in the trees echoed in my head. Their buzzing made me woozy for a moment, but I caught myself and found a chair.

The war had a way of making every day impermanent, somehow wistful and even, at moments like that one, feel futile. I had to follow my muse, or surely inertia would creep in and I would lose myself to the war.

I heard his footsteps leave up the path, then the rhythmic pace of Ches as they rode away.

***

Trying to put out fires single-handedly creates a lonely life. There I was stuck in that small Virginia town while two fires burned and I felt helpless to put either one of them out. One fire consisted of my conviction to do all that I could to destroy slavery as an accepted American institution. The second fire was enveloped in the love that I was developing for Warren, a man with whom I felt unusually comfortable. A man who was a friend and a lover, but by political standards, should be deemed my enemy. Politics said that we should be enemies, while intuition and chemistry declared us lovers. I wanted to know him better, to see his playful side, his creative side, but I feared then that he was a man whom I could never truly know very well because of our unusual circumstances in that time, in that awful war.

I had to hold on. I could see a future for us. Someday with the war behind us we could have a house filled with children spinning through the seasons, watching each take their turn developing their talents and traits all their own. Then, after the War we would be able to live honest lives, without any lies or shadows between us.

Time could change everything. With Warren, I might even give up my interests in city life and follow the grooves in the earth heading west. With the passage of a brand new law, the Homestead Act, the wagon trails that offered new lands were the hope of prosperity; a trade-off for hard work. Our citizenship was all we would need for 160 acres, enough for a homestead. Well, that, and a win for the North. A strong win in this god forsaken war.

Most of the time, though, it seemed to me that there might never be a time after the War. The War Between the States would continue forever. Battle after battle after long and bloody battle, it would gnash onwards. After all, if the War lasted very long it would certainly spread to the entire western portion of the continent as one territory after another, slave or free added states, as stars, to the flag. The Homestead Act on the other hand was bound to create a new kind of war altogether, a war for land, changing the landscape and its peoples forever.

Thick with thoughts, I had unconsciously gone about my chores and once again found myself in the garden pulling up some beets and cutting lettuce and parsley. Despite the breeze, I was hot and flushed. It was nearing midday. Sensing the presence of another person behind me I turned and was startled to see a young soldier, a Confederate Private. He appeared to be unarmed so I thought he could be Warren's messenger. Perhaps he had forgotten something and sent the young man in his stead. I waited for him to say something. But surely, this man standing before me couldn't be very old. He barely had any beard or even the stubble that comes before a beard develops. With the sun in my eyes I pulled down the broad brim of my hat for some shade.

"Yes, Private, what is it?"

"It isn't something I can tell you here. May I speak to you for a moment inside, Ma'am?" answered the young man who obviously hadn't completed puberty yet. His voice didn't have the resonance of a man, but more the lilt of a boy.

Hesitantly, I responded, "Certainly, this way." I guided him into the house and to the living room where we sat in chairs opposite one another.

"Would you care for something to drink?"

"No, thank you ma'am, but maybe you could help me in another way?"

Confused and getting anxious, I asked the Private, "Were you sent by Captain Dodd?"

"No Ma'am," and with that, he removed his hat only to reveal the longer hair and appearance of a young woman. "Not exactly, but now do you recognize me..." then in a whisper, "A fellow spy?"

My anxiety turned to joy as I saw the young woman in front of me and recognized her as a woman that I had met in Boston over a year before.

"Caroline Carter, is that you? My Lord you were so convincing, I didn't even recognize you." I lowered my voice as if someone else was in the house and could hear us, "Where have you been all these months? It's been close to a year since I've seen you, hasn't it?" My words continued to spill from my lips. "Let's sit for awhile, and have some tea. You must give me all the details," I said.

"I wasn't sure how to approach you Annie, but I guess this worked!"

Getting up to go the kitchen, I hugged her and said, "You were brilliant. And it is so good to see a familiar face. But first, if anyone comes to the door let me show you where to hide. Here, bring your hat with you." I led the way to the tall wardrobe that sat alongside the bed. Pulling up the cabinet's floor with a thumb tab, I showed her where she could stand inside the wardrobe if needed. It would do as long as no one went searching. Returning to the living room, Caroline settled down in the cushiony chair while I went to the kitchen to find some food.

In minutes I was back with a tray of fruits and fresh bread with butter. Tall glasses of mint tea rounded out the meal.

"Your timing was excellent, Caroline," I said. "Just a short while before you arrived a captain was visiting. A Confederate captain."

"I know," she responded. "Actually, I was already here and waiting for you to walk outside so in case we were seen, it would appear to be a more natural greeting," Caroline responded. "As I approached your gate I saw a horse tethered to the hitching post and walked past the house and around for a block or two until he was gone."

I was relieved that in her excitement to tell me about her activities that Caroline never asked me why a Confederate captain was visiting in the first place.

"Well Annie," Caroline said, "I never thought I'd have as many adventures and near misses as I've had over the past year. Originally, I would have been happy serving the Union disguised as a guy and leave it at that. But, while I was on hospital duty, I must have been there for at least three months, my superior officer asked me to infiltrate a nearby Confederate camp as a cook and listen to conversations about plans they were making. I'd write down any pertinent information every few days and meet a scout at a designated point after the evening meal, as darkness set in. I did that for about six weeks until I realized someone had seen me depart and I felt that others were growing suspicious. That very night I left both my Union and Confederate posts and went west to a safe house, where I worked for a couple months to help some of the slaves who were heading up to Canada." She continued.

"There were times when I'd leave the safe house to help out a party moving north or scout troop movements and report back. Working between the lines wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be. Generally, there were forests between the two sides that I could slip into at night and over the lines, hiding by day in the brush if I had to. Unfortunately, my efforts to get back to a farmhouse, an old depot on the Underground, were blocked by intensive fighting, and that's why I'm here. I must try to reenter the Union lines, but I can't go as a Confederate Private or I'll be shot," she explained. "Please tell me you've got uniforms!"

"I've got one! " I said. "Let's see how it fits you."

We went to the bedroom, this time to search my trunk to find the uniform buried at the bottom. I pulled out the costumes one by one, then stopped. Looking down at the trunk, I saw the clothes in somewhat of a jumble. They weren't carefully folded as I knew I had left them.

Pulling the quilt from the trunk and holding it to my face, I commented, "That's strange, it looks like someone has been in here."

We looked at one another but Caroline shrugged her shoulders. Reaching down into the trunk herself, she pulled the remaining uniform from the depths. It was Union.

"I had several others, but they've been put to good use," I said.

Caroline put on the blue jacket, but much to her disappointment, it was far too big. She assumed the pants would be the same way.

Seeing the disappointment in her face, I assured her. "I'm a tailor from way back. This job will just take a few hours. And, fortunately it is the jacket of a Private with no braid on it at all."

Throwing the pants on the bed, I got on my knees to get to whatever was on the bottom of the trunk. I pulled out a black oiled haversack and a squashed—looking blue cap of the Union army.

Turning to Caroline, I made her laugh. "Yes, only the best for you, Miss Caroline. Cowpie hat and all. Indeed, we offer you only the finest service at this elegant establishment. This pack can carry the uniform that you don't need while you wear the other. Too bad I don't have an Enfield to offer you. But try the pants on. I'll need to take them up, no doubt, and in. You've lost weight, I'm sure. I'll get you some food too. Then you can lie down and get some rest. You have a long trip ahead."

Compared to Caroline and the other girls, I had far more comfort in my life. I had the luxury of paying rent and staying put and I didn't have to sleep outside among poisonous creatures in all kinds of weather. As I finished the hems on Caroline's pants, I thought back to earlier days and what led me to this life.

Sarah and I had reasons to do what we did. I thought back to our girlhood when our Negro neighbors, Mattie and Clem Smithton, had nearly been relocated to a plantation in South Carolina by a slave catcher. He accused the siblings of running away years before, swearing every way that they had been his bosses' property. We all knew it couldn't be true. Some of the town's people remembered them as children, both born free, and remembered their parents, also born in the north, but I was unclear whether they were free or slaves to the wealthy households of merchants and sea captains. The myth was that slavery was a southern institution, but clearly, it existed in New England. The ties of north and south were evident. Cotton grown by slaves in the South and the heart of the economy for the southern states was woven into fabric and textiles in the North, the heart of the economy for the northern States. Captains and merchants north and south were involved in the trade of slaves, rum and sugar in the West Indies, so neither side was pure and without fault on this issue.

Had it not been for the citizens' army that was instantly raised by friends and neighbors alike our community and its Negro citizens would have been bait for the slave catchers and Congress' Fugitive Slave Law. The rally which arose on behalf of our friends had not been equaled since the minutemen of Concord. However, elsewhere throughout the north, a new frenzy of "witch hunts" were designed and carried out by the slave catchers. 'Slave catchers' as opportunists were looking for a fast buck and the chance to torture and humiliate innocents for the sake of their own greed and perceived power.

It seemed diabolical to Sarah and to me that under the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, the slave catcher's word as to the identification of an accused runaway slave need not be proven, and the accused individual could offer no defense. There were stories told and reported, in fact, where men and women who were born free in the North were then taken away and sold in the South. It was the law, passed by the Congress of the United States. No trial by jury was obtained for the individual in question either. With such an impossible task, few accusations were proven false, and many free men and women were forced south into the hell-like conditions and the dank hovels of slavery.

In the case of the Smithton's I recalled one woman, Hattie Linden, who made the difference. She had a huge laundry cauldron hauled to the town Commons and threatened the Smithton's accuser herself with the promise of preheating the tar necessary to make her goose down feathers stick to his skin with ease. That tumult, together with the resistance that the Smithton's put up on their own, was enough to finally drive off the slave trader and his menacing partner.

After that event, however, our convictions were ignited. Years later we didn't need to be persuaded that the Union was indeed worth fighting for, but it was the social causes more than the political causes of the war that drove us to enter the spy network, a risky and uncertain affair. The events of the war were moving quickly and little by little I was finding out more about Warren and the world at war.

Only two weeks had passed since General Lee had been given command of the Army of Northern Virginia. President Davis, disgusted with the confusion between Generals Johnston and Longstreet had put Lee in the position of power rather than Johnston.

At the beginning of the war, President Lincoln had hoped that the former West Point superintendent, Robert E. Lee, would take the President's offer to command the Union army. But instead, Lee returned to Virginia, his home, to fight for the Rebels. Hence, Lincoln didn't have many commanders to choose from, and to his chagrin had chosen McClellan to march into Richmond. The problem for the North was exactly that: McClellan was expected to march on the Rebels and take their capital, but instead, he had chosen to sit within miles of Richmond, close enough for his front line of sixty-eight thousand troops to hear the clocks of Richmond chime throughout each long night.

Griped by an order of inertia, the frustrated Union men, tens of thousands of them, had been forced to dally for weeks and months throughout the heavy rains of spring, through flooded conditions, racked by the lung diseases and malaria that raged in the dank, muddied tents, week after week. Malarial fevers raged among the men. Clean water was impossible to find, so unless it was carefully boiled, water was as dangerous an enemy as gun fire. The only thing worse for the Union than disease or losses in a battle over Richmond, was being forced to leave the southern capital untouched and the war, instead of closing in, and ended, dragged on.

_The conditions in June had turned to favor the Confederates. The rising Chickahominy River had divided the northern army separating three divisions to the north and two more to the south. However, the weather cycle was expected to dry and once that happened, it could favor the Union. Indeed, General Lee saw his opportunity to prevent an assault on Richmond and utilized JEB Stuart and the Cavalry to create a raid and reconnaissance mission around McClellan's troops, thereby discovering any vulnerable areas. After raiding some of the staples of the north and a rail line, Stuart returned after four days and gave General Lee the information on Union troop positions. The waiting period had finally ended_.

## CHAPTER TWELVE

A week had passed since both Warren's departure and Caroline's overnight visit, and the weather throughout had been merciless. Returning from the hospital the oppressive air seemed to squeeze out whatever energy was left in me. And flies, more than ever, had become a terrible annoyance in the wards. The surgeons had trouble with their work because of them. As nurses, we did all we could to keep wounds covered and protected from the menace of the flies, but it seemed impossible to confront one more disgusting task. I couldn't think for one moremoment about what I'd seen or done since early morning at the hospital yet the scenes kept repeating in my mind. Returning home meant that I could sit in the yard and watch the sun go down.

A light breeze was cooling off the day and I closed my eyes to breathe it in, exchanging hot air for cool. I relaxed, hearing the low songs of the women next door, a rhythmic chant from somewhere beside me.

I missed Warren completely, and it had only been a week. Just a week. I tried to outline his face in my memory, distinguishing his scent somewhere there. I recalled how he had mouthed the words, 'I love you' as he was leaving the kitchen. Memories of our late night discussions vividly returned. Just before he left, Warren had started to reveal to me his feelings about the war and his superiors. Though I never probed him for information I must admit, I never tried to stop him either. He told me about some of the big news as command and policy changed. And, he also confirmed the knowledge that was common in our small town: despite the fact that the Federals had been in the vicinity of Richmond for over eight weeks, it appeared that their forces were divided by the waters of the Chickahominy, and their collective spirits were waning.

"What do you think Warren, will General Lee be a formidable threat to General McClellan now that he's in charge of Virginia's army?" I'd asked him.

"General Lee will take great pride in running the Union out of Virginia," Warren explained. "He's really gotten behind his home state, though I know he doesn't support the base causes of this war. After all, before the war he dismissed all the slaves he inherited and he didn't even support succession. Just states' rights."

"Then what's this all about?" I asked. "Do you support slavery or succession?" I had to know where he stood on that issue.

"Hell no, Annie. We never owned slaves and I find the institution backward. When I traveled through Europe with my father's business, I knew we were considered less than sophisticated because our nation still supported slavery. I didn't join out of some conviction to support slavery. I guess I support states' rights though on the other hand, it may be greed that is driving the desire to secede.

States rights' is another way of saying a states' right to determine slave or free, I s'pose but for me, I didn't live with slaves. I don't support slavery, but I keep it to myself. I'm better off knowing what I believe in and keeping it to myself than be jailed for voicing my mind. I'm in it too deep so I do what I can for those boys, and trust me, I've seen some ugly battlegrounds.

Joining the war effort was a way to change my life and I followed my friends from West Point. For example, there's Stuart. He's quite a character. It's not uncommon to see him taking a ride in his red cape and yellow sash, an ostrich plume dancing to one side of his hat," Warren told me. "Even Lee," he went on. "He was a Superintendent at West Point, you know. I can't change my mind now. Those boys have little as it is. I've got to get food and supplies to them wherever they go. I can help there. What good would I be if I was locked up in a stinking jail?"

Right then, I saw a gaping difference between Warren and me. He hadn't really thought this through. Our personal philosophies were as different on the inside as our politics were on the outside of things. But I'd found out something important, essential for us to even think about being together after all this madness ended: he was not fighting to support slavery.

"It won't be long now," he went on. "McClellan isn't going to take Richmond if he hasn't by now. Word has it that Lee is very optimistic. He's got enough men to push 'em back, even if the Union does outnumber them."

He confirmed what I had come to know and passed up the line: Rebel troop counts were still inferior to Union.

Warren was on his way to seek out a new round of battles and to find ways to get all the necessary supplies to his men that he could muster.

***

Circumstances of that war were odd, even diabolical at times: when Warren got the call to head south, he also found find that Confederate Cavalry Commander JEB Stuart would be going up against McClellan's Commander of the Cavalry, an officer by the name, Brigadier General Philip St. George Cooke; a man well-known to Stuart. You see, the Brigadier General for the Union was JEB Stuart's father-in-law.

## CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Warren sent a carriage for me early in the month of July and I was happy to leave Marsh Station.

"Telegram for you, Miss Cunningham," Mr. Quimby said in the spirited manner with which I had become so familiar. Whenever I was in town I stopped in to see if there had been any word from Warren. "Guess this is what you've been waiting for."

"Thank you, I'm grateful, Mr. Quimby," I replied.

"If you hadn't stopped by, I'd of rounded up the newsboys to get it to you, seeing it's important."

The telegram read: 'Carriage will be arriving soon. You are needed here. Four days.' The time and place of departure was listed at the bottom of the note.

Two days later, having told the hospital and Lucy that I was off to check on an old aunt, a carriage arrived to take me to the outskirts of Fredericksburg in July's withering heat. I was certain that by the time I reached Warren, I would be nothing more than a dust-covered mass of sweat and fabric, but a welcome change from the hospital ward.

To keep myself from crawling out the window to find the nearest stream, I thought about the weeks that had passed since Warren left and I recounted how I'd spent my time. I'd been very busy the past few weeks taking over more of the nursing duties within the hospital and as I had hoped, soon its adjoining prison. I had been picking berries and making jams and pies to sell at Beard's Mercantile, gardening, mostly weeding actually, and each afternoon on the way back from the hospital, visiting Mr. Quimby to see if any messages had arrived from Warren.

"Haven't heard from Captain Dodd," Quimby would say in his predictable manner each day. "'Spect to hear from him soon though."

I'd thank him as always and turn to leave. Quimby was a kind gentleman, with a clean shaven face that seemed to reflect light, his hair was always combed and he wore a starched white shirt with black ribbon bow at the collar.

I thought back to one evening, a warm summer night, when I decided to stop into The Three Lanterns to see what revues were playing there or were soon due in town. Posters announcing all the local the entertainment —singers, banjo players, actors and jugglers—fluttered by the doorway whenever a sudden gust of wind came up. Katherine, at the bar chatting with a prospective client, let out a squeal when she saw me. Holding me at the elbow, she escorted me back to the high stools around the bar. Ordering the bartender to get me a drink, Katherine brushed aside my hair and talked to me as if I was a child or at least one of her "girls." Ian, the bartender, an Irishman with whom I had briefly become acquainted during my short tenure as an actress and performer at the Lanterns, welcomed me in his jolly way and set a tall beer before me.

"Well stranger, where've you been?" he asked.

"Ian, my dear, I've been right under your nose, just busy trying to make my living and pay the rent. Sorry, I haven't come by to visit, but this place is usually crawling with those buck privates who have the competence of the fleas in their seams," I retorted.

By then, Katherine's new acquaintance had given up waiting for her to return and had taken a table closer to the stage. Kate was purposely trying to impress me with her attentiveness.

Patting my back, she looked at me closely and said, "You know dear if you need any help, you can depend on me."

I saw the half smile of hers and knew what she was insinuating. "Katherine, you know I'm opposed to taking the kind of work that you have suggested in the past. I could no more work here than be a miner in the gold rush, risking all I have in unfamiliar surroundings to find gold, or in this case, quicksilver. No offense, Katherine, but I'd rather be your friend, ah cousin rather, than your employee."

"Annie, all I've suggested is that with your good looks and fine features, you could make quite a bit of money in a short time and live a comfortable life for several years. I know your feelings on this, but I hate to see you struggle so hard. Isn't your Captain going to take good care of you? I don't see him around here anymore and for a while I thought that the two of you may want to carve out a comfy home together far away from here."

"Captain Dodd is out of town, and Katherine, he hasn't been taking care of me, nor would I want him to", I paused, "Though I admit, I _am_ quite fond of him. Anyway, he respects my independence and he has his own work to do. There is a war on, you know," I said with a laugh.

"Lest I forget," Katherine replied. "And business is good. Just tell that handsome Captain of yours that I send my best regards for your futures...together. If there is anything I can do for you, please dear, let me know. Now I must check on things if you will excuse me."

After Katherine left, I sat for a few moments, sipping my drink and chatting with Ian while a tinny piano accompanied a political skit on stage. The dash in his eyes made me aware that Ian would be happy for a signal from me. A signal telling him that I was interested in spending an evening with him. Or more. But no signal was ever exchanged and we passed the time with small talk.

The carriage was shifting now, bringing me back to the steamy reality of the ride. I had to hold onto the sides, bracing myself. Going over a deeply rutted road, the dust kicked up, sticking to my face and neck. It was all I could do to close my eyes and gather myself, thinking about the busy month that I had had since Warren left.

After leaving Katherine's tavern, I walked home in the waning light, a bit melancholic after my chat with her. I welcomed the softness in the evening breeze, gathering around me like a velvet shawl. Crickets chirped and birds sang softly to one another in the trees sharing their secrets about the invisible worlds. Breathing it in, I would store the evening deep in my memory and keep it handy for the sunless, dank days that would find me on the on the other side of the year.

Passing the worklot adjacent to the house, I looked over the fence where berry bushes grew and I'd noticed just that morning, were ripe for the picking. Checking the sky for remaining light, I patted the basket that I had been carrying imagining it full of berries and I walked back among the scratchy bushes. Back behind a thicket I heard a soft humming, a sweet song, and braved the thick wall of prickly bushes to find the same slave laundress I'd met earlier in the spring. Without expecting each other to be there, we both leaped as we saw one another. Her berries flying from her apron skirt, the slave woman fell back on her rear end, having been crouched to reach the bottoms of the bushes where the berries grew thickly. I couldn't help myself. Reacting to my own start and the collapse of the woman beside me, I doubled over and laughed out loud. Then the Negro woman laughed at herself as well and our giggles rose in pitch until I was laughing so hard that I was completely silent, but scarlet, I'm sure. Looking at me in that state only made the woman point and laugh harder, throwing her head back with two slits for eyes and white teeth and tongue forming the bulk of her features. We made an effort to pick up the berries that had flown from her lap, but it was no use, we'd just look at one another and double over again. I hadn't laughed that hard for years and I wondered if she had ever had a reason to find that much joy or humor in her miserable life.

Returning to our calmer selves, I reached out to the woman on the ground beside me expecting to help her up but instead, she responded by looking down and folding her arms around her knees. I looked around, reached out my hand once again to help her up.

"It's okay," I said. "Really, it's all right, come on."

Finally, the woman held out her hand to be assisted and with a deep breath, I pulled harder than I needed to; so light in weight and tiny in stature. Teetering back on my heels she gave my arm a lurch to correct my balance, but it was too late. I fell squarely on my backside. This only brought on another round of laughter as I was jolted forward to standing. Catching our breaths, I focused on the full bushes and the diminished light.

"We'd better get these before the raccoons do," I said. Turning to my companion, "What do you use these for, May I ask?"

Reaching for the berries on a full bush, she spoke softly "Why ma'm, I feed them to my little 'uns as a treat. They so rarely gets any fresh food. Despite my hollering about their tummies getting upset, you knows, they eat them 'til their teeth are purple, if they have half a chance. Then, I make syrup when I can gets some sugar cane. It'll make some of the best syrup for chest aches, the coughs and for throat pain."

"Really? I'll have to try that. I was just going to make a pie. That and a bit of blackberry jam or maybe a few crocks of wine to have for special occasions," I said dropping my voice, realizing there would be little room for special occasions in the life of a slave. We moved away from one another as a common courtesy so as not to compete for berries on the same bush. We picked through the gloaming.

The sun had dropped down, dissolving into the horizon like a dollop of honey. I knew I'd better be getting back and I gathered my skirts, sweeping away dried leaves and thorns as I did so.

Turning to the woman who in my mind I had already adopted as a friend, and in other places I could call one.

"Goodbye, I must go now," and walked back a few steps closer to the path. In the darkness I nearly whispered, "By the way, I'm Annie. Annie Cunningham."

The woman didn't respond, but I could see her silhouetted against the sky, her head cocked slightly as if she was pondering what to do. I wondered if she didn't understand my casual ways, or my treatment of her as if she was just another woman friend, not chattel or a piece of property.

Looking down she said in a barely audible voice "Uh, Lacey is who I is. Just Lacey."

"Good night Lacey, it's been a pleasure to meet you," I whispered, and poured half of the berries from my basket into her bulging skirt.

Walking away towards the house I tried for a moment to imagine what it would be like to be Lacey. The institution of slavery represented a culture born blind in both eyes to the cruelty that slaves faced from birth on. Cruelty beyond what I could imagine: periods of forced separation, of forced abuse, of forced sex, of relentless authority from slave masters. I couldn't pretend to know, even for a second, a slave's degree of despair and anger. What I did know was that freedom and its opportunities are inherently intertwined with self-worth, and both need to be protected. As well as the dignity and self-worth of an entire nation.

If we were ever to stand up and be counted as a nation with the power of reason and the status of economic markets to move us forward, the institution of slavery had to die. Our European allies were pressuring both personalities of the nation, the Federal government and the Confederate government, to heal the split and in so doing, rid ourselves of the institution of slavery that had been rationalized for centuries, like a disfiguring disease.

That was the reason so many families were willing to send their sons to war. Whole families were wiped out with the loss of their men, young and old. Their names would be engraved on plaques in town squares throughout the North in honor of their duty. Five and six sons and a father. Lost. Following their convictions, they must have felt strongly about preserving the Union, reversing the disunity created by slavery. These were the town squares that erected monuments to recognize all those lost in the French and Indian War, the Revolution, the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, and now this unruly monster called the Civil War, that unless the North managed to win, would forever cast aside the hope of unity and freedom fought for by so many. So many with so little to support them or pull them forward, except their own convictions, their morals, and at times, their blind courage.

With the road having smoothed out a bit, I pulled a book from my bag. The ride gave me a glimpse of events since I'd been situated in Marsh Station. Fields that should have been tall with crops were fallow, rutted, and some cratered by cannon ball and battle. Houses, or shells of houses, gouged and cavernous, missing walls and roofs, peppered the countryside. One house after the other stood abandoned and collapsing in upon themselves like wooden cadavers. A bed on the top floor, still covered by a quilt, a chair next to a chimney, like toy models of lives once lived, then torn to shreds. Traveling unaccompanied gave me a degree of freedom: I didn't have to chatter with curious passengers who might want to talk and delve into my personal affairs. Without a companion, I had no reason to formulate a false past, lest I slip up and risk inconsistency. Though tired, I couldn't read; there were too many unanswered questions on my mind. I had to figure out how to respond to Warren. Could I temper my feelings towards him? Must I? Was I using him or he using me? For some reason I couldn't figure out, I felt deeply connected to the man. How much could I risk sharing with him? Was my own instinct deluding me? Staring at the green fields and wildflowers outside the carriage window, all I knew was that I missed him, I wanted desperately to see him and hold him and hear his voice.

I realized _then_ the nature of my problem: my attraction to Warren was not just physical. A bond of sorts on a level I couldn't even explain had formed between us. At what point, I couldn't be sure, but I felt it in our playfulness, our discussions, and in all of our times together. He was the first man I could see spending years with, years that stretched into a lifetime, and that stretched into creating a family; a web of years, of shared joys and sorrows. And indeed, _that_ was a problem. I wouldn't be able to dismiss Warren and our relationship because we were on opposite sides – because he was an officer of the Confederacy and I was a spy. I wanted our relationship to grow despite the differences we'd have to overcome, differences that I couldn't possibly begin to reveal to him.

The driver guided his carriage down an embankment where down near the bottom of a hill I heard a stream and voices, a man shouting. We came to an abrupt halt, and when I was certain that we weren't about to move, I opened the door to the thick noon air and jumped out, calling up to the driver.

"Driver, is there a problem?"

"I 'spect it'll be a few minutes Ma'am," he replied holding tight to the reins. Walking around the front of the horses, pausing in the shade, I reached up to one, but realized that the horse was thick with sweat and drew back. Now I could see what had caused us to stop. My stomach wrenched to see the sight before me. A man, a Negro man stood nearly naked in the middle of the stream up to his hips, harnessed like a steed himself, being forced to pull a man and cart like a pack animal through the mud and water. Beads of sweat drenched his brow and his ribs stood out with each determined tug and pull of the cart. However, this effort was clearly not enough for his cruel master. At one point when the cart wouldn't budge behind him despite the man's body bent at a severe angle, the master yelled from his perch atop the cart.

"You good for nothin' son-of-a-bitch, move I say, move." With the sharp tongue of the whip, the young man's back bled, reopening unhealed wounds and thick scars from past lashings. He went down, nearly to his knees, but the tack that hooked him caught him, nearly strangling the poor man.

Standing up, he shook as the whip and his own salt struck him again.

I couldn't bear what I saw. Without planning or plotting a strategy, I reacted in urgency.

"Can't you stop him, can you not do something for the man?" I called to the driver.

"Do somethin', Ma'am? Ah, well it wouldn't be in my place to do somethin'. He's not my property. He's obviously the property of the cart driver. We'll just have to wait it out."

"I won't wait," I said to myself, seeing now that there would be no effort to help the young slave. I had to think fast. My first inclination was to scream and yell at the blatant cruelty of the owner but I knew he would only take out his wrath towards a challenging woman on the slave who had already suffered so greatly.

I clapped my hands to get the attention of the cruel master.

"Is that you Mister Johnston?" I asked. "Oh no, I must be mistaken. I thought that you were someone else."

The beast of a man, paused, looked up from the back of his slave and down at me standing near the cart. His dark hair was matted with sweat and his mouth pulled down tightly in disgust at the interruption. He put down his whip and touched the brim of his hat towards me in a gesture of greeting. I had gotten his attention and hopefully broken his spell of brutality, at least for a moment. Personally, I wanted to pull him from the cart myself and bury him in the wet sand for the ants to find, but I held to my act.

"Sir, I'm trying to reach my mother's house now that I have word she's ill, and you see, I just don't have a lot of time to spare, waiting in line to cross this creek. You don't suppose that we could hitch one of our horses to your cart to cross now do you, at least enough to get across and pass you?" I smiled at him.

"Well, I s'pose that would be all right, Miss. After all, if your Mama's ill."

"Thank you. My driver would be happy to help I'm sure."

The driver descended to unhitch 'his' slave. Then, the driver of my carriage followed.

I returned to the carriage and pulled out part of a loaf of bread wrapped in cloth. While the two white men were busied with the horses, I nodded to the black man to move out of sight temporarily behind a tree and handed him the bread and the cloth that I had dipped in the stream. Applying it to his back, he winced and jumped, but ate the bread heartily and in no time.

"Why was he treating you like that? What had you done?" I whispered.

"He caught me writin' in the dirt, writin' letters from the alphabet and short words too. I am learning to read and write. Slaves usually get turned over to dogs for that, Miss. He has me pullin' the cart this time. Next time he'll probably let them rip me apart if he don't do that first. Thanks, Ma'am."

He nodded slightly and walked away.

I bent down at the side of the stream and dabbed water on my temples then walked slowly to the carriage so as not to attract attention. From the carriage window I could see the slave's back, bloody and torn; so open that I winced just thinking about what I saw when I applied the wet towel just moments before. I stared ahead thinking about his suffering, straining under the weight of the cart, reined in like an ox. He was just one of millions who had been forced into slavery since the earliest days of colonial America. Forced from their homes by slavers in Africa, or born into slavery here. Men, women and children who were part of the triangle of the rum trade sold to sugar plantations in the West Indies or sold to cotton plantation owners in the South; sold and enslaved over the centuries. With these thoughts I felt my anger rising inside me. With that and the dense, hot air it felt like I was suffocating.

'We had to win that bloody war. We just had to. Anyone who said that it was just about states' rights just wasn't looking at it with both eyes open. It was about human dignity,' I thought to myself.

_Between June 25 and July 1, 1862 a series of engagements, known as the Seven Days' Battle occurred near Richmond, Virginia. In these skirmishes General Lee prevented Union troops from capturing the Confederate capital_.

## CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Warren was there to meet my carriage as we pulled into the town of Ashburg. Kicking up some of the mud of the previous days' rains the coach splashed to a halt and Warren, looking relieved to see me within, smiled up at the driver and yelled, "I've got the door."

Turning the handle, he helped me down. He was wearing a white collared shirt, his cavalry boots and pants and he carried his gray jacket in one hand. How he managed to look so clean and casual after being in the field for so many weeks was more than I could understand. Looking at his face though, I saw the weariness of war etched in the circles around his eyes having just returned from a week at the front lines. I wondered and marveled that he could look so clean.

Pulling me close to him he said quietly, "Hello, Annie. I've missed you."

"So good to see you again," I whispered back.

I wore a flowered cotton dress with a sash at the waist. The tiny roses on my straw hat remained intact despite my using it as a fan for the entire ride. Warren walked me around the corner from the coach stop and into a restaurant where we had a wide array of tables to choose from as few people were dining in the afternoon heat. Tall glasses of minted tea awaited us.

"Are you hungry?" he asked.

"Just a bit, but I'll wait. It's too hot to eat just yet. He reached across the table finding my hand. "Our carriage will here in twenty minutes or so."

"Another carriage ride? Where in the world could you be taking me, Captain? To a tent on the battlefield no doubt," I said with a smile.

Sipping his tea, he responded, "Sorry to disappoint you Annie, but all the tents were taken." Warren responded. He sipped his tea. "I have three days off and our destination is a surprise. That's all I'll tell you for the moment. We'll be on our way shortly. I'll check on the carriage, and I'll be right back."

Soon we were on the road and within thirty minutes I was delighted to arrive not at a tent but instead, at a lovely home Warren had arranged as our lodging for a few days. Shutters at the front of the house were closed against the July heat. Several tall tulip trees shaded the house from the afternoon sun and a garden, somewhat neglected, hinted of better days for the household. We were greeted by the house servants, slaves undoubtedly, but caretakers for the home and small farm.

Looking around, I was impressed with Warren's planning on my behalf. "Warren, this is lovely but how did you ever find this place?" I asked.

"Jake will be glad to know that you approve, Annie. He's a friend of mine who sent his family up to Maryland to be with relatives for the time being. This is his home and he's willing to let us use it for a few days while he's off with details of the war. Let's take a look around."

The manservant nodded and showed us up to our rooms.

"Thank you," Warren said to him, then taking my hand again Warren walked me though the adjacent rooms that would be ours for a few days. Both of our rooms, set at the back of the house, were large and comfortable. My bedroom had a window seat and when I pulled back the drapes and looked below, I saw a flower garden with a small pond and at the back of the yard, a beehive. In Warren's room, a small couch complimented two wing backed chairs and a fireplace, adorned for the summer months by a beaded fire screen.

"Is there anything you need at the moment Madam?" inquired the manservant.

"No, thank you," I replied.

Turning to Warren he went on "Sir, I've brought up your bags and during the next few days, if there is anything that you need, please let one of us know right away. Mr. Lyons wants you to be comfortable." With a slight bow and a nod of the head, the servant graciously exited.

Warren draped his jacket over the arm of the chair and then took my hand. I stood on tiptoe, kissed him and then gently pulled away.

"I'll be just a few minutes. I want to clean up and brush the road dust out of my hair."

"Don't be long, please. I'll open these windows to get some air in here. Maybe there's a breeze."

My room was a welcoming place, fresh and peaceful. I was exhausted by the journey but excited to spend time alone with Warren. Loosening my dress, and removing it, I was glad to unbutton my boots and kick them off as well. Finding water in the porcelain pitcher, I poured some into a bowl and dampened a cloth. Applying the cool cloth to the back of my neck and face offered great relief from the heat and dust of the trip. Then, dampening my hairline and temples, I followed the line of my neck down into my cleavage, and over my arms and torso before I brushed out my hair. Finding a lighter dress in my bag I was ready to seek out Warren and relax.

When I returned to his room I found him asleep in the chaise by the window, boots off, feet up. He looked peaceful and contented while the sheer white curtains caught a breeze and billowed about him like full sails on a ship. To be with him aboard a sailboat on the Merrimack River and take it to the sea. 'Wouldn't that be a time,' I thought to myself, 'Sailing with Warren on a clear day?' Kneeling before him, watching him sleep I wondered what that would be like – to sail together. To find a fair wind and a bend along the land, to find a cove that could anchor our vessel while we swam and ate and slept... a future dream? Perhaps. But certainly far from the war and its grisly scenes.

Then I wondered and whispered quietly to myself, "What could this man have seen over the past few weeks? Where had he been and how could the North have retreated from Richmond on the defensive when it appeared they had the upper hand all along?"

After a while, maybe thirty minutes or so I couldn't resist any longer; I touched his hand, and woke him. Slowly, coming out of his deep sleep, he looked around and then at me. We looked at one another, taking in each other's face. He stroked my cheekbone with the back of his fingers and moving forwards in the chair, he gently kissed my forehead, my eyelids, and then he kissed my mouth.

Warren rose and pulled me to my feet. Seeking privacy, he raised a finger, pausing, and walked across the room to close the door fully. I walked a few paces, my bare feet feeling the rich carpet beneath me and met Warren halfway across the room, where standing, we embraced. Warren's lips met mine and we stood there in the middle of the room, exploring one another's kiss and finding each other's angles and curves with our hands. Shifting in his arms, I turned and moved in towards him so my back was to his chest, his arms around me. Looking at the floor I saw a gold object near my foot. My big toe found it and moved it in towards me, then I loosened Warren's hand and bent forward to retrieve what looked like a wedding ring. His grey jacket sat folded over the arm of a chair nearby.

"What's this?" I asked.

I pulled away and read the ring's engraving.

"To Warren, Love always, Lydia."

Looking back at his stunned face, I asked, "Warren? Warren, you've never mentioned Lydia."

My world seemed darker all the sudden. I thought for a minute that a storm was coming up. Surely thick black clouds had moved in shadowing the window. But all in a second, I realized that no such thing had happened. It was my mind that was shadowed, confused. I looked up to his face and when I spoke, my voice was not my own. With each word, it became higher, nearly sputtering.

"No. No, Warren. Damn you. Why did you bring me here? Is this a game to you? A game you're playing with me? How dare you not mention her to me before this."

My eyes, like dark marbles, were filling quickly with tears reflecting my rage.

"Annie, we've got to t..." But he could see in my face that it was useless to try to explain anything. He must have seen that he had hurt me deeply.

"Annie, please, we've got to talk." He tried to convince me. "It wasn't supposed to happen like this. I intended to tell you today. Annie, you must believe me. Annie, please?" Warren tried to pull me back towards him but I refused him.

"Don't touch me." I threw the band on the bed. "I don't know what to do, or what to say to say to you." My voice rising again. "I came all this way so that we could be together. How naive I've been. I'm stunned. But worse, now I feel like I don't know who you are. I'm shocked. I assumed you were unattached. I thought for a moment that your kisses, this time together, that it might mean something to you other than a mere affair. Honestly Warren, is it that I never asked? That's it, isn't it? You could only reveal the truth if you were directly asked about it? Then to be so casual as to allow your wedding ring to fall from your coat pocket. Is that your way of telling me about her?" I shook my head, and turned towards the door, feeling tears run down my cheeks.

"Wait, Annie. Please. Wait a minute. Don't go. Listen to me. We can make this right between us; I know we can. I've been waiting to talk with you. We haven't had the time or the place to be together. You know that." But before he could say any more, I'd left the room, and soon retrieved my shoes and run downstairs and headed for the barn beyond the house. Slipping on the shoes, I headed out not sure what was next but needing time to think.

The dark barn felt a bit cooler than the sultry house and gardens. I hadn't been in a barn for years but the smell of dried hay was sweet and comforting. Walking passed a few empty stables, I came upon the only horse I saw, a lonely looking chestnut, svelte and curious. I let her smell my hand before I touched her velvety nose. Finding a brush, I took her reins and brought her out of the stall to brush her coat. She shook several times, shook her mane and haunches in thanks for the attention I gave her.

"Want to go for a ride, Beauty?" I asked her. "It'll be hot out there, that's the only thing. But it'll cool off soon."

I found her saddle, cinched it up and in a short while we were on our way to go exploring. We crossed the fields beyond the house and followed a brook through a wide glade. Buzzing cicadas called from the tall trees and unless I stayed closer to the edges of the glades, the heat was like thick and sticky honey. A brook led into a stream at the base of a hill. Slowing to a walk, we followed the stream downwards through a thicket of young trees then out into a glade again. 'Would I be able to hear the gunshot of a picket above the cicada's hum?' I wondered. After walking her for a while, I dismounted allowing the horse to graze. Following the edge of the stream to a shallow place, I perched on a shady flat rock with water flowing all around it. It was much cooler there and I could stop for a while and think about the scene with Warren. Taking in a long breath, I looked towards the opposite bank of the stream where fresh mint grew tall with other herbs and I made a mental note to check what herbs I could find closer to the house. The sound of cicadas in the heat nearly drowned my thoughts into an infernal buzz that made my head pound harder.

"Has he led me on? How could he do this? Am I just a fool?" I asked out loud, directing my comments and questions over to the horse. She looked up at me, chewing grasses, rather quizzically.

"Would he say the same about me if he found out...if he finds out, what I'm really doing here in Virginia? What if he does? Would he turn me in?"

I looked back at the running water around me. Thinking about his lies made me ponder my own. I pooled water in my palms, then whispered to myself, "I can live two lives in one, but should he? Is my secret any more hallowed than his?" Dousing my face with the cool river water, I asked myself again, "When does a secret become a lie?"

I paused, rose, and picked my way back across the rocks and water. Patting the horse on the nose, leading her by the bridle, I asked her, "How can he care about me, truly care, if he's married to someone else? I wonder about her and if she loves him? What do you think, Beauty? I have to find out his intentions. I've got to know if he loves me, truly loves me and still could in the future, after the war. Or, if he was using me and I just didn't want to see it.

Damn..." I sighed heavily, "I wish that I didn't have to hide anything from him."

After walking for a while I said to the horse, "Come on now, let's find a pond. We need to cool down."

Mounting the saddle again, we headed across the field following a different forested path adjacent to the stream. The shaded forest offered refuge from the heat and we walked most of the way along a path of pine needles and tiny wildflowers. On the ride out, I'd seen the edge of a pond through the trees and thought that the path we were on would eventually join up with it. But, as we walked and walked, I started to doubt my navigational skills and realized that I may not be alone in the woods. I could come upon strange people who lived in the woods away from the last fighting field; someone like the traveler who attacked me in Marsh Station. I'd been naïve. I could be completely lost in the deep forest. Worst of all, I could see the horse was tiring. I longed to get back to Warren. I should never have run out. I was so impulsive and he was right; we had to talk. We had to work this through. The cicadas were growing louder and the woods seemed thicker among the afternoon shadows. Had I passed the pond? I was sweating, I needed water and I was certain that the horse did too. I was starting to feel an uneasy bit of panic. The horse sensed it, and stopped. She tightened her muscles. She turned her head to listen and I did the same.

"What is it, Beauty? I asked her.

Then, up ahead, I saw it. A patch of clearing. Yes, I could distinguish a boat in the distance. People were fishing and talking, laughing and splashing.

I breathed a long sigh of relief. We weren't lost. We'd found the pond after all.

Warren knew what I needed most: to sort things out on my own time. I admired him for that and with only one horse in the barn to ride, he didn't have much of a choice but to let me go out on my own. But as he told me later, if a feed bag wasn't enough to lure that horse in by evening, he might have to call out his friends in the cavalry to find me.

"I'm not going to lose you, Annie," he said. "Not now, not ever."

Approaching the pond I saw him from a distance, standing on the edge of an embankment, casting a line, while a slight breeze on the water kicked up a few ripples. Warren fished whenever he got the chance. Fishing and fly tying helped him clear his mind he said. He often relaxed by tying flies on his bunk at night, by lamplight and had perfected the craft even with his missing fingers. I think that was the way he coped with the war, through fly fishing. After all, standing in the middle of a river or at the edge of a pond just where the running stream came into it, and cooking the fish over an open fire, was a sweet diversion resulting in a good meal. Fishing, all of it, was a process of diversion from the grimness of army life or the weariness of assessing supply detachments and delivering scant goods to hungry troops. One way to look at Warren's job was that at least by working in communications and supply detachments he wasn't directly involved in fighting on the front lines for the most part. And as I came to learn more about Warren and his background, I came to find out that Warren was not just a man at war, but a man at war with himself.

I stopped and watched him for a while from the edge of the trees, trying to read his thoughts in his movements. Long cast out, flick and sudden twist, then the easy glide, the smooth movement of the slack line. Taut, then slack again his line danced across the water like a large winged bird.

Staying far enough away in a swath of brush and bushes so as not to be seen, I slipped out of my clothes and into the clear pond. I wanted more than anything to cool down. It didn't hurt to surprise Warren either, and with his shoulder towards me I knew I had a chance of doing just that. The cool water washed me clean from the sweat of the ride and the tension of our argument. Like a butterfly shedding its thick cottony cocoon, the cool pond water made me new. I dipped my face and hair and swam out closer to him. Looking up he seemed surprised to see my head and shoulders emerge out of the water, just beyond his casting range.

"Well, look whose back!" he said, laughing aloud. "How long have you been here Miss Annie?" He cast towards me, then pretended to have me with his line and mimed a struggle with his reel.

Seeing him standing there nearly up to his knees in the water, backlit by the sun, I couldn't stay angry with him much longer.

"What have you caught us for dinner Cap'in? I called.

Holding up his catch he yelled, "These. I hope you're hungry."

"I can smell them cooking already," I replied.

I swam back to the green, mossy spot on the embankment and dried myself with my dress, then put it back on. As I was finger combing my hair, Warren appeared around the edge of a shrub and joined in. His hand paused where my hair ended down the middle of my back, and looking at me, he gently moved his hand to my waist where it rested.

I meant to speak first. And if I had I would have told him that he had no business keeping me unaware of his wife, his Lydia, his marriage. I wanted to ask him if he loved me or if I was just his whim and pleasure of the moment. Moreover, I wanted to scream all these things at him simultaneously. But I didn't speak first. In fact, I didn't speak at all.

He took my hand and without saying a word, he began to guide me up the path, then we stopped. He pulled me to him, dropping the fish at our feet. The last of the afternoon sun was strong on our temples; it rolled down over our cheekbones and warmed our lips.

Few people have known a kiss like the one we shared there. My coolness, my dripping hair, his warmth, his light grip, my breath, his scent, my lips, his shoulders under an open shirt. A breeze kicked up again off the water.

Finally we pulled apart from one another. Holding hands, we started back to the house, Warren carrying a half-dozen trout on a string. By the number of trout he'd caught, it looked like he was expecting company for dinner. I hoped for just a party of two.

After a score of paces, we stopped on the path, looked at one another, shifted the fish and embraced again, then kissed, paused and walked some more. By the time we finally made it back to the barn, the horse had returned on her own, patiently waiting for a full feed bag and fresh hay. Evening's first stars were on the rise and I knew that the answers would come, answers that we both deserved, but they wouldn't come all at once.

_With the Seven Days Battle ended, it was clear to both sides that the Union had missed its chance to capture Richmond and end the war there and then. Critics concluded that General Lee's leadership had surpassed that of General McClellan and in just a month, with far fewer men than the Federals, he had driven the Union army, divided as it was by the flooded Chickahominy River, back towards Washington. Lincoln, exasperated that McClellan had refused to counterattack called the General's actions "either treason or cowardice." Meanwhile, the Union soldiers used whiskey and tobacco to fight off the effects of malaria and Lincoln hoped for a victory to announce his Proclamation for Emancipating the Slaves_.

## CHAPTER FIFTEEN

It was the third of July, 1862. Evening came with a balmy breeze, lifting away the heavy heat. We grilled trout over a fire in the garden and talked into the night. Looking at me, Warren turned the fish.

"This is not a game I'm playing, Annie. I swear to you. Please understand me when I say that. Coming out of an ordeal like the _Seven Days_ helps put things in perspective. I'm not trying to win your sympathies. It's just that when the smoke clears away from the battlefields...with all the bodies, the horses and dust, I wonder, 'How long can my luck hold out?' Then, despite the sounds, the moans from men and horses too, I've gotta shake that outta my head and pull it together, trying to create a shield for myself, a bit of armor. I can come back to a life that seems sweet, new, clean. That's how it is, not being dead or wounded. You see Annie, all of that makes me want to tell you everything. I had planned to talk to you this weekend. That's one reason I asked you to come here. You may not believe me, but I have a few things to say. Please hear me out."

I listened, nodding slightly while he continued.

"First, I'm sorry that you found the ring. It must have fallen from an inner pocket where I've kept it over the months. It was never my intention that you'd find out that way."

I looked at him. Staring at his face, I was again struck by his distinctly handsome features in the firelight. "What I can't understand is why you couldn't have told me before you left?" I asked quietly. He looked up at me as if searching for words.

"Our relationship is probably the only thing that seems real to either of us right now. And I want you to know it is real. It is clear to me that who we are and what we know as a _couple_ is more important than anything else in my life. Annie, I love you. I swear to you." The firelight glinted in his eyes.

He went on while I took a deep breath and looked beyond him into the now dark sky. "I swear by all that is good and right. I'm a bit ashamed to admit that than I've never loved Lydia and when I tell you about the circumstances of our marrying, you'll understand. At least I hope you will."

Leaning forward to sip his glass of tea he added, "You know that it's time to sit down and go over our lives together. In fact, it's way past time."

He paused and looked at me with clear intent. Then, he continued.

"The ring was an accident. You're right; I should never have let it happen that way."

Warren drew a deep breath and leaned forward towards me at the edge of his chair, our knees touching, he reached out for my hands and held them. "Annie, first you need to understand something I believe you may already know. I do not wander the countryside or the towns and villages of Virginia seeking out beautiful women to seduce. In fact, even if I wanted to, I'm too busy for that. I also want you to know that I do not take our relationship lightly. I was struck by you the very first time I saw you. I felt like I had finally awakened from a dense dream. Every day since then, you've been on my mind. I've even dreamed that the war was over and that we had a farm together somewhere, and that our children were running up and down the garden rows chasing chickens for God's sake."

I looked up, listening intently. Still angry at Warren's secret life, it was reassuring to hear that he had envisioned a life together after the war. And, our having children. I began to soften my approach with him warming to his way of thinking.

He went on. "I know the reality of our situation is difficult to face. Look at us. I am called away, far away, on a moment's notice. And honestly, either of us could be dead next week."

I looked at him curiously then added, "Yes, what _can_ we say about our lives together? You're in the cavalry in a war, the likes of which none of us have ever seen, much less imagined. I'm living in Marsh Station and helping at the hospital when I can, talking to plants or to delirious soldiers most of the time. And, another detail, you are _married_ Captain."

I looked away from the fire and up at the clear sky and beyond it at the tent of stars above us. Then I looked back squarely at Warren as he continued.

"I guess what I need to know from you is this: Do you think that it is better to know the truth and be pained by it, or is it better to know neither pain nor truth?"

I leaned in closer to look at him, our faces squared with one another and thought about his question. Then I whispered, fully wondering to myself how I would respond if he requested the absolute truth from me.

"The truth Warren, I need the truth from you."

"Of course, you do. I wouldn't expect anything less from you, Annie," he responded. "And that is what I intended to give you as you would give me. That is what you'll have now."

I swallowed knowing that I'd cornered myself.

Looking up at the stars and grasping both my hands again, Warren continued. "The woman, Lydia, my uh, wife," Warren stumbled over his words like a wagon on rough terrain, "Is in Maryland. We were married about eight months before the war began. Not out of love, but out of convenience, you might say. Lydia and I had known each other for years through our families, and when I returned home from building the business with my father, after West Point, I got a little crazy. I took her as a lover. She intended for us to be married."

With that, he sat up and then back in his chair, loosening his touch as he did so. He went on, "I blindly followed, thinking it was the right thing to do...not because my heart told me to, but it seemed expected, what our families wanted. I confused upholding the wishes of my family with my own desires. Probably feeling guilty for my lust and to save face, I did something I never should have done. I married her.

Several weeks into the marriage, I knew I didn't really love her. Not the way that I should. We went though the motions and the families were pleased, but personally, I was miserable. But I never told her how I felt. I'm sure she knew."

Warren paused looking up at the shadowed trees in front of us, lit in places by the glow of the fire. He sipped his tea while I curled up and sat back in the wide settee, listening intently. Crossing his legs, and settling deeper into his chair he continued. "Then the war came."

"You see, Maryland was a border state. Though originally my family was from Pennsylvania, and I despised slavery, I had a decision to make. Joining the army was really an effort to flee my home situation, my marriage. I joined the cavalry under JEB as it turned out, also a Pointer. I rationalized the war politically by calling it a war for states' rights."

Then, quite unexpectedly, Warren set his tea aside, leaned over towards me, kneeled in the grass and he reached up to my face. He let his finger trace my nose then held my face in his hands.

"I should have told you all this weeks ago. I'm sorry. I guess I was hoping I'd have more time before being called down here." He went on. "Fishing today I had time to think. It made me come clear with my thoughts and my choices. No more secrets. I've been struggling with this, with myself, my choices for quite a while. You see, I've got to make real changes, and I can do that now, while I'm still in the cavalry."

Warren stood up and approached me with an outstretched arm, gently pulling me to my feet. He held me from behind and tenderly stroked the top of my head with his chin.

"It's alright, Annie. It's okay. You'll see."

We walked back to the fire, where he prepared me a plate of sizzling fresh fish and corn, and we sat and ate in silence, except for the crickets chirping in the cool grass.

After the meal, I sat back in my garden chair and looked up at the canopy of stars.

"What about those beautiful stars?" I asked him.

"Magnificent," he said. "Annie, how long do you think it takes for the light of a star to reach our eyes?" he asked.

"I never thought about that," I answered. "I have no idea, really."

Thinking, he paused. "I think we look back into time whenever we gaze at those little beauties. That's how long it takes, maybe many years. We are probably just dust motes too, expanding, contracting, but with souls. Like them, we can light up ourselves, but in a different way. You see, we are lucky enough to have feelings, emotions and passions."

While he spoke I saw him as a man with many passions and thoughts he was trying to put out of his mind from the grizzly place from which he had just come. A week of cruel battles that left an insane number of dead on the battlefield. This time Warren managed to take a few days away with me, just to recoup himself and find some solace from the grimness and brutality of war. It was his way of backing away without leaving his post, which he told me he was tempted to do. And, while he wasn't proud of that, we came to realize something very important about each other. Our individual sanity, so precious, existed where we cultivated it, purposely choosing sanity every day instead of its alternative. However, sometimes sanity felt very fragile and with the givens we faced on a daily basis it could disappear in a flash. The balance could tip in our lives to reflect the chaos of the times. Those were heavy, sad and tragic times for individuals, families and for the nation and it was up to each one of us, day by day to pull from our inner strength and get through this war and out the other side, to better times.

Holding hands, we checked the fire and went into the house and up the stairs. On the top step, he picked me up with one hand around my waist and the other at the quiet bend of my knees. Lowering me to the bed, I unbuttoned his shirt and then his pants, and watching me, he climbed next to me on the bed. Carefully, button by button he undressed me in a lover's expectant ritual. And I, him.

The evening wove into night and the deep night into the thickness of predawn. We watched the changing light as lovers without the layers of rank or title; we put the pressures of war aside, and moved beyond politics. We moved into one another's being as gentle, passionate people following the light of one another, in love. On waking we found one another's skin and one another's touch all over again.

After dawn, I woke to find Warren entering the room dressed only in an undershirt and shorts carrying a tray of hot tea. Fresh strawberries and cream, and warm rolls with honey and melting butter, awaited me.

"Hungry, love?" Warren asked.

"Yes, let's take care of the hunger, then more love," I smiled.

_During the Seven Days' Battle McClellan's men had departed from the entrenchments around Richmond and thinking his troops were outnumbered, retreated to the north bank of the James River. The retreat came as a surprise to Lee because in fact, the Union had outnumbered the Confederates in the area of Richmond by over two to one. By early July, the opportunity to take the southern capital was over and so was the Seven Days' Campaign. The human toll was great: 35,000 casualties from both sides combined. However, Richmond was safe_.

## CHAPTER SIXTEEN

In spirit, the Fourth of July 1862 found us far from the battlefields of the War. Yet, those wasted fields and farms of stained soil were never more than ten to fifteen miles away, give or take a river. Our respite was a welcomed relief from the daily routines and pressures of our lives and it gave us a chance to spend uninterrupted time together.

Being in supplies it was not uncommon for Warren to be called to a train or farm to replenish what he could. Supplies were scarce and getting more scarce. Knowing that Warren would have to return early on the sixth, and also for our own safety, we had no need to venture out though we'd heard in town when we arrived about small get-togethers around the community to recognize the holiday.

It was a fine summer day, though hot, and since it was a holiday it was an excuse for us to become more celebratory and for a few hours, drop back from the pressures forced by the war. Besides, we had all the entertainment we needed, just there, between the two of us.

July the Fourth 1862 was an odd holiday for the Confederacy, a nation separate and distinct in itself, but still celebrating holidays of its previous incarnation as part of the United States. Indeed, celebrating independence from Britain may have potentially alienated a tenuous business partner. Cotton was scarce on the continent while Britain and France appeared to favor the South in order to keep their commodities crossing the sea, but neither country had fully backed the efforts of the Confederacy. Therefore the day came and went with many mixed emotions and in the camps, gunpowder became the soldiers' fireworks.

Weeks later the news of that historic Fourth of July reached Warren who relayed it to me. Apparently, in the aftermath of the Seven Days' campaign, a week of endless marching and bloody battles, the need for celebration of any kind was evident in both the Union and Rebel encampments

As both sides moved into camp, recognizing the fourth as a familiar holiday, a truce was declared. Gray and blue soldiers emerged from their lines of war and joined one another out in the sultry glades where they traded tobacco, coffee, and newspapers as if they were neighbors living next door, passing news of the day over a garden fence.

The fields were thick with ripening berries and the men, craving any fresh food, and particularly juicy, sweet blackberries, picked the bushes clean. Blue side by side with Gray, they sat in the fields, gathering and eating berries while talking in the sun like cousins on a beach picnic. Their lips and fingertips dripped purple with berry juice. It marked their unshaven faces and dotted their filthy uniforms. Later in the laziness of the afternoon, both Rebel and Union soldiers lay down in the fields, covered as they were with the stain of berries, and napped, quite sated in the stillness. Cicadas buzzed about high in the canopy of trees at the edge of the fields and the ethereal hours of July Fourth passed far too quickly as the enemies rested together side by side in the heat of the day.

Slowly as the afternoon cooled, the men left the common field and moved to their respective hillocks or troughs to clean their guns and reload. Tobacco and coffee still on their breaths, they found cover and shifted under the weight of their weapons. The holiday was over. Soon blackberry stains would mingle with open bloody wounds as the fighting resumed. In the many months that had passed and like so many nights to follow, brothers and uncles, fathers and sons would lay down in the fields, not marked by the juice of summer berries, but by their own blood and by the blood and dirt of one another, never to awaken.

We couldn't know then that the costliest battles, measured in human life, were still yet to come.

***

We celebrated the fourth in our own rite. Rising late, Warren and I walked in the gardens surrounding the house, and we massaged the strain from one another's backs and shoulders. When we held hands, Warren had a habit of holding up my fingers and kissing them one by one. At the back of the house we found a patch of ripened berry bushes and I insisted that we make a pie. The servants allowed us to take over the house kitchen, and with the flour flying, two pies were produced from the berries we'd picked. Two pies sweetened with honey and served with the fresh ice cream made by the house servants in quiet honor of the day.

One pie with all its trimmings became our dinner. While the sun dropped down in the sky, I rested and then fell asleep on Warren's lap while he rocked the porch swing forth and back. The only artifacts left from our meal were two forks and an empty pie plate resting on a table nearby. Surely, he too must have drifted off to dreams that I'm certain, had nothing to do with war.

In that weekend I became convinced of Warren's sincerity. It came like an internal nod between us, a rich chord. Warren's love was a deep current that rushed with gusto and fervor like a river, bringing the shallows at each side into movement.

Perhaps I should have felt guilty about loving him, but oddly, I did not.

Everything I'd learned to that point would have told me, surely, that I was an adulterer, a meddler, fixed on loving a man whom I shouldn't love at all. A man of rank for the wrong army. But those voices didn't speak in me. It wasn't a matter of my not hearing them; they simply weren't there. What I had with Warren was right, and at some core level, it was beyond all politics and personality. It was pure. Just as an artesian well fed by clear spring water is pure, down deep, past where the brackish surface waters lay, I too felt clarified with him.

"I wouldn't ever want to return to the life I had," Warren told me around the fire on the last night of my visit. "I'm married to Lydia by law, but not by heart, and as soon as I can, I intend to change that. I need you Annie. It's that simple. I need not only your comforts, your warmth, and to touch your soft skin, but selfishly I also need you to help me feel whole within myself. And now, I need Us as a reminder that All is not a farce in this grim, ungodly war. Sometimes this war feels like an arm, poised and ready to tighten around my neck and bring me to my knees, until my light goes out. I struggle to find peace... and despite all of this, I've finally found it with you."

I had to trust him when he said this. I had to trust myself as well. The best that Warren and I could do was to live fully every day and peel off the layers of fear that would creep up around us, winding their way in like summer vines. We needed to remind each other to be strong. Still, I had to keep my secrets from him. I had to lie about who I was and what I was doing.

On the last day of our rendezvous, Warren surprised me with a horseback ride far into the fields. First he led me by the hand to the front door where, when I opened it, the same strong, lean chestnut I had ridden out and beyond the pond, stood before me, tied securely to the hitching post, an iron ring sunk into a post of limestone. After checking the bridle and hitching the saddle one more notch, Warren mounted the horse and gave me his arm to pull me up. With me seated behind him, he gently gave a heel tap to her side and off we went across the fields and through the woods.

The morning was brilliant since the heavy heat and humidity had lifted. We crossed a creek and rode up the far embankment into a quiet glade. I remember the way his breath felt through his back as we rode; how the sun penetrated my spine, recharging my spirit. Patches of sun and shade dotted thick moss and grasses with alternating shades of green and yellow. Ferns splashed against low rock walls where farmers had cleared the land decades before. The blues, lavenders, and yellows of field flowers woke up the greens and browns of trees and shrubs punctuating the land as if pieces of a crystal sky had fallen in prism dots to the ground.

At the creek, Warren stopped to walk the horse, my cheek resting against his back, my fingers still laced around his waist.

"Annie," he said over his shoulder, "Thank you for coming down here to meet me. You know, you've helped me a great deal. I feel like an enormous creature that had been sleeping on my chest forever, just got up and walked away. I can breathe deeply again." He paused, "We'll get through this. We'll help one another to get through this. And the time is coming to write Lydia. I will write her and end it with her. I want to have a future with you. We just have to get there."

I listened to Warren's heart beating as if inside a barrel. The pump I heard was more than an organ, keeping his body alive. It was the place where we connected. The horse's steps slowed and when I lifted my head, I saw a clearing surrounded by tall trees, a few fallen logs and moss-covered rocks with another arm of the creek flowing through it. The horse stopped as Warren pulled back on its reins.

"I was listening to your heartbeat. You have a strong heart, strong and steady, my dear," I said to Warren.

"It's a good thing, so if you break it, I may just survive," he responded looking over his shoulder at me with a grin.

I eased myself off the horse, and then he dismounted as well.

"I have no intentions of ever breaking your heart." I paused. "Just your nose," I said miming a boxer and raising my fists to his face.

Grabbing his hand, I pulled him towards the lush mossy carpet just yards from the creek.

"Sit here with me for a bit. Let's enjoy this beautiful place."

"I'll do that, Miss Annie," he responded.

Settling into our waning time together, we leaned against a log, listening to the creek. The scents of summer were everywhere. Clover in the fields with spots of daisies and Queen Anne's Lace attracted a few bees.

"Ah...no guns, no cannon," Warren said. "For now, right at this moment, we could forget the whole thing, this awful war. God, how did we get in to this?" he asked me. "How, Annie?"

"I don't know, Warren, "It seems that whether they realize it or not, everyone is playing a role in this war. It hardly seems real, but it is and here we are in the middle of it." I couldn't go on and say what I truly wanted to tell him.

I looked into his face, his eyes. I wanted to tell him about myself, my convictions. About Sarah and life in Massachusetts. Someday, I would be able to do that but first I had to know everything that I could about him. So much of him was still a mystery to me, but he seemed ready to tell me about who he was and where he had come from. I turned to him and made a request that I'd been thinking about all morning.

"Warren, please tell me about your family, tell me all about you. I want to know more about you, and this may be my only chance for a while."

Warren responded. "All right, I'll tell you. How far back do you want me to start? Birth?"

"Oh, you, tell me whatever it is you want me to know. And then, tell me everything else," I said.

"All right then, m'lady. Here goes," he said finding a comfortable niche in the log with his outstretched legs crossed at the ankle. "Let's see, I was raised in Baltimore. My father was a merchant and I was the youngest of two boys. When my maternal grandfather died, he left us his big house, a house I've loved since I can remember, and we moved there when I was ten, or maybe it was eleven. Yeah, that's right. I had my eleventh birthday shortly after Mother and Father moved us in.

My brother, Thomas, was three years older than me. We fought and wrestled all the time. I looked up to him, followed him around even without his knowing, just to observe him and everything he did, taking in his actions, his movements, the way he spoke. I loved to go to his athletic competitions and cheer him on, secretly taking notes on what I could do with my life and who I could become...someone like Thomas. In fact it was Thom whom Lydia was attracted to first, though she was much younger than he was. She was always around him at holiday parties and I think they discreetly met for private get-togethers.

Then, one day when I was fifteen, my world collapsed. A man came to the door with Thomas' body covered up in the back of a wagon. You see, he had been felling trees with a family friend, and was standing beside the wagon when the horse team was startled and the load of logs was thrown over the side. Unfortunately, Thom was standing on the wrong side of the wagon and was buried, probably killed in an instant, by the enormous load of full sized logs.

Nothing seemed the same after Thomas died and I alone could not take his place. My father was often away with his business after that, and my mother grew quite depressed. I tried to get her together with friends but she seemed to have given up. She died two years after Thom did. It was a gray winter day and she had had a fever. She had been ill for nearly six months and the doctors offered little help. At her death, I personally dismissed her nurse, made many of the arrangements for her internment, and tried to find my father. He arrived eight days later, having come from Louisiana at his 'earliest convenience.'

After that there was nothing left for me in Baltimore so I went off to find work and a few months later, with my father's help, got in at West Point. I must say those were some of my best years. When we weren't busy with drills and books, my buddies and I would sail up and down the Hudson River from point to point and peak to peak, once sailing clear down to New York Harbor, then back again when the winds changed and we had had our fill of beer and stew. That's where I met some of the men with whom I work now and have worked with in the past, like JEB Stuart.

Lee was one of the Point's best supervisors. While at West Point, my grandfather died and left his home to me. He must never have trusted my father, but that's another story. Then, I had my accident. It was a stupid mistake I made trying to show off with fireworks. Instead I blew off parts of my fingers. It took a while to recover. The pain was the worst part and I knew that I'd never be a line officer. My military service would best be served in communications or supplies. I played all the games the army threw at me and eventually won the favor of JEB and the others. So, I ended up working in Virginia getting appointed to their post. He paused as if coming up for air after a long dive.

Warren turned to look directly at me and cradled my face in his hands. He held me there looking into my eyes for a minute as if examining a delicate porcelain tea cup.

"Whew. I've got to be with you, Annie. I can't help myself, and I swear to you I'll find a way to be with you, right there," he said touching my sternum. "And there," touching my forehead. "I can't explain it but it's as if we've already started a life together. Are you sure you'll be okay on the way back to Marsh Station? I have to leave so early, even before you do. I'm sorry. Perhaps you should have gone back today."

"And miss this time with you, Warren? No, I want to spend as much time as we can together, especially now. Lee's heading north and I get the feeling that in the upcoming weeks, there will be little rest for either of us. If I could be very honest and very selfish, I'd have to say I don't want to return to that hospital. But I've got to and I know I will." I said. "I have seen so many shattered men in the hospital...and I even saw a woman. I haven't told you this but Warren, we discovered a woman among the wounded last week. She had kept her gender a secret for six months, but after the wounds she had, I have to wonder if she is still alive."

"A woman fighting in uniform," he said listening. Well, that must have been quite a surprise for you all."

Facing each other on our knees in the moss, I held Warren's wrists in my hands. In the distance I heard the sounds of the birds back in the woods that surrounded us. First, kissing his fingertips, I moved his hands to my waist and reached up around his neck.

"Someday I'll tell you about myself, but it's nearly time to go back now, so we'll wait," I said quietly.

He kissed me and as he did, every fiber was alive in me. Like two logs glowing as orange embers, our kisses melded our spirits, our minds, even our egos. Our love had awakened every dormant cell within us and sent their essences skyward like sparks from a campfire against a cool, dark sky. Leaning back, the moss beneath me created a quilt of velvet cushioning upon which only the sounds of the creek echoed our secrets and carried them on the wind into a summer meadow in the Virginia countryside. Our horse, drinking at the creek, looked up at us and seeing us deeply engaged with one another, sought out the shade of an old ash tree bordering the creek and meadow.

By mid afternoon, we realized that we'd have to hurry back to the house and gather our things. Warren would have to be back to his camp by dawn and I would leave with the first coach in the morning. Warren had requested that one of the house servants take me into town by carriage, so all we had left was each other. Our love glowed into the night as our bodies found one another. Sleep overtook us in turns. I listened to Warren's restful breathing and held his hand as he slept until my eyes, too, became heavy and my limbs seemed leaden. Then, we slept deeply, contentedly. Resting so deeply side by side had to be the human equivalent of geologic time, sharing layer upon layer of connected landscape, replenishing our bodies and our spirits.

By morning, I couldn't watch him leave. I could only make it as far as the front hallway.

"I'll be back as soon as I can," Warren told me. "But it might be weeks, even a month. I just don't know. But I do know that I love you more than I can say, Annie," he added. Then he kissed me and he left.

Afterwards, I walked upstairs in the early dawn, the sun teasing the horizon, and sat in one of the chairs that he had moved to the window in his room. I stared at the four-poster bed that we had shared for three nights and mornings and remembered how he had woken me up in the middle of the night by stroking my side in the curve of the hip, then pulled me to him. Then I backed up the images to the afternoon of our arrival and the ring buried as an artifact in the lush carpet.

'Perhaps I should have rejected him then. Perhaps I should have turned around and packed up,' I thought. But, I couldn't. And I hadn't. Listening to my own thoughts, I didn't feel like a mistress of his at all, but like a friend, a lover, and oddly, like a wife.

## CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

I arrived back at the house in Marsh Station quite late in the evening. Having started off the day in heat and humidity and ending up in a thunderstorm, I was grateful to finally get to my little house. As I approached from the front, I could swear that I saw a dim light inside, as if I'd left a lamp lit. But I'd been gone for days and surely it couldn't have been something I'd left. I became concerned when I approached the side door and found it unlocked, closed but nonetheless unlocked. I knew that I had locked the door when I left for Ashburg. 'Kate must be here,' I thought to myself. But that would have been very unlikely. So, it was with timidity that I entered the dark kitchen, very quietly, until the cat greeted me loudly. I petted her in the dark, lit a lamp and standing quietly, listened intently for anyone who may be in the house. That's when I heard it. A moan. I walked through the kitchen with a candle I'd lit, and treading lightly, wound my way through the hallway and parlor. No one was there.

Turning the corner of the parlor, I could see through and into the bedroom where a faint light issued from the bedside table. A silhouetted figure in the bed, let out another low moan. I approached carefully, like a stranger. I slowly stepped across the carpet then coughed quietly to get the attention of my visitor who seemed to have taken up residence in my absence.

'Could Kate have sent someone here without my knowledge? What could be going on?' I thought to myself.

The figure turned her face towards me, and in the shadow, I recognized the upturn of her nose.

"Sarah? Sarah, is that you? Here? Honey, what's the matter...?

"Annie? Oh Annie, thank god you're back. I need some of your..." she paused, "Nursing and care. I have a ..." she struggled to speak and by then I had my hand on her forehead and detected a strong fever. "...a gash in my leg...from a fence, I think. I barely made it here. I had no idea where you were or when you'd be back, but I was pretty sure...I had the right place."

"Yes, sweetie, you certainly do. Now, I'm going to move back the sheet from your leg and see what's going on here."

I brought the candle closer in to have a look. Sarah had an oozing wound all right. Her fever told me that right away. Her leg was swollen and hot and she was in a lot of pain from the cut to her inner calf. Fortunately, I didn't see any signs of red streaks indicating poisoning, but I knew I'd better get to work and see what I could do. I had a thousand questions for her, but I knew that they would all have to wait until we got the wound under control and her fever down. Opening a window allowed a welcome breeze in.

"When was the last time you had something to drink?" I asked her.

"I'm not sure," she responded. "But I'm very thirsty."

"I'll get you some fresh water and I'll be right back," I said. "And I'm going to make a poultice for your leg." Bending over to kiss her forehead I added, "I'm just so glad you made it here, Sarah. I've missed you very much."

I detected a smile from her but it was all she could manage given the state she was in.

Leaving the bedroom, I went into an emergency mindset. First, I set out to get her water. I went to the sink and lifted the iron handle of the pump, up and down, again, up and down. Nothing.

"Come on," I said to the thing. Up and down. Nothing. Up and down. A dribble of water. Up and down, a splash. Up and down. I filled a glass.

I knew I'd have to get some hot water but in this heat, I couldn't light the stove. I'd have a fire in the fire pit outside in the yard, my version of a summer kitchen. I'd have to steep a few herbs. No, that could wait until morning. I'd pick comfrey from the yard and use it directly on her wound. With some hydration tonight and a cooling compress on her forehead, I could get a poultice made for the wound and seek out more herbs and hopefully a doctor in the morning. If there were any doctors left in town. Any doctors who wouldn't use leeches on her.

The night passed hour by hour and as I changed the compress and refreshed the comfrey, Sarah's moans and sighs quieted. She slept deeply. By morning light, I had slept a little myself, and got up quietly to get outside in the fresh air and assess my options for Sarah while I lit a fire. I needed a strong cup of tea.

***

The water had nearly come to a boil when, in the lane somewhere a rooster crowed, reminding me that I had a whole day ahead of me when what I really wanted was several more hours of sleep. That and a bath. But everything, besides my cup of morning tea, would have to wait. I was worried for Sarah. A warm compress of chickweed would help her wound. And I had to find a doctor. I thought getting a doctor's advice would put me at ease, especially if she was at risk for disease from her swollen wound. I knew she had to be in a great deal of pain. When I moved in Kate had told me of a retired doctor a few streets away. After my tea, I'd seek him out.

By early afternoon, having been visited by Dr. Carlton, Sarah was able to sit up and sip a bowl of broth I'd brought her. The doctor left a salve for the wound, asked me to continue my herbal treatments and probed Sarah about her injury. I recognized in her story that she must have had to gloss over some of the details, those that entailed her traveling by night and being on foot for miles at a time through New England and down to New York and then Washington.

"At the time I didn't think anything of it. I was traveling here to see my sister and I was staying at my friend's farm. I climbed over a fence and that was when I cut myself, either on a board or a nail. I hope it wasn't a nail," she told the old gentleman doctor.

"Well, I don't see any splinters at the surface, but we'll know more in a few days when the swelling calms down. Just take it easy and let your sister take care of you. She's got a good reputation for healing over at the hospital," he said.

In the kitchen, Dr. Carlton had a word with me. His thick white eyebrows danced as he spoke.

"I expect that she'll be fine," he told me. "But with her fever, these things find their own way, you know. Keep giving her cooled teas and water, and when she's ready, some food. It may be a week before she's up and walking with ease. She looks like she could use that and some rest. Oh, I think your compresses and poultices are very good too. Hopefully, she'll escape without anything more, but call me at once if she appears to worsen or has any new effects."

I thanked the doctor and then, he was off. Thankfully, Sarah was sleeping peacefully and I could get some rest too.

By early evening, Sarah had called me in and asked me to talk with her. Her eyes were brighter and her fever had broken. To cool her down I gave her a sponge bath and washed her hair as best I could as she dangled her head and neck over the bed, unable to stand with her leg still swollen. I sat on the edge of her bed and combed through her long brown hair. Her green eyes had started to come back to life and I felt relieved that perhaps the worst of the crisis was over. I smiled thinking, 'She's really here, sitting before me, my hands in her hair. My sister is finally here with me.'

Sarah spoke slowly but her speech was punctuated by her enthusiastic personality. "Annie, I know you must think that I'm crazy but I had to come see you. I had to get away from my regular routine. After all, it's been over a year. So, I asked for a special assignment that would bring me here to Virginia. Of course, it wasn't hard to get. They're short on people who actually ask to come down this way to gather information, to risk...well you know. Of course you know."

We talked over the messages we'd received from one another and the people who delivered them. By the time we pieced those puzzles together —the message I gave the peddler, the one I'd received from her in the bottle, the note that was extracted from Constance's boot —her hair was dry and I had moved to the far corner of the bed and was sitting on it. I could see the exhaustion in her face and I didn't want her to attempt to do too much, but the excitement of being together after nearly a year made us both feel much better.

"Annie, I had to get away for a while. The positions that I found myself in grew tiresome and the people I worked with were having trouble getting along. It was a good time to break away to try to gather information regarding the whereabouts of certain individuals in either hospitals or prisons. I also needed to report on the general conditions of the prisons. We hear that the men are starving and need medical attention. We have to find ways to help them."

"The only way to truly help them is to get them out of there. I'm convinced of that," I said. "I've been working at Westerly, the hospital, about a mile or two from here. Adjacent to the hospital is the prison and I'm hoping to be asked to work in there as well. I'll be curious to see how close I can get to the prisoners and then I'll give you a full report. Westerly is probably one of the smallest prisons around, but if the prison is as bad as the hospital, the best thing we can do is to get them food and fresh water and aid as many of them as we can to escape."

"I have to ask you Annie, where were you when I got here? It was so strange coming in and wondering if this was the right place. Your cat looked hungry and I was glad for the company. If it wasn't for the directions that I had from people up the line I would probably would have been out wandering in the fields and collapsed out there. One of the gals, who had come through four or five months ago, wrote down clear directions to safe houses between Washington and Virginia for us while she was recovering from a bullet wound. We thought for a while that we were going to lose her, but she came through. She knew she could still be useful and that accounts for a great deal. So where were you?"

"I went south, by carriage. I went to a little town outside of Fredericksburg."

"Really? Who sent you? I thought for the most part, you didn't travel. You stayed here."

"Yes, that's true, and no one sent me. Actually, someone sent _for_ me."

"Annie, you're keeping something from me. What is it? Who is it? I can read it in your face, m'dear. Okay, who is he?" She paused and when I didn't answer directly she asked me, "Wasn't that pretty risky?"

"No more than you Sarah. Breaking the tedium with a bit of danger, I might add. And, you're right. A gentleman sent for me. But that story will have to wait until you are more rested."

Sarah didn't fight me at that point. She laid her head back against the pillow and closed her eyes. She was asleep in mere seconds. With her long shiny clean hair draped around her and the color coming back into her face, I knew that the worst had passed. She was going to make it. Thank God.

## CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Sarah's first week was a slow, but steady recovery. By the beginning of the second week, I could see the rest she'd taken was paying off. Her strength was returning. She had worked her way through Thoreau's work and chose to draw out in the garden. Sometimes, we'd sneak out the Whittier poetry or remember part of a speech of William Lloyd Garrison's and read to one another at night in sounds just above a whisper. Every morning, I lit the fire in my summer kitchen and made her hearty broths with fresh vegetables and herbs. As she grew stronger Sarah enjoyed working a few hours each day weeding the garden and harvesting vegetables and herbs while I was away spending long days at the hospital.

I had no idea when Warren would return to the area. I knew that he'd stop by the house when he did return, and I considered what to say to Sarah by way of explanation. We had no secrets between us. It was time for me to tell her our story since she had the strength to hear it. I wasn't sure how she'd react but I'd tell her in my usual straightforward manner and see how it landed. It was more than I had the courage to do with Warren.

I hadn't received any messages from Warren for quite a while but I suspected that activities were picking up with General Lee and I'd better go over the routine of passwords should Sarah be caught at home by herself and have to make any quick decisions.

That night after a big salad and cooled tea I told Sarah it was time to fill her in on all my activities.

"Funny, I was going to ask you to explain what you've been up to," she said.

It was twilight and the bugs were coming out so we moved into the kitchen. With a lamp lit and the windows open, it was a pleasant spot on a summer night.

"It's about time that you met Katherine," I told Sarah. "Frankly, I've been keeping you away from her place because she is a very strong-willed woman who would try to snap you up for her employ. It's called the Three Lanterns, a tavern in town where a lot of the soldiers go for entertainment. "

"You're starting to sound like an older sister, Annie. I'd like to meet her and get a feel for this little town – maybe even have some fun," she said.

"This is what you need to know, Sarah. Katherine is one of us. She found me this place, and her personal style is her strongest trait. She's a business woman first and as a Madam she's thrilled with all the troops and trains arriving almost daily."

"Annie, a Madam?" Sarah said.

"No, we don't have to have anything at all to do with that. It's her business. Think of it as her livelihood. Still and all, she's working for the Union and her livelihood has created some powerful connections, both North and South."

"As for Mr. Beard; he's the grocer. Messages going north go to him. I think he's in with the telegraph man, K.O. Quimby. I usually hide my messages at the bottom of a basket of vegetables and Beard takes it from there.

Also, I have a friend, Lucy, and she's apt to stop by here. This is something you must know. She is all southern belle and lives on a plantation. Of course, she knows nothing about our work. However, she's become a good friend and we've had a few good laughs together. You see, she helps a great deal in getting help making tinctures and syrups, rubs and ointments for the hospital and, I think soon, I'll be smuggling them into the prison as well. You'll know Lucy when you see her. She's blond, beautiful and has a dramatic mole below her eye. Lucy and anyone having to do with Lucy thinks I'm from the Washington area and that I support the Confederate cause all the way. So, as my sister, they'll assume the same of you. One of the reasons that they think the way they do is the company I keep."

"What do you mean? Oh...," she paused. "Does this have to do with your trip a few weeks ago?" asked Sarah.

"Yes, Lucy and others have seen me with a Confederate Captain, Captain Warren Dodd."

"Oh, Annie, really you didn't."

"No, listen Sarah, it's not as bad as you think."

"At first, I was only slightly attracted to him. I tried to talk myself out of it, but after Lucy's dinner party, we walked home, we talked, I just..."

"Annie, I can't believe you. You actually sound vulnerable."

"Okay, let me tell you. Yes, I started to fall for him. I mean it's difficult not to. He's incredibly handsome, six feet tall, a little full of himself, but I could handle that. But it's his eyes and the way he carries himself, sure and not too cocky. Even when he's sitting down, cross-legged, he's..." I paused, thinking. "He's captivating. Really." I hadn't described Warren to anyone before, much less my impressions of him.

I continued. "Anyway, one rainy night a tramp followed me home, and he attacked me here, right here in this kitchen. I hit him over the head with my iron skillet and when Warren arrived shortly after that, he took care of me: he made up a bath for me and went to find fresh clothes for me to put on. I was scared and upset and he took care of me with incredible compassion. I've never met a man quite like him."

Sarah poured more cooled tea for the two of us. We sat for a moment and sipped it. "Sounds a bit risky, Annie. Maybe you should break it off with him?"

"No, I'm not ready to do that and I'll tell you why. Of course, he's the gentleman I told you about when you arrived, the one who sent for me. While we were in Ashburg, just the two of us, I found out some of his history. It turns out he joined the war to get away from home, not to fight slavery. He wanted to get away and be with some of his old West Point buddies. You see, he's not committed to this war, but I'm not sure what he really knows about me. I think he might have seen a uniform at the bottom of my trunk the night I was attacked. He went to find me something to put on while I was in the bath and when I think back, he returned to the kitchen with the quilt and an odd look on his face that I dismissed at the time. If that's true and he did find a uniform in my trunk then he must think, or want to think, that I am working for the Confederacy. He'd get suspicious if I broke off with him for no apparent reason. And, I do love him, Sarah. That's the thing. I've fallen in love with the man, though I tried not to. I did."

Anyway, if he comes by, he won't expect you to be here so just introduce yourself, but be sure it's him. I have quite a few unexpected visitors. You never know who will come knockin' at my door. If it is him, remember, introduce yourself but you came from Arlington. He knows I have a sister but everyone including Warren, thinks we're from Arlington. Mind your accent. You've worked on it haven't you?"

"A bit. At least the strong New England accent has faded. If I keep my head about me," said Sarah.

I wanted to tell Sarah everything that I was working on. "I'll probably be out at the hospital every day as I've been doing but soon, I hope, I'll be able to make headway in the prison. I've been trying to move slowly so that we can exchange information. I worked my way down each corridor to where the Union men are being held. I've had to move very slowly, a little more each day, so they won't suspect a thing. I'll insist on clean hay for the men, regular waste bucket removal and clean water. If I can treat their illnesses, it will provide a grand cover for planning an escape —one by one —or maybe, in pairs. But it'll take some time, two to three months the way I figure it, before anything can happen. I must get to know the prison leaders and gain their trust. I must also get to know their personalities to see if they can play along with me. I've been studying the maps and making a few of my own, showing where the safe houses are to the north, based on what the others have told me coming through. I mark the rivers and towns. I want to find those who can escape successfully, without giving away any hint to my identity."

"I can help with the maps but back to Warren, do you think you can really love a Confederate, an _officer_ of the Confederacy at that?"

"Sarah, I can see beyond his politics, he's not an Abolitionist, I admit, but I do think he hates slavery. There will come a time beyond all this, after the war when we can have a life together, you know. Don't worry. And please don't be upset about me and Warren. You and I both know what's important to us. I haven't lost sight that we must succeed in this war, and in this effort, whether it is you or me or in a very different way, Warren and me, we need each other. He is helping me through this god forsaken war and I know that we can have a life together in the future. We must believe it, Sarah. We must believe in new times ahead otherwise, nothing will ever change and slavery will be with us forever.

"You're right on that, m'dear," she responded.

## CHAPTER NINETEEN

In the weeks that followed, I realized that once Sarah had regained her health, she intended to move on. I knew I couldn't keep her with me very long, but I loved having her around. However, she was determined to go farther south to the visit the Richmond area and see what she could find out about the prisons there. She heard that prisoners were getting maps and help to plan an escape as I was doing here. I gave her some of the money that I had left from selling a few pieces of our mother's jewelry so that she could travel a little easier and stay well. We'd gotten really lucky with her leg. Her brown hair glistened and her fawn eyes were bright again, well rested.

"My plan is to stay there for at least two to three weeks, then head back to Washington after stopping back here. I still want to meet your man," she said.

"I'd like to see him myself," I said. "Quimby has assured me that Warren is fine and that he'll be back soon. I'll tell him all about you Sarah, my sister from Arlington." I winked and then I gave her a big hug.

***

Arriving home from town I opened the gate to find my neighbor, Lacey, hanging laundry across the fence from her. August brought with it an occasional hint of autumn on the wind, a welcomed change from summer's oppressive heat.

"Nice breeze, Miss Annie."

"Isn't it glorious, Lacey?" I'm beginning to feel that autumn is in the air. It'll be time to make apple pies before we know it."

"Dat man in your kitchen will surely agree."

I looked towards the house and back in Lacey's direction. The afternoon breeze picked up the bottom edge of the sheet.

"The man..." my voice trailed off. "Warren?" I asked and as I did so, turned on my heels and ran up the stairs to the door. Pulling open the door, I poked my head in, and entered.

Lacey had to have heard my greeting him and then the silence that followed.

"Warren! Thank God, it is you. You're home. I don't believe it..."

Finally we emerged from the house arms around one another, smiling.

Warren tipped his hat in Lacey's direction. I stole the hat from his head and held it in one hand with the other wrapped around his waist. We didn't have to hide our feelings. We were at home and Lacey's low laugh told us that she found our affection comforting. Besides, as the town saw by appearance that we were both friends of the Confederacy, it didn't matter that we were together.

With the afternoon waning, I prepared Warren a hearty stew with summer vegetables and chicken along with freshly baked rolls.

"Ah, this is just what my poor body needed. A home cooked meal. It beats that corn chowder and camp corn bread we've eaten for what must be weeks now."

"Wasn't there anything besides corn to eat?" I asked, wondering how Warren had survived on such fare.

"We ate a lot of potatoes, and whatever game or fish we caught. Sometimes we ate rabbit. Sometimes the men and I caught fish. But while on the trail, quick corn or potatoes were our staples." He looked up from his bowl, "Great cooking, Annie."

Finding another piece of crusty bread, he dabbed at the gravy while I filled him in on Sarah's visit and my work of the past six weeks or so.

"It was so strange to arrive home after seeing you and finding my ill sister waiting here, suffering alone. I want you to meet her someday. And Warren, Lucy has arranged for me to work in the prison adjacent to Westerly Hospital because of an outbreak of chest colds and lung problems. They told me that I had a lot to offer them because of my knowledge with herbals."

I paused from my meal and went on. "Now, I'm paying neighboring children in bread and vegetables if they agree to gather certain plants from the fields surrounding Marsh Station. Lucy's found volunteers from the Woman's Guild to harvest as well as deliver the concoctions and mixtures for tinctures to the hospital. They are made up according to instructions we've written down. Lucy has her driver deliver the herbs for us as well.

"My God, Annie, that's quite an endeavor. How in the world do you have time to make bread? And what is it that you are harvesting?"

"Well, due to the severity of the men's wounds, we already have required cart loads of shepherd's purse for bleeding, as well as plantain, comfrey and horsetail for poultices. I've been supervising the work. I rarely collect the plants myself anymore. There's no time. But, I've trained wonderful volunteers to make infusions, oils, and syrups by the gallon for treating respiratory ailments.

Mullein, sweet violet with peppermint, hyssop and thyme create a chest rub for the thick breathing of the men brought in from the battlefields, particularly after fighting in the rain. Women around here are getting their honey and beeswax in and I think the volunteers have unearthed every unused jar in the county. And soon it will be time to harvest Hawthorne berries for treating weak bowels, a disease that's swept through whole battalions within days due to the filth of the conditions. With fall coming, we have to work with all we've got." I took a breath.

That's when Warren pushed away his bowl and looked me square in the eye.

"Yes indeed," he said, "The prison is up there too. I've heard all kinds of stories about the conditions. Update me on what you know. Have you heard anything at all?" Warren asked. I wondered why he asked but answered him in a straightforward manner. Anything else would have undoubtedly raised suspicions.

I recounted to him the first time in mid-July when I was called into the prison, another building separated by a dingy courtyard where well-behaved prisoners were allowed to recreate for one to two hours each afternoon. Lucy had approached me with a doctor by her side.

"Annie dear," she started. "Dr. Linamen asked me a question that I could not answer; only you could."

The doctor looked at me, a sanguine smile on his face, and toweled his hands dry. The wrinkles in his shirt mirrored those in his exhausted face. It had probably been two or three weeks since the man had had a full night's rest or a hot meal. He was trying to manage the unmanageable numbers of sick and mangled bodies that were brought to him, sometimes after days lying in the open fields and mud; men delirious with pain and whose bodies held them prisoner, no longer able to function in any predictable way.

Looking down, then up again catching my eye, Dr. Linaman cleared his throat, "Miss Cunningham, I am very impressed with the medicine you've been offering these soldiers in the last few weeks. In fact, I am very grateful for your kindnesses and your abilities. We'll be getting a few more nurses for the hospital as we 'spect to have more men coming in and I was wondering if ...well...I know that they're Yankees, but ma'am, I was hopeful that you wouldn't mind serving in the prison for a while. You see, many of those men have the same ailments as these soldiers and though our men come first, of course, I know that you have the means to treat their wounds and bowels, rashes, and the like with your herbs, and those poultices of yours."

Warren looked up at me from his, dabbed his mouth and said, "So you are serving in the prison most of the time now?"

"Yes, I am," I answered. "Of course after Doc Linaman proposed it."

Perhaps I'd said too much, but looking into his eyes, he seemed content with my explanation and I didn't pursue why he'd asked the question in the first place.

I pushed back my chair along the wooden floor, picked up the plates from the table and prepared to soak them in the pan of heated water on the stove. Warren, sat back, arms crossed staring ahead without expression. But as I walked by, he reached up and lightly put his arm around my waist, nudging me towards him and kissing my mouth gently.

Soon the lamp was blown out and we retired to my large feather bed and the bliss that two bodies can make.

Morning found us wrapped around each other secure in bed. The early filtered light caught us in sleepy repose and Warren rose first to prepare hot water for tea.

Later we dressed and started breakfast. We caught up on each other's news over the past two months. Warren talked of the war, and of the politics of land exchange after each battle.

"What do you think of the Confiscation Act, Annie?" He asked me as I poured batter on a hot griddle. "Slaves of disloyal masters are contraband. Seems to me that this war is becoming more about slavery than about rebelling from the Union, or preserving it."

"That surprises you?" I asked.

"Well, yes as a matter of fact. This war was all about states' rights, but now people are tired of the war, suspicious of one another. You be careful, Annie. Especially if you'll be working in the prison." He had no time to say more, though it seemed like he was going to.

We were interrupted by a knock at the front door. I looked at Warren and back towards the front of the house. Warren stepped into the shadows of the hallway. A young newsboy stood on the stone stoop. His brown hair curling about his ears at the edges of his cap, framed his face, which was rosy from a lingering chill in the morning air. Behind him and standing at the bottom of the steps stood a younger version of the boy who stood before me. I recognized the brothers. They were often selling newspapers in front of the general store or swapping gum and soap to soldiers for stories about their time at the front lines.

"Morning, Miss Cunningham," the oldest brother said, introducing himself. He couldn't have been older than ten or eleven. "I'm Thomas Willy and this is my brother, Charlie. Mr. Beard sent us. Said we should give you a morning paper. Here it is Ma'am," he said leaning into the doorway with his outstretched hand. I opened the screen door, trying to read his face for any hidden message that could shed light on this unusual delivery.

"Why thank you, Thom. How much do I owe you?"

"Oh, you don't owe us a thing. You see, Mr. Beard covered it."

"Well, would you and your brother like a bite to eat to take back with you?"

"No Ma'am, thank you. We've been asked to return quickly. You see this morning Mr. Beard is paying us to run errands around town. I think he has extra chores in his store that he needs help with. So, we'll be gettin' back there."

The boys were so polite and I found it astounding because it appeared that they were on their own a good deal of the time. Who were these boys? Did they have a family? Both boys looked almost as thin as some of the men I tended at the hospital. Despite that fact, they appeared well-groomed and happy.

"Wait, before you go boys, I have something for you." I said. I returned with a pancake and a penny for each of them. They smiled and tried to thank me with full mouths. Finally, they gave up, turned around to leave, waving as they got to the street.

I brought the newspaper back to Warren who was leaning against the door frame which separated the hallway from the kitchen. "Must be a new service that the grocer wants to start up," I said.

Smells of griddle cakes, bacon and coffee met me at the threshold as I opened up the paper to the front page. Leaning against Warren, I opened up the folded newspaper to see the headline which read: _McClellan Returns in Pope's Place While Pope Heads West to Sioux Country_. Included was a drawing of the Union's General Pope. Next to him was an ink sketch of General McClellan.

I read the headline to Warren then read on: " _It appears that Manassas has been a fortuitous location for the Confederacy especially now in the wake of the Second Battle of Manassas. Sources close to the Federal's White House indicated that General Pope will be sent to Minnesota to tame a Sioux uprising and that General George McClellan 'of Richmond fame' will return to lead the Union army_."

"Or is it to lead them astray?" Warren asked.

I continued, " _Despite Lincoln's effort to have a Union victory and having put off the offer of mediation by France, Great Britain, and Russia, the Second Battle of Manassas proved to be more than a skirmish. The Confederate victory was another Union disaster. The Union Army was driven back to Bull Run. Both sides endured heavy casualties._ "

"It's clear that Lincoln is becoming desperate. He needs a victory so he can deliver to the nation the speech that he read to Congress in July, ' _The Proclamation of Emancipating the Slaves'_ ," Warren said turning me towards him as I closed the paper. "This means that the Confederates will be heading north through here and to Maryland continuing to pressure the Union army."

Looking past Warren and thinking through this scenario I pondered the South's strategy.

He continued, "When Lee goes north, he'll want to create havoc in the supply routes, a similar strategy used throughout the war by the Union, like the naval blockade or like Pope's occupying Culpeper, to cut off the Rebel supply lines between Richmond and the Shenandoah Valley. Lee knows that if supply lines can be controlled, so can the resistance of the Union. He'll go all the way to Washington if the rail lines are destroyed."

I listened, but his words about Lee seemed obvious. He went on.

"Anyway, I'll be needed to supply them with goods and equipment. I'd better get back before they start looking for me. I may not be able to visit you for a few days at least. But you know...if I can, I will. Annie, you know that don't you?"

"Know what?" I said in a teasing voice.

"Know that I'm in love with you and I'll do anything I can to be with you."

"Are you sure...anything?" I asked.

"Everything and anything, my love." He kissed me quickly on the tip of my nose before he left.

***

Later that very morning I met Katherine just outside the Three Lanterns and we moved inside quickly and away from the door. "It's Quimby, he's gone," she said. "Come in, I'll tell you about it."

The darkness of the hall had met us at the door and when my eyes adjusted to the low light, I saw Ian, the bartender, motioning us over to the bar. The tinkle of a player piano against a back wall echoed the hollowness of a quiet stage with a closed curtain.

"Annie, do you want something?" Kate asked. "We've got some good soup."

Looking up, and in Ian's direction, "Just tea, please."

As he stepped away to get our drinks, Katherine told me what had transpired.

"He's gone. That's what Ian said. Taken away in a carriage this morning," she whispered.

Returning, Ian wanted to visit with me. "So how have you been, Miss Cunningham?" he called across the bar, his dancing eyes upon me. "Katy said you'd been working at the hospital near ever'day. That must be a tough job, m'dear, an ugly one too. Why, if you need to get away from it, you can come back here and entertain the troops again." Then, he added, "With your songs, I mean. Well, you know what I mean. When they come off the train, the soldiers need to escape far beyond the lines they jus' come from. These boys tell me that now after the Second Manassas, they were so used to seeing death that they looked on the corpse of a man 'bout the same as they might a horse or a hog. Things have gotten ugly, haven't they?"

Ian stopped and paused. He turned towards us again and must have realized that we weren't the usual barflies with whom he usually rambled on. He added, "I should stop my yapping. So, how are you anyway?"

"Fine thanks, and glad to be away from the hospital for a few hours. From what I can tell you may get a lot more business in the next few weeks. "

"Yeah, I gathered that from reading the paper," Ian replied. "But now, real odd things are going on." Looking towards Kate who was sipping a drink next to me, "I was telling Kate that just this mornin' I saw Quimby escorted out of his office. Couldn't tell their rank from where I was standing, but they looked like they were arresting him. Now what could Quimby be up to that I wouldn't know about?" Ian asked. "He's just like the rest of us. Just seemed a bit cleaner, well polished. But that ain't a crime now is it?"

"Where do you suppose they took him? "I asked.

"Well they weren't headed to the train depot." Straining my tea, he went on. "They led him to a carriage and walked him with their guns drawn. I seen two or three gray coats taking him. They headed east. Towards the prison I s'pose. What fer? I couldn't guess." Ian responded, handing us our drinks. Soon another customer sat down at the far end of the bar and Ian became engaged in conversation with him.

Kate and I sipped our tea in silence. I wondered how this would all end.

## CHAPTER TWENTY

Warren did as he said he must; he returned to the Officers' barn where he could get more details on Lee's plans to take Washington, if that was indeed the Rebels' next move.

News delivery became a regular event at my house where the boys, Thom and Charlie, knew they could get a thick crust of bread or a piece of pie and hot cider if they were lucky and found me at home. They did quite well visiting both Beard's store and my doorstep early in the morning and the younger of the two, Charlie, was becoming as plump as a contented squirrel preparing for winter. It was probably good planning on his part because the days were getting shorter and the air, less heavy. I don't recall ever finding out where the boys slept at night. I knew they had a great aunt who took care of them, and I also knew that they preferred to be out and about town, not under her roof. Thom and Charlie had increased their paper sales in late summer not only by selling papers at the obvious places such as the train station, bar and grocery, but they sometimes ventured to the troop camps as more and more men moved closer to town.

I went about my regular chores and visited the hospital and prison at least six times each week directing the volunteers on what decoctions to make or assisting them in applying poultices.

Despite our best efforts, Katherine and I never found out the definite whereabouts of K.O.Quimby. From the carriage, we knew that he had been moved south by train, but the final destination was unclear. Probably to one of the prisons there. The exact reasons for his arrest and disappearance were unknown; we could only surmise that his allegiance to the Union was discovered somehow.

Returning to the house after visiting Kate, I packed bread, bandages, and medicinal herbs into a pair of large baskets. Lucy's driver and carriage would be by to gather those donations for the hospital to treat the men's wounds, respiratory problems and soldier's stomach —the most difficult ailment to treat of them all. Our worst cases, and I had seen plenty of them arrive, were the young men who had been brought in on the back of wooden wagons over deeply rutted roads. By the time we saw them they had finally been moved to operating tables in the hospital surgery room, a sultry room which, despite efforts to screen the windows, had scores of flies buzzing about in the soggy heat. Many of those men, their eyes sunken in their sockets, having experienced enough pain for three or four lifetimes, looked up at the doctor, and asked with any voice that they could utter, "Doc, can you do me a favor? Just put me out of my misery."

I'd overheard one man, probably eighteen, who added to that question, "You wouldn't keep a horse alive if they looked like this, now would ya?"

In the time since the doctor's request for my help with herbs, I'd been working in the prison for at least an hour each day, often more. After delivering maps of the general region, and a few I drew of the prison in relationship to the town, river, and rail lines, I listened to them make plans. They knew I was on their side and that they were safe to talk freely in my presence. But before any of that happened, I had to distract the guards with the cake I brought with me.

I'd say, "Look boys, you've been on your feet all day. Take some of those sweets I brought for the surgeons and have a coffee break. You certainly deserve it." This worked more times than not.

I was planning to bring them a map of safe-houses and trails farther north, a map from Sarah but that would have to wait until an escape was imminent and she returned to the area. However, we had no time to waste, autumn was coming and the weather was sure to change.

Each time I visited that horrible prison, I knew that I had to help those men plan an escape. I'd never seen such a place – so thick with filth, waste and a stench that made my stomach roll when I entered. The men told me that at night they'd wake up to rats and other vermin crawling among them and sometimes over them as they lay on the floor. In the interest of healing and what seemed my own common sense I insisted on clean hay for the men, regular waste bucket removal, and while the herbs I brought with me simmered, I'd also boil extra pots of water to cool for drinking. I personally rejected much of the infested food that was brought in to them and sent it back with the private who brought it.

Few other nurses, male or female, dared to enter the prison. I convinced everyone that I was safe, under the protection of the guards. In fact the guards looked forward to my visits because my arrival meant refreshment of one sort or another and sometimes special herbal concoctions that made them a bit relaxed, slower to react.

"Thank you, boys," I'd say to the guards. Handing the tall, thin one a metal cup of hot tea I'd add, "It's damp in here and since you helped me with the hay, I thought that you could use a little break."

One night when I got home, I was even too tired to make dinner. I washed my face and hands and was brushing my hair when Warren arrived, surprising me, letting himself in through the kitchen.

He held me to him and kissed me long on the mouth.

"Warren, what a surprise, I didn't expect you."

"I know you didn't but I had to come by and see you." He paused. "With everything that is happening, we may be pulling out anytime, but probably within the next week. That's not really why I'm here though, you see, something's come up that I need to speak with you about."

"What is it?"

"Samuel came by. He's never done that before... come by the Officer's barn, visited, played cards, shared a few good stories."

"That probably means he's feeling better, don't you think?"

"Yeah, but listen to this, Annie. Over a game of chess, he looked up at me and broke my concentration. I could see he really hadn't been in the game. He said, 'Warren, word has it that there are a few spies in Marsh Station. Union spies.'"

"Well, Quimby was arrested, Warren. Undoubtedly he was probably referring to that situation."

"He knew about Quimby. He meant others. 'Could be anyone, could be a woman' he said. 'Just keep a look out for Union spies.'"

"Are you telling me to keep an eye out while you're gone, Captain?"

"Keep an eye out, all right, Annie. But it got me thinking... Is there anything you need to tell me?"

"What do you mean? Why do you ask, Warren?"

"I know there's your work at the prison, the uniforms in your trunk..."

"Uniforms?"

"Yeah, of course. I found a uniform the night of your attack. It didn't mean a thing to me then. If anything, I just thought you'd be working for the Confederacy. Why else would you have a uniform in your trunk?"

I reddened, but didn't look at him or respond.

"Okay," I don't have much time," he went on beginning to get impatient. Then he whispered, taking both my hands and looking me squarely in the eyes. "You don't have to answer me directly. Perhaps you really shouldn't under these circumstances. I just wish you could have, would have, told me everything." He paused for a moment. The house was stone still. "I suspect you may need a reason to leave here, and soon."

"Leave? Leave you? Leave my life here? I don't think so, Captain," looking just beyond him.

"Annie, for your own safety. Annie, look at me." He said firmly." It would be for _your own safety_. Even just temporarily, but if you do go, if you leave Marsh Station, I must know that you are safe, no matter what. You must let me know where to find you." Then he held me at arm's length, holding my shoulders firmly but gently and looked directly at me. "Annie, can you tell me where'd you go if you did leave?"

I looked at him with tears in my eyes, but couldn't answer. Then he pulled me to his chest in a long embrace. I could hear the drumbeat there, the rhythm of his heart.

After a moment, I responded to him, "Warren, I can't leave you." Then hesitantly I added, "However, I'll show you one thing, but only because someone should know where my most precious belongings are hidden, not for any other reason," I said, wishing I could tell him all my secrets and not lie.

He could have gotten enraged for I truly think he knew. He added it up and didn't hold me accountable for my lies. He could have been so different, unforgiving to me, but instead he showed his grave concern for me and just wanted to know where to find me if I had to leave quickly. He needed that connection that proved to me the extent of his love. Profound love. This was the man I wanted to spend my life with, find land, raise a family, grow old together.

For a moment, I did look him in the eyes, a momentary and vulnerable acknowledgement of what was good and true. Then, I looked down and reached for his hand and grabbed a candle stand from the table. Lighting the candle, I opened the small iron door in the brick wall of my beloved bread oven, commonly named for its shape inside, a beehive oven. Holding the candle inside I bent down so there was room for him to look up and inside the oven itself.

"Up to the left, behind, see it?

"A set of keys."

"Yes."

"The smallest one goes to a box in the cellar. No need to go there now, but back in the far corner, there's a few loose bricks at floor level, just big enough to hide a locked box. No one should find it but you, Warren. Only you."

"Annie, if it wasn't for those young men out there in the fields, depending on me and my work for food, water and medicine..." then he paused and whispered, pulling me in towards his chest, and went on, " I might just go where ever you're headed." I pulled away and sternly responded.

"I didn't _say_ I was headed anywhere, now did I Captain? I want to be wherever you are."

After Warren left, I knew I'd have to make a decision. What could they have on me? I didn't see any rush to leave right away. I'd plan it though. My leaving couldn't arouse suspicion or I could endanger Kate, Mr. Beard, and Sarah whenever she returned. My leaving could even endanger Warren.

## CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

It was the kind of day that seasons mix —the warm depths of summer and the crisped edges of autumn —just before the leaves turn. It was as if the trees' leaves were holding back their vivid colors until the right moment when, like showgirls, they could kick in unison to the applause of reedy grasses and chilling streams. I walked the path home in the strands of a glorious sunset feeling as if I would never be able to fully breathe in the richness of the season. The thick heat of summer was behind us and with it the angst of flies and mosquitoes that had nearly made us lose our minds with their incessant buzzing, preying on men in the wards who were incapable of defending themselves from such minute but hideous enemies.

Turning up the street towards the house, I paused. Thom and Charlie stood at the end of the walkway ahead of me, near the gate. They appeared to be awaiting my return, something that they'd never done before. I was used to seeing them nearly every morning, but not in the evening. The older boy nervously kicked the fence post as if he had grown bored.

Most mornings they chirped out conversations like dependent birds not yet out of the nest, and sometimes fought among themselves like typical kids and less like the little men that the war and their job had demanded they become. I enjoyed listening to both their conversations and differences of opinion while I worked in the kitchen. And, quite honestly, I didn't mind the company or the information that came with their visits. Their informality made me feel more accepted into their world and that feeling took away the loneliness that sometimes stretched before me like a dusty, blank horizon.

"Didn't I just see you two this morning?" I asked approaching the gate. "I s'pose I could round you up some dinner if that is what you need."

"Miss, Miss Cunningham," the older brother stammered, "We're not here for dinner. You see, we found somethin' might bit strange and wanted you to have it. Thinkin' that you might know what to do. We tried to show it to Mr. Beard but he was busy unloading some parcels at the train depot, so we came here."

"Something strange? Come inside and show me what you mean." Motioning them down the side path, I found my key and opened the door.

The boys followed me into the cozy kitchen, a few newspapers still under their arms indicating that their work wasn't quite finished for the day. The last bit of sun shone through the window but I instinctively drew the curtains, wondering what they could possibly have to show me. I had to be especially careful given Quimby's fate and Warren's warning.

Charlie, the younger boy, set down the newspapers and whipped off his hat exposing a sturdy, small packet, carefully wrapped. Handing it to me, I turned it over in my hands without opening it. The thick, white paper had a creamy quality to it, some of the finest paper that I'd ever seen.

"Where did you find this lovely little packet?" I asked.

Thom started to explain. "Well, Miss Annie, you see, we do a good business with the troops, uh, and we followed the path passed the tents and down to some wide open fields hoping to sell a few papers to 'em."

"Yeah, those fields was all tromped down, the farmers around here won't be happy with them soldiers," chimed in Charlie.

"Soldiers? What soldiers do you mean?"

"The Rebels, why of course, Miss, they've been moving up and around these parts of Virginia like a big parade. And, and they musta left that."

He pointed to the packet, and then went on. "Just that my brother and me, we didn't know what it was. But wrapped so clean like that, we thought it must be important, so we figured you're a smart lady...you'd know what it is and what to do."

"Why thank you boys. I'll check into and if it's something someone's lost, I'll look after it. No need to worry yourselves. I'll take care of it. Now it would be best if you went on home to your aunt's, she'll be getting worried if you're not home by dark, I'm sure."

Handing the boys a few apples and the rest of a loaf of bread from breakfast, I closed the door as they left and lit a lamp. Sitting at the kitchen table I'd have a look. Brushing crumbs from the table cloth and then carefully, with clean dry palms I unfurled and spread out the curled paper before me. It had been wrapped around three thick brown cigars. One of the Confederate officers had been protecting his delicate tobacco with an order from his superiors.

At the top was carefully written: 'Battle Plans'.

Flattening out the paper again, I scanned the detailed writing and map. I knew that the information there before me was a windfall. Precious information. Wiping the nervous sweat from my palms, I glanced around the room, and then read the paper in whisper to myself.

" _Occupy The Heights_." I knew of that place. It was along the Potomac River. There before me balanced between my hands, at my kitchen table was our Rosetta Stone, the clear statement, not guess work, of Lee's strategy. Indeed, the document spelled out Lee's plans to invade Pennsylvania. He intended to rid Maryland of Union occupation and take a major city like Baltimore or even Washington itself.

"My God," I whispered to myself and to the cat that had just walked in from the parlor. "Here's just what we needed, right here in my hands. General Lee's battle plans. What great luck we have. What fortune!" Pausing, I sighed and looked up around me as if the darkening kitchen could answer my question, "And, what the Hell am I to do with this now?"

***

I had to move quickly without drawing attention to myself. Time was essential to the success of the mission. It was the news that the Union needed, especially with Lincoln waiting for a victory to raise morale. I gathered up vegetables from the cold cellar along with fresh squash from the garden. Putting the Plans at the bottom of a basket, I filled it with all I could carry and proceeded to Beard's Mercantile hoping to find him available. It was later than usual for a visit. The stars were out, but if approached I'd explain that I had returned late from the hospital and the vegetables should be put out fresh.

## CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

"Lucy, look, we've got to come back here and have the gals harvest more yarrow. This field is brimming and ready to be picked," I said as Lucy's carriage bumped along the road towards home. It was one of those rare days when she delivered the medicines to the hospital herself. From my carriage seat I could see yarrow stalks drying in the autumn sun side by side with the last herbs and wildflowers of summer.

"Honestly, Annie, you've told me before, I know, but what do you use the yarrow for? I don't know how you keep all these herbs and flowers straight in your mind," questioned Lucy.

"I've started writing it down for Dr. Linaman but you can see it too. There is a lot to remember and if the plants are used improperly, perhaps the wrong part, or even at the wrong time of year, some of them could be poisonous." I reached for my satchel on the seat beside me and dug through it until I pulled out a thick wedge of papers.

"You see Lucy, I grew up with this stuff. It's listed somewhere on the first or second page. Yes, here it is: _Yarrow —the leaves are good for healing cuts, and for wounds, stopping bleeding_. God knows we see enough of those in a week; I also use St. John's Wort for that.

My mother made a chest rub to relieve coughing. She combined it with peppermint, thyme, yes and some hyssop —the aerial parts can be used in tea for fevers too. I put that down somewhere in the notes. I think there are six or eight pages in all so far."

Looking at me and then out to the fields we passed by, Lucy said, "You are amazing. This is all in your head?" Looking over the scrawled notes Lucy added, "Have anything here to make a husband more amorous?"

She caught me off guard. Her unexpected quips were a comforting aspect of our friendship. We looked at each other and laughed out loud from Lucy's comment.

"You'd be surprised what the fields around here offer, Lucy. Perhaps we will even find time to make you a magic potion for Samuel. But now we've got to get the last leaves and berries of summer. Remember how that fresh comfrey made a poultice that healed that boy's deep leg wounds —what was his name?"

"Robert, his name was Robert, Annie. Yes I do remember him. He had such a handsome face, and refused to ever believe that his leg couldn't be saved. In one fever sweat, he was certain that I was his mother. Poor dear. It seemed nothing would work on him except those herbs you fixed."

"Berries, Lucy. Remind me. We have to get the gals to help us pick more Hawthorne berries. It cures soldier's disease, the runs, and now is the only time of the year those berries can come in from the fields and still be any good to us." And, we need more jars, clean cloths and..." but I didn't finish. My phrase moved in the wind like a line of wash hanging to dry.

Outside the carriage, our driver was yelling out to the horses and the clatter of another carriage approaching us was heard.

"Whoa, whoa now. I said Whoa, you two," yelled out the driver. The carriage lurched to a stop. Then he called quite loudly so as to be heard, "Yes, what is it? What can I do for you, Officer?"

"We need to inspect your passengers," a deep drawn out voice replied. The next quarter minute seemed like an hour. Lucy looked at me, blankly. I swallowed hard. She had no idea, no inkling of my clandestine work. My first thought was 'Should I be the one to tell her...now?' And, 'Would she ever forgive me for my evasiveness, my convictions, and my deceptions?' I looked deeply into her eyes, admiring the light on her porcelain skin, the dew at her temple where her hat met her hairline, and then the carriage door opened. I couldn't say a word to her. Things were simply moving too fast for any explanation.

"Ladies, please step down from the carriage," came a voice from a middle-aged lieutenant dressed in gray. He had been riding hard and was sweating through his jacket. As an officer of the Confederate army he also had the authority of military police. As we stepped down, we saw behind him another carriage, old and black, like a cage on wheels. Its driver sat atop it like a raven, waiting for his catch.

Lucy seemed angry and bewildered. "What is the meaning of this intrusion, Sir?" she demanded. How dare you stop my driver and for whatever reason why?"

"Which one of you is Miss Ann Cunningham?" the Officer demanded.

Straightening my back, lengthening my neck I spoke to him on my first out breath. Softly, yet very clearly, "I am Ann Cunningham," I said turning to look at him dead on.

The Officer cleared his throat. Then, looking down at his paper he began, "Miss Ann Cunningham, I am authorized by the Confederate States and President Jefferson Davis to..." then he looked up at me and returned my eye contact... "hereby arrest you for spying for the Federal government of the United States of America."

Lucy dropped a hand on my shoulder and gasped in disbelief, covering her mouth with her hand as if to keep from screaming. I said nothing, and I couldn't bring myself to find her face with my gaze. I continued to hold my head atop my neck as if it might pop off at any second. I was hoping no one would cut the string that seemed to be pulling me up from the crown of my head like a marionette, or I knew that I would collapse into a spineless heap.

With Lucy clinging to my shoulder, beginning to sob, I couldn't embrace her though I wanted to do that more than anything. The Officer's man quickly secured my hands in front of me and gruffly walked me to the dusty carriage. Its canopy was worn and tattered and its bent frame showed no dignity in its girth. Just before I mounted the steps, I paused and turned to look at Lucy. It was a deep sigh of a look between friends that transcended all boundaries, stretching beyond the years of war. Perhaps she would mistakenly think that I had used her in my spying efforts. Maybe she would hate me for the rest of her days and dislike every one she'd ever meet with the name Anne or Annie solely because the name reminded her of me. But deep down I thought that she knew my real thoughts. I hoped then that they spoke loudly to her as I remained silent. _Don't hate me, Lucy. I will miss you_.

Then turning, carefully, as not to lose my balance without the use of my hands, I mounted the narrow steps as best as I could, unaided, rocked once just slightly, and then found a seat as a sole captive in the buggy. Soon enough the carriage lurched forward and then it was off. I was taken away in that suet colored cart. In an instant everything had turned ashen all around me.

## CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Years later, probably sometime in 1878 or '79, Katherine paid me a visit. It was a delight to finally see her again. Her visit was not a surprise in itself, but held a few surprises that were revealed to me over an afternoon and a long evening. We shared glasses of summer wine, a loaf of crusty bread, fresh fruits and cheeses and stories about Warren after my arrest.

"There are some things I need to tell you Annie," she started. "In fact I've tried to look you up for years. You were mighty hard to find."

Katherine had grown different, quieter somehow, less impressed with herself in the years since I had last seen her. Perhaps it was part of the aging process or her business slacking off, or being out of her element, but I liked the woman before me and I was very grateful for her visit. Like a puzzle of cut pieces with the picture becoming clear, I listened to her stories, sometimes crying quietly as she spoke to me in her lyrical and comforting way. I suspected she knew that as she spoke that I was seeing the events she described unfold in my mind's eye – Warren's movements, his chiseled face, his pondering jaw.

"He came to visit me the day after your arrest, Annie. He spoke to me in the garden, in a whisper with his back to the Lanterns, somewhat fearful of being overheard, I think," she explained. "I'm sure he never discovered that I, too, worked for the Union. He was exhausted and afraid for you, Annie. Warren said that he was tempted to keep riding in the direction of Westerly just to see if he could bribe his way in to see you. However, he knew that if he arrived at Westerly without a plan, he might endanger you all the more. Of course, I agreed with him."

"'Kate,'" he asked me with his head in his hands, " Why should it end like this? I may lose her for good. I need her. I need Annie. You see that don't you, Kate? I love her. I have to get Annie out of there. I've tried to find a way, and I think I've found something that could work, Kate. Remember Lucy's husband, Samuel?'" he asked me. "I've asked him to see about arranging a prison trade.'"

"You see, Annie," she went on, "Warren wondered if Samuel would act on your behalf. He thought that he might help out in some way knowing how Warren loved you. And Lucy too, she was heartsick about you. Mad as hell, but heartsick too."

She told me in some detail, over several hours, what Warren did the night of my arrest. She spoke slowly, kindly, in a very deliberate manner having gathered and stored the details in her own mind like a newspaper reporter might until the story could be compiled and shared.

These are the details as Kate relayed them to me: It was late in the evening, past dark when Warren arrived at my little house. He must have entered the kitchen quietly as if trying not to awaken me, though he knew that I'd sleep in a prison that night and possibly for many months or even years to come. He realized as he pushed the door open that there was no need for a key. They'd already been there, the Confederates, looking through the house, ransacking the desk papers, pulling the wardrobe apart, throwing clothes about, chair cushions cut, but from what Warren had heard over dinner, all that they had found was the book of poetry, Abolitionist poetry. Whittier.

After he heard of my arrest, he knew that he'd have to allow for a military search before he entered my house. To be caught in the house first would have been disastrous. He had agonized at dinner in the officer's mess. Trying to remain poised, he managed to remove himself early with the excuse that he had to check some traps before dark. Then out in the forest, while the others smoked and read he came up with a plan. He'd get whatever remained, whatever they missed and bring it to a safer place.

Moving into the kitchen to find a light, he found the lamp as I'd left it next to a large bunch of dried yarrow. He lit it quickly and moved on farther into the house, stopping to listen. He had little time and of course he could not risk being seen by anyone. However, if he were asked why he was even in my house, he'd answer that he had orders to remove the belongings of 'the traitor' and that answer should suffice to stop any further questioning.

Kate said that a carriage driver was waiting just up the street beyond the house, and had been bribed not to breathe a word of their midnight journey. It was extremely risky but Warren was determined. He'd even paid the driver in silver, and paid him very well.

Warren must have done a quick look of the house, searching in desk drawers, under baskets, and beneath furniture. I knew he'd do whatever he could to protect me. And, I hadn't left anything but decoys in the desk. Note paper, sealing wax, and sketch pads along with my books on herbs.

He would have found the brass key there just as I had left it, on the far wall of the oven, just as I had shown him. Then he'd have descended to the cellar by pulling up the trapdoor and climbing the ladder downwards. Behind the loose bricks at floor level, tucked back into the corner was a space just big enough to hide a cigar-sized box, locked tightly against intrusion. Using the key Warren would have removed the contents of the box: a folded map, some notes about the prisoners' health conditions, then beneath all that, a stack of letters that I had written him, but had never sent. They were tied up with a ribbon. All the top envelope revealed was the letter 'W' . The letters revealed some of the work I had done and where I had come from. Carefully removing papers from the box in the dim light, he stuffed them into his inner coat pockets. Proceeding to the bedroom, it was the trunk that he was after, but there was no time to search it. All he had time to do was remove the letter that _he_ had written from his pocket, place it carefully within the folds of a flowery dress, and lock it securely with a lock he'd brought along.

Stealing away, the carriage arrived without delay at the officer's barn. There, Warren brought the trunk into Ches'stall and covered it with a blanket and hay, put another bale on top of it and left again, all without even waking the guard.

One evening soon after that, Warren found his way into town and decided to visit the Three Lanterns. The music at the tavern was winding down and Warren approached Ian and had a seat at the bar.

"Looks like you could use a drink, Captain, sir. Read 'ya right?"

"You do read people," he'd have said laughing. "A whiskey, straight."

Setting the drink down on the bar, Ian turned to wash a few more glasses, while Warren sipped his drink, then glancing side to side, saw Samuel come through the front door. His driver must have brought him down, but he was doing well getting around on crutches.

Greeting Warren, Samuel sat down at the bar and ordered a drink.

"I was hoping you'd be here. I'm sorry to hear about Annie, but I have to ask you Warren, did you know anything?"

"No, Sam, that's the thing. I'm as surprised as you and Lucy must be. God, I'm devastated. But between you and me, I miss her fiercely. You know, I've want to get her out of there. It would be just like them to prove they could hang a woman even though it'd be the first time."

Taking a sip of his drink, Samuel went on, "Yeah, but Warren, she must have had Lee's plans. How could she have gotten a copy? I hear it was traced back to her. When the plans were delivered to the Union, a Confederate spy was in the room, for months having worked with the Union. He was the one who reported back. I have to tell you, Lucy is hysterical. She's in shock I think, but she's also screaming about the war. I can see her strength is wearing down, eroding. The doctor came and gave her something to help her rest. She keeps saying that Annie is a friend and they can't take her away. I wish there was something I could do for all of you."

Warren looked up and then over at Samuel. Patting him on the shoulder he said, "Drink up, Sam. There is something you can do."

As the men stood to leave, Warren talked quietly to Samuel. "I need you to telegraph Washington and arrange for a trade. You will be seen as the insider here and no one in the Confederacy will find out who arranged the trade. You can sell it on the fact that Annie had a lot of contacts, that she got hold of Lee's orders. In their mind, she'd be pretty important to get back. I bet it would work. Please, Sam, it's our one hope."

The wide street was dark and relatively quiet as they departed the bar and headed towards the telegraph office.

Chet, Quimby's replacement, was asleep at the desk snoring ugly snores, with a lamp lit low. As the men entered, he stirred.

Warren whispered in Chet's direction, "Tell me my friend, if I wanted to send a birthday greetin' to my Mum, would I do that here?

Like a tattered but well stuffed scarecrow, Chet looked up from the desk for a moment and replied in a drunken stupor, "Yep, you could do it, but it'll cost ya."

"Okay, how much?" asked Warren.

"Quart a whiskey," was the reply, then he collapsed back on the desk.

Meanwhile, Samuel had entered the darkened telegraph room and started hammering out a message. After just a couple of minutes, he reemerged and nodded to Warren to follow him out the door. In the darkened street he explained,

"I told them to arrange the trade they'll need to contact the warden directly. That way, I'm hoping, the guy at Westerly prison will think that since the request to trade came from the north, it must be their idea. Like you say, it's all we've got."

"Besides, I don't have much time," said Warren. "I've got orders to prepare for more battles and reconnoiter near Sharpsburg, a place called Antietam Creek."

***

While Katherine paused from her story and walked into the garden for a bit, I stayed curled up in my chair and imagined what his ride back to his quarters must have been like on that tenebrous night. Knowing Warren, I've often imagined that he was looking up into the clear night.

'Dust motes with souls' is how he described humanity, 'floating through vastly cold stretches of space. Beings capable of lighting up our forms through feelings, emotions, and through our passions.' Our passions.

When she returned I had to tell her.

"Kate, I was just thinking about this. Once Warren described what he thought _passion_ was. He said that it was the place in each one of us that can drive away loneliness and fear. It's the place where we connect with each other in reverence for life, expressed in joy; A place where we connect with our Selves as well. I like that. What do you think?"

"Sounds like your man," she said. "He was a thinker, that one. I've known passion, but never thought about it like that. Yes sir, a thinker and a good man, indeed."

Settling back into her chair, I poured her a bit more wine and she continued. "Clearly, he couldn't risk visiting you. Yet his time to get you out of prison was dissolving. A private war continued to rage within him. He described it to me as 'cannon fire pounding beneath his ribs'. Here's why: he had to move out within the week and he knew that several days of preparation would consume him. He had to locate the meager rations that the southern troops needed to just survive, to endure. He had to find food from whatever farmers were still around to farm. You see Annie, his orders were to follow Antietam Creek, cross the Potomac, and resupply near the village of Sharpsburg. Yet, to leave Marsh Station and proximity to you at the prison meant that all could be lost. He felt that he might never see you again."

## CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

I awakened to the clatter of keys and a brusque voice.

"Get up, get up now," barked the jailer. He pushed a tin cup and bowl towards me, rattling them across the rough, filthy floor. "You get what everybody else gets, even if ya are a lady-prisoner."

By the early light, my dim and barren cell slowly came into focus. My nerves, jostled awake, felt the sting of cold under a thin blanket. I'd awakened quickly and lost my dream. Four days? Five? All I knew was that I was still on the other side of the prison door. Laying back on the mattress just inches above the floor, I saw a quick movement in the far wall. There it was again. It had fur. And it was bigger than a mouse. Turning away from the rodent and the food that sat waiting for me, I nearly wretched, but there was nothing in my stomach.

Holding my hands to my face I remember saying aloud as if confiding in a friend, "Okay, held as a spy, I might be tried, convicted, and shot. Or, I might be tried, convicted, and hanged. Or, indeed, they may choose to slowly starve me to death, letting the vermin and disease of the place do the work for them."

A slop bucket in one corner , dared me to relieve myself but the voice outside the cell door barked at me again.

"I'm coming back for you in ten minutes. The Warden wants to ask you a few questions. You must have done something real good to get yourself into this one." When I didn't respond, he left, muttering to himself all the way down the hall.

What did he know? Such a crazy old man. Could this be my end? What would the Warden want with me? I had to rely on my wit and my luck, but I was too tired and weak to put up my usual fight. I was dirty and hungry and exhausted by the ordeal.

I had to face the Warden in a calm manner; I'd have to keep my wits about me and show strength. But I was cold, shaky, and very hungry. I knew that I had only myself to count on. Closing my eyes, I began to breathe deeply, something I did when I needed to collect my thoughts.

I practiced what I called 'gathering myself.' Concentrating, I imagined a strong and whole Annie. Like clay on a kick wheel, I pulled the very core of my being together in my mind and imagined a pulsing, tiny sun at my very Center. It spun as I did, fibers and vision, slip and spin, clay and calm. Breathing in, out, in, I began to relax, and warm up. I began to feel stronger and surer of things. I just wished I could talk to Warren, both to warn him and to have him hold me again. I'd grown so fond of his gentle ways with me and I loved his easy humor. Even in all this he'd look at me if he could, knowingly, and reach deep down into the pockets of himself pronouncing with his eyes that _we_ would go on. Somehow, we'd go on.

It wasn't long before the nameless guard returned. Sitting up and standing in the same clothes I'd arrived in days earlier, I followed him to the Warden's headquarters, a low building with a flag waving out front. Inside we found a small dreary office in the back of the complex of larger buildings. The warden was a man who had once carried more weight on his frame, but looked sunken and gray from head to toe; not just in uniform, but his wiry beard matched his sallow complexion. He looked like a balloon losing air, which might collapse at any moment. Surely, he did not fit the image of a top official that I had expected. And he surprised me in other ways. Looking at me for what seemed like an epoch, he tightened his jaw and began to speak in a deep guttural manner.

"It is within my power, Miss Cunningham, to see that you are hanged." He continued to meet my eyes with his dark marble-like glass gaze and I dared not turn away, or blink. "You are clearly guilty of treason against the Confederacy." He spoke very slowly in a thick, determined voice, pausing, as if stringing his words like hooks on a fishing line.

"However, you've been quite lucky. It appears that your womanly neck will be spared due to an unlikely turn of events. You see, we've been offered a prisoner now in the north, one of ours, who is of greater value to us than you are. It appears, Miss Cunningham, that you are quite fortunate.

Therefore, I want to review some very specific conditions of your release. Listen carefully I will not repeat myself." He cleared his throat and I swallowed, but my mouth was dry.

He continued, "Upon your release you must leave any and all Confederate territory immediately and you are ordered not to enter Confederate territory until the war has concluded in one side's favor or another. Is that clear?" In shock, I must have stared straight ahead.

He bellowed, "Is that clear, Miss Cunningham?"

I nodded. "Yes, clear Sir."

He went on. "If you do attempt such movement and get caught, you will be shot without question. Is that clear as well, Miss Cunningham?"

Again, I nodded. "Yes, Sir."

"Then, promptly, you will be escorted to the border. It may take about a day to get you to the closest Federal line, and it may be very dangerous, Miss Cunningham."

His words ricocheted off the stone walls of the makeshift office, striking me with both relief and distress. I had nothing to say. Everything had suddenly changed. My life was given back to me. I was free to go, but I'd have to leave Virginia, leave Marsh Station, and leave Warren until of course, the war ended. But that ending was nowhere in sight. And, who would do my work? I'd have to get word to Sarah for her own safety, but how?

"Yes, Sir, I understand," I said.

Stunned, I turned to leave with a guard who led me out of that iron cold office, to the center of the barren, dusty work yard. No one else was around except for distant guards on the yard's perimeter and a blue blur in the distance being led with what looked like a white flag held high on a stick.

Outside with the sun on my face and an early autumn breeze picking up, I noticed things as if I'd emerged from a dark mine. Taking the events of the past week into account, I began to see that the distant blue blur was actually two Union soldiers on horseback approaching Westerly. They rode with purpose, with dignity, as if to deliver two lives instead one. I'd be leaving shortly, with no opportunity to say goodbye or to retrieve any of my possessions. I'd have to locate Sarah, at least get a note to her, telling her not to attempt to return to the house in Marsh Station. I wouldn't be there. If she came back through, she'd have to get a room from Kate. I'd soon be leaving Virginia, and worst of all, losing time with Warren. Tears began to fill my eyes and quickly found my cheeks.

It was then that I saw him approaching from a distance. He had stayed way back of the Union officers as if he had been asked to bring up the rear of the procession for the Rebel cause. 'He'd made a point to see me,' I thought to myself. 'Could he have been in on the prisoner trade?' I asked myself. 'Of course he had.'

"There's a story," I whispered to myself under my breath.

All I could think about were the letters that I had written him. I'd been careful not to use his first name in writing them, and they'd been hidden away. Perhaps he'd already found them. After all, he was the only one who knew about that box. I hoped he'd take them out to the forest, find a glade like the one we'd found in Ashburg and read them there.

As I watched the approaching entourage, I realized that my Virginia life hung in strands around me. I knew that I'd miss the simple life I had created there. I'd miss my garden. I'd miss Lucy and her ladybug mole. I could only hope that with her flotilla of friends they could gather and prepare plenty of yarrow, shepherd's purse, comfrey and slippery elm and concoct poultices, syrups and salves to soothe the wounds of the men in their care. I'd even miss Katherine and her crazy ways. And what about the prisoners? What would become of their escape plans?

As Warren approached, I tried not to stare directly at him. And, as the procession approached there was some commotion to the side of the clearing. A horse had moved too quickly towards the water trough and upset another one drinking. The soldiers fell in line to water their horses and briefly, for just a few seconds I found his face again above the din. I wasn't even going to look him in the eye, but once he was about four yards away, I had to. I was locked into the moment like a barnacle fixed to rock. His eyes drew me in, welcomed me to him and told that he knew, like I did, that this love was not over; it was not the end of us. There, in that brief space, we found one another in the greater universe beyond, beyond seasons and sorrows, even beyond time itself to the deeper core of each other.

Warren looked down from Ches' saddle and captured all of me with his eyes. Aware of those around him, he caught my glance like a handhold on a granite cliff, just barely, and seemed relieved for the respite. I responded in kind. The magnetism of our physical bodies, harnessed, was then diffused into the light within our eyes. In that moment, that shared look crossed over time and substance, reached into each of us and found a richness that nearly drowned us with it. Like an enormous wave that bounds through miles of open sea then crashes into shattered foam, our gaze slowly dissolved back into its dynamic depths, lost to time itself.

Fortunately, for both of us, the activities of the exchange had distracted the others. That moment surely went undetected by anyone else. It was ours alone. I can still recall it vividly.

General Lee must have been a betting man. If he hadn't been, he'd have been thirty miles south instead of in the rolling hills around Sharpsburg, given the fact that his army was outnumbered by McClellan some four to one. But, he'd bet that McClellan's slow style coupled with the Halleck's cautious nature would mean they'd move their Union men in about as fast as if all they had to do was watch corn grow. Halleck was in fact the Commander of all the Union armies but still Lee was right. McClellan's army approached Sharpsburg from Washington so cautiously that it took over two and a half days to arrive.

Furthermore, with the work of Stonewall Jackson and JEB Stuart, Robert E. Lee learned that George McClellan had somehow intercepted his plans for Maryland and also that Harper's Ferry had been captured by the Confederates. That gave Lee the upper hand in offensive strategy, and he wasn't the kind to turn around and retreat. Not General Lee. And definitely not in his first major attack of the North.

_Near Antietam Creek Lee's men formed a line of incoming divisions who had marched hard from Harper's Ferry and who would face the incoming enemy, the Union troops under McClellan. If his plan didn't work, Lee's men could be forced back to the Potomac River. But he was willing to accept the risk. It was simple. When it came to the Union command, General Lee was willing to accept the risk_.

## CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

With newspaper reports and descriptions as my only source of information, I imagined what Warren had gone through in the days that followed. His orders were to follow Antietam Creek, and cross the Potomac. He must have pursued a course followed by the caravan of supply wagons that had ridden the train as far as they could and then covered the last of the overland terrain by foot. Ragged reinforcements created clouds of dust as they marched along rutted roads while orders were barked from the throats of fellow officers like wild shots fired into the air. Few recruits were available, especially from Maryland where the people had seen soldiers looking more like skeletons or scarecrows, than militia.

How could Warren have anticipated what the men's' needs would be? They couldn't have known until the outcome of the battle what was genuinely needed: train loads of medicines, tourniquets, caskets and manpower to bury the dead for both sides. Frustration and horror were found in a stark statistic —more than 22,000 men died in a single day in the battle that the South called Sharpsburg and the North echoed, Antietam.

***

October passed and with each nightfall, a full day closer to winter. In a New York City gallery, Matthew Brady displayed an exhibition of photographs entitled: "The Dead of Antietam."

The photos were the most graphic depictions of war ever shown, the way war was remembered by those who had been there; a war beyond comprehension.

Some viewers commented that the photographs seemed to breathe by themselves despite their representation of the breathless. Collapsed noses, mutilated limbs, and the gaping mouths of what must have once been men, made the public gasp. For the first time in American history, Brady had displayed haunting documentary photographs of war. They were, arguably, worse than the imagination could conjure. A viewer could try to turn away, but would never be able to forget the black and white images that hung starkly alone on the gallery walls screaming out in ranges far beyond human hearing. The exhibition spoke clearly: the war was chewing up the youth of the North as well as the South, chewing unmercifully, and then disgorging those future laborers and lovers, regardless of sentiment, like so much fill on the side of a road. Well-worn men, with orifices like leather who had slept in bogs for months along with all that crawled and bit, were now in the autumn light, stiff and twisted like spent corn stalks plowed into the earth. The fields and earth were fertilized by their blood and their bones, its soil irreverent of their loves and passions, their beloveds, their motivations and their personal epiphanies.

The war had come clearly into focus in the Brady exhibition, captured by an apparatus that for the first time depicted the terror of war itself: the camera. Brady's exhibition exposed yet another truth. The North's window of opportunity had closed during the Spring of 1862 when it was reported that McClellan chose to have his troops sleep in the hills around the Southern capital for three months while contemplating his troop numbers. That October, with Autumn finding its fingers into the woods and fields of Virginia and Pennsylvania, and over the mountains to Tennessee and beyond, the black and white images of Brady's battalions echoed the coming crack and curl of winter and the pangs of hungry Rebels and cold, isolated Federals.

## CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

November crept in with a tease. Warm autumn days tangled with cool, damp nights that made sleeping in canvas tents nearly manageable. I had done as I was told and returned north, making my way to Massachusetts, to my father's home. Warren had relayed the prisoner trade to Katherine who knew well that she had to try to find Sarah and that if she returned she was risking her life.

But it was Sarah who relayed to me what happened that November night in the thick woods around Westerly prison.

Within a mile of the little town's border five male prisoners and a woman, dressed as a young Confederate private, made their way through patches of bog and forest seeking a man on horseback who would lead them to the line where they could cross and escape. A man in the uniform of Captain of the Confederacy was the guide they sought in the patchy fog that night, a man whom only they would recognize. Word among the prisoners was that he had known the woman spy, Ann Cunningham, and was present at the prisoner trade; the event that some of the prisoners could see from their cells facing the yard. She was the same woman who had visited them with herbs and made salves for their wounds and chest coughs. And she was the same woman who had, several months back, brought a basket of eggs with her on her rounds into the prison and handed the basket to Jess, a tall man, dark and lean, a leader among the men being held in Westerly prison.

"Check the marked one," she had whispered, looking at him sternly and catching his eyes with her own. The egg, marked by soil, was lighter than the others and had a tiny hole pricked into it at one end. In cracking it open, Jess found a map, rolled long and thin, sketched by her own hand no doubt, that showed a path of sorts that could lead them beyond Westerly, through the woods, over a creek and then skirted Marsh Station. A safe house was depicted farther east and then the path swung north to the border where the group was headed.

The young disguised Private, a female scout if anyone looked closely, was to meet up with the group in the woods, and then turn the group to over to the Captain.

"Jess, are you sure this is the way to go?" asked a thin companion, older in appearance than his twenty-four years.

"Hush, I told you 'no talking' or we'd get ourselvfs killt." Jess whispered hoarsely. "Jus' 'cause it sounds quiet don't mean we're alone. It's not like I've been here before 'ya know Pay 'tention now and watch where ya walk. If ya get sucked into a bog we're not goin' ta wait and pull ya out."

That comment seemed to make all the men more thoughtful about the sounds they made. Eventually they came to a glade and skirted the edges, staying back in the brush as best they could. The night appeared to be clearing slowly, and up ahead, farther away from the path, they could barely see a shadowed figure. Their guide, the Private, had signaled them forward with a single motion of the hand. 'This way,' the gesture informed them. Moving along a thin path the soldier led them deeper into the forest until the men could see a dim light up ahead. The lantern light bounced off a patch of fog thereby, seeming bigger than itself. Walking towards it, they could see the figure of a man standing next to his horse in silhouette. As he mounted the horse, he nodded slightly to their soldier-guide in acknowledgement, and then pointed to the left, down a new path, thus distinguishing himself as their new guide. A lantern lit low swayed gently from the perch at the side of his sturdy, leather saddle. Walking the horse, the Captain moved farther away and deeper into the woods. They followed the lantern light, their only visible clue to their path in the hazy fog.

Having accomplished the assigned task, the young soldier stepped back from the trail and found a tree with a few low branches for climbing. As she recalled this part of the story for me later, Sarah was the one dressed as a Confederate Private. She climbed the tree to get a better view of what was ahead. From an owl's perch in the tree, she saw the line of men moving through the foggy forest like a single strand of a spider's web, covered with dew at dawn.

Then she saw what followed, even through the mist. She recounted it all for me weeks later when she was able to return to Massachusetts in secret, of course.

"After mounting his horse Warren's hand reached to his chest pocket and gave it a pat as if assuring himself that something was still secured inside. No sooner had his hand returned to the rein when the bullet struck him. It struck hard in his chest with an explosion that seemed to echo off the fog itself."

Into and through the black forest the ring of gunfire reverberated and hung in her ears. She described nearly collapsing out of the tree, but quickly steadied herself. At the sound of the bullet, Ches responded with a full gallop and raced deeper into the woods, stopping when she felt the weight of her rider lighten, far enough away from the prison group to allow them to hide as dawn approached. The picket probably never even knew of the prisoners' presence.

***

It was the middle of the night, the same night of his death, now I know. In father's house in Massachusetts, I sat up in bed with a start. Something had awakened me. A lingering crash of some sort. Could it be an intruder? Stepping down out of bed I listened to the quiet of the house; a ticking clock was the only distinguishing sound I heard but straining to know what had created the crash, I anxiously walked to the hallway and listened. Nothing.

Carrying our house cat over to the window and cradling her to my chest, I looked out at the November night. Large puffy clouds shimmered as they moved across the dark velvet sky, dancing across the brilliant heaven.

"I wonder what he's thinking right now," I whispered. As I stood there holding the cat; I closed my eyes remembering Warren's touch. His scent was at the edge of my memory, fading slightly, and I tried urgently to recapture all my memories of him so as not to give those thoughts back to the tide of time. Would more months pass and my intimate memories fade or could I, by repeating them to myself, keep them sharp and strong and clear?

Even then, I thought I'd see him again.

## CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

NEW YEAR'S EVE 1862

Watch Night

Late autumn found me back in coastal northern Massachusetts. In my trip north to get home, I'd seen chevrons of geese pass overhead on their way to milder marshes. During the months that followed I thought often of the Virginia climate and my winter garden in Marsh Station. In New England, I wouldn't see any soil for at least four months, and then only if I was lucky. After Thanksgiving, Sarah too, had returned and in that homecoming, she filled me in on her experiences working with the prisoners whom I had been forced to abandon.

"When I first returned to Marsh Station one night from points farther south," she told me, "I went up to your little house and saw that it looked different. I had an eerie feeling that you weren't there, that you were gone. Having had no news, I decided that I'd check in at the Three Lanterns to see what Kate knew before I made myself at home. I'm glad I did. It probably saved my life."

She continued. "I'd never met Kate, but it wasn't too hard to tell who she was. It was evening and her peacock-colored dress along with her hostess airs allowed me to find her among the crowd. I was still dressed as a young Confederate private with my hair cut short, and I slunk down at the bar where the barkeep helped me get a moment with Kate.

Once I told her who I was, she sequestered me off to a room down the hallway where we could speak privately."

Putting a hand on my shoulder she spoke very directly. "Sarah," she said. "Annie told me all about you. But, I'm afraid that I have some bad news about your sister. I think you should sit down here." She motioned to two chairs by the window. She went on, "She was arrested last month, taken to the prison and then, luckily, traded for some Confederate. She was forced to leave Virginia and I believe that she must have headed home," Kate said.

The story unfolded from there. For the few weeks that followed, Kate allowed Sarah to stay at The Three Lanterns, to try to complete my work and arrange her role in the whole thing. Unfortunately, Sarah had never had the opportunity to meet Warren. Kate and Warren wanted it that way so that she would in no way, be jeopardized. In fact, no one but the two of them, and the doctor who had treated Sarah's leg in the spring knew that Sarah and I were sisters. Kate then finalized the escape plan, detailing when and where to meet the prisoners. Warren had wanted to assist, and he insisted that he be the one to lead them on the first leg of their journey after Sarah led them away from the prison. Of course, he'd figured out that Kate, too, helped the Union all she could but I'm sure he kept that information to himself.

Finally, once home in Massachusetts, after the first few days I begged Sarah to tell me what she saw on the night Warren was shot. I asked her to tell me every detail.

"It's all I've got to go on," I said. "I've got to know everything. Please, Sarah."

Finally, she relented and told me everything she could recall, even the conversations of the prisoners, which I must admit, made me laugh.

Sarah told me what I needed to hear: That his death was swift. With a wound like that, she was convinced that he died immediately.

"I wanted to retrieve his body and bury him properly, but it was far too risky. So I waited in the woods all night to determine what to do next," she said. By morning a group of Rebel soldiers on reconnaissance perhaps, found Ches who had circled back and had not left Warren's side all night. Then, they found his body and removed it, taking him back to the Officer's barn, I imagine.

"Annie, I hate to tell you all this, but you must know. It was horrible, waiting, hiding up in the tree, waiting for the picket to leave, seeing if the prisoners could stay quiet. After I saw a small group of men leave, his killer among them undoubtedly, I quickly climbed down and ever so quietly, tiptoed through the dark night trying to find where he lay. With the fog having lifted, I found him, and checked his neck for a pulse, but there was none."

Once Sarah told me all that, of Warren lying in the forest, and the manner in which he died, I was overcome with grief of my own, but still I couldn't begin to imagine how difficult that time must have been for Sarah. A night of sitting there, thinking of what she could possibly do in that situation. I had trouble collecting my thoughts. My only alternative was to retreat to my room for several days. Sarah brought me meals and sat by me for hours at a time. It was a time to think and recall, to recount and remind myself of our times together.

For a few days, I couldn't speak. I could only think and record my thoughts of him in a journal, in phrases, like flashes of memory frozen in words on a page. I kept asking myself: Why had he done that? He didn't have to help with the prisoners. He could have ignored everything: my work... Katherine's work... and just played out his role in the war. If he had done that, he might have lived, and come home to me.

On the second morning of my retreat, I awoke with an answer. Warren had believed in my work, he'd believed in my convictions and I know now that he must have begun to believe in his own. He wasn't content to just see the war through. He had to continue my work too. I was convinced then, that he did it for both of us, for the prisoners themselves, and the Union effort on the whole. He believed that we would be together and we'd have come to the same conclusion about the importance of the Union and in fighting for freedom, freeing both sides from the demands and the disparity of slavery.

I found comfort in recounting our months together, three seasons, bringing those days and nights to mind. I guess I thought that if I replayed those memories enough times that not one shred of detail would ever fade and I could hold onto him, to us, that way. From that first night at The Three Lanterns when he bought me a drink, to the morning he walked Ches by the house, I fell in love with the man. I remembered my surprise at seeing his place card at Lucy's party and then dinner with Kate and her companion. His timely visits when I least expected him, and our trip to Ashburg and Jake's house. Each touch, each kiss, our berry pie in the swing, our mornings of love and tea and more love.

From my room in those days of mourning, the future stood in front of me, feeling desolate, isolated, empty.

I did emerge but stayed close to the house for weeks, finding comfort in quiet activities, spending time with my father and Sarah, preparing foods and knitting by the fire.

Christmas passed quietly in the company of a few of my father's friends around a delicious but simple meal in the afternoon.

By the time New Year's Eve came, Watch Night, as we called it that year, Sarah and I braved the weather and attended church together. While standing along with the rest of the congregation, she reached for my hand and squeezed it hard.

Nudging her shoulder I said, "Happy New Year, Sarah. Thank you so much for coming home to keep me company." We exchanged reserved smiles, wondering what the New Year might bring.

Low doors on each boxed pew closed at waist height to conserve heat from the foot warmers that each family brought along in their sleigh. Candlelight lit up the large hall, where at each window, three candles' heat frosted the panes. It had been frigid for the last few weeks and we'd had a snow covered Christmas. But despite the cold no one we knew would have missed this Watch Night celebration in our stately wooden church on the hill. The congregation that night was a mix of white and black parishioners; many of the community members having joined the efforts of the local Abolitionists. We sang a Quaker hymn then sat down to listen to the minister. I still remember that moment as I might remember one of Brady's snapshots.

"Good Evening everyone," he said. "Tonight is Watch Night. Tonight we stand on the precipice of a new year. We stand together among scores of candles, thereby remembering among us the lights who have guided our paths over the last few, very difficult years. Many among us have taken dangerous paths to free our brothers and sisters, and many more have lent us their support.

Tonight these candles, just look at them lighting our sanctuary, these candles and their light are symbolic of the thousands of men and indeed, women, who have died in this war for freedom and human dignity, taking risks that no one could imagine or even predict were possible. _Why_ you ask? Because of their convictions, pure and simple. The convictions that distinguish them as human beings with purpose. They knew what they had to do and they acted on it. As a result, many thousands more are free, or will be.

Since the war began, Mr. Lincoln has called it a war to preserve the Union. But tonight as we review this year, 1862, we know that a real Union cannot be preserved or created if some of us are listed as property and slaves, while others are considered masters and free. The President's proclamation, _The Proclamation to Emancipate the Slaves_ , though many say it will free no man, no woman, and no child, will turn the tide, it will create the motivation, through recognition, that freedom is the true cause of this War; the true cause of why so many have given their lives. Freedom is the truth behind our democracy and on that note, there is no compromise.

Since the Proclamation takes effect in just a few hours, after midnight, we can expect its results to be gradual, though we'd like them to happen right away. We wish for fortitude and continued courage. We pray for a deep abiding strength that encourages both North and South to look to a world beyond slave labor, a world created on the notion of dignity and respect for one another, a world where economies are built, not on the backs of slaves bought and sold, but on strong products and competitive markets where the goods, not the people are bought and sold.

Our brothers and sisters, black and white, who have worked for the cause of freedom, are represented here. A flame lights a room without distinction for the race or skin color of those within it. Look around you, all around you, for all these candles have names...the names of people living or dead who have worked to bring dignity and return wholeness to our nation. Alone their light is meager but together, indeed, they light up the world. Attach a name to each one. Name a candle representing someone you know who housed or guided others to safety, risking everything, everything, to do so. And then, name a candle for those you'll never know —those who sleep on the ground tonight far from their homes and those who have died in battles past and who will perish in the battles yet to be fought —they are here in the light. Yes, indeed, the unnamed are surely here among us tonight as well."

Outside beyond each window, in the dark night, large lacy flakes fell over the land with a hush. Sturdy oak limbs creaked in the tight coldness while horses with snow covered blankets stomped and snorted, waiting.

I felt it. There would be a new year, a new life just below the horizon.

## CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Maryland 1891

Hesitantly, I followed Edward into Lydia Dodd's sickroom. I knew that if I stepped quietly and left quickly enough, I could have run back down the broad staircase and out the front door before Edward even noticed I was gone. But, had I done that I would always wonder why Lydia has called me there at all. So instead, I lingered at the threshold of her room, smelling the pungent bite of camphor, and then I entered. Lydia must have been ill for several weeks, or longer. An array of tinctures and ointments met my eye. Bottles of various elixirs and tonics lined her bureau and each of two bedside tables.

In contrast, a fresh bouquet of flowers sat at the window, brightening the gloom somewhat. Yet, the still, sharp air hung with melancholy and an acceptance that a life would be ending, perhaps that very day. I was ushered to a chair in front of the bed where the dying woman lay.

"Mrs. Dodd? Miss Cunningham is here to see you," said Edward in a hushed voice. Then he turned and promptly left. It was just Lydia and me on a quiet spring morning sitting there together in her sickroom.

Quite frail, Lydia turned her head on its thin neck to face me and opened her eyes. She looked much older than her years. Her skin, thin like fine parchment, was draped on her bones and her eyes registered a flash of confusion for a moment as she looked at me. Then, after several attempts, she managed to speak.

"Well, we finally meet after all these years, Miss Cunningham." Her voice was withered and hoarse, yet she continued slowly. "Undoubtedly, you know exactly who I am by now so I don't have to introduce myself," Lydia said wryly. "You may wonder how I found you."

"I must say I was quite surprised to receive your messenger, and I didn't know that you were _looking_ for me, Lydia."

"It was your picture in the newspaper, the one with your daughter along with an article about your work. When it mentioned your names and the reference to the war, it was all I needed to know just who and where you were," she explained.

I could see the perseverance that it took for Lydia Dodd to speak at all, much less to speak the words that she had struggled to formulate through the fog of drugs and dying. And I admired her for it.

She continued, "For many years, I was a bitter woman. Bitter towards you, a woman whom I had never met or known at any time, bitter for the loss of my husband, and bitter for the loss of our future and the hope that we would raise a family together." She paused for a while, looking around, catching her breath, for she had started to wheeze slightly. "I never intended to call you here. But, you see, I _have_ something of yours. At least something that rightly belongs to you. And now that this is all falling behind me, all the bitterness and emotions I held onto for so long, I feel that I must return to you that which is solely yours."

As she said this, Lydia pointed a long finger towards the window. Her thin pointer finger appeared so frail, that had it been a twig it would have snapped with the weight of even a hummingbird. My eyes followed Lydia's direction and there, off to the side and beneath the window sill was something that I hadn't noticed when I first entered the room: my old yellow trunk. Indeed, it was the very same trunk that I had been forced to leave behind years ago in Virginia. Like seeing an old worn friend, it appeared to be nearly as I had left it, the paint more faded but it had survived the years intact, an artifact from my life long ago. For a moment it seemed that the past and the present were without distinction as two sides of a single vessel, interior and exterior, part of a whole.

"They brought it to me along with a flag after Warren died," Lydia continued. "Said it was found in his horse's stall and should be returned home." Her frail voice flattened and she added, "Along with the flag, they gave me these."

Reaching for a packet from the bedside table, she pushed a small bundle of letters towards me. They were stained with brown marks and a large splotch that looked like dried blood. Staring at the "W" on the top envelope, I recognized the unsigned letters I'd left behind in the basement of the cottage so long ago. He'd found them and read them. After so many years, I knew then that he'd died knowing how I'd wished for a future together with him after the war, a future, a home, and children.

"They were found on his person after he was shot," Lydia explained. "They were delivered here. _Misdelivered_ with your trunk."

Poor Lydia. It couldn't have been easy receiving those things. Her kindness was clear and her bitterness was clearly gone.

I could see that she was drifting off. Her eyelids were closing and her voice had slowed, grown very quiet, until she was silently mouthing a few lost syllables, then she fell back to sleep. Gratefully, I sat for a moment in the quiet with my thoughts and memories as Lydia slept. Occasionally, sounds from the servants downstairs drifted upwards and I imagined for a moment that this was my home and that I had lived here with Warren and our children, but I meant no irreverence by it. A clock ticked somewhere and reminded me that my time was limited so I rose from my chair, crossed the room and approached the trunk. I knelt down, paused and with a tug, I lifted the heavy latch and then the lid.

An ageless scent of cedar juxtaposed the must of peeling stamps from destinations all over the world. Indeed, I was back in Virginia with Warren. I imagined his hands first around my shoulders, where he'd gather my hair into a tail with one hand and lift my chin to his with the other. My auburn hair was long then, and wavy; my eyes a lighter blue. My small, slim figure seemed a perfect fit for his large, angular frame, two pieces of a puzzle. As if in Warren's presence again, I breathed deeply trying to find his scent in the ether of memory, but I could not.

With a tight gasp, I lifted my old flowered dress from its resting place and found, tucked just inside the bodice, a yellowed envelope. Gently pulling it from the fabric as though it might dissolve and vanish back into the past, I spotted an "A" on the front of the envelope that caught my eye.

Warren had penned me a letter, one that I'd never seen. I sat back on the floor and smoothed the paper with my hands as if feeling his skin once again. I couldn't resist putting the sheath to my face, closing my eyes, imagining his scent. Strands of sunlight poured through the window as my eyes blurred and filled with tears. Opening that letter in Lydia's room may have been damnable, but as I listened to the quiet breathing of the woman behind me, I knew that I had a few moments to ingest its words, and after nearly three decades, I was entitled to them. I had waited long enough.

Opening the envelope quite gingerly I paused to listen again to the sound of the house and of Lydia's quiet breathing. Then I read:

Annie:

Who knows when or how you will receive this letter? If I have the opportunity to deliver it to you myself, I imagine that the war will be ended, finally resolved, and that I have arrived with a bouquet of flowers asking if you will agree to stay with me. There are a few things I need to tell you. I just wish I could say them to you in person.

Until I met you, I'd never been able to express much of anything to anyone. Now, I realize why. It's because I've never really known how to feel at all, as if doing so would make me vulnerable to pain, so I resisted feeling much of anything. I went along without any real understanding of my convictions.

However Annie, as I spent time with you, whether it was watching you in your garden, or in the kitchen cooking a meal or making concoctions for the hospital, you always showed a genuine sense of spirit; a love of life that inspired others. Annie, your compassion, strength and empathy towards the wounded, whether wounded by gun fire or another's greed , brought me to a place where I could look at myself differently. Indeed, by knowing you, I've changed.

You see, in you I've found a person of wit and charm and radiance, a woman imbued with an overpowering sense of love for what is good and what is right. And, because of our love, the love that we've built in this short time, I am empowered to get through all this and not give in to my despair or malaise. My only hope besides seeing you again is that I can pick up your work where you left off. I will do that. My convictions have changed and I will take on your work as best I can, knowing full well that every action we take, no matter how small, can have an impact on another's life.

It is my hope that there is a bottom to this pit of war. I've concluded that if we humans do have several life times then we are intended to forget them one by one, degree by degree to allow the pain of each lifetime to fade. Indeed, the effects of this war's agony could be enough to keep new souls from choosing to be born for a while.

"But that's not how it goes," you'd say, "Love is perpetuated through life." Then I'd smile at you and mane you hair and kiss you again, thanking you for that essential reminder. I deeply hope that someday my father's home can be our home and the home of our children. That is what I want. And to see you again.

Yours with all my love,

Warren

By the end of the letter I was wet with my own tears. They'd found their way to my chin. Reaching in my pocket for a handkerchief I patted my nose and face as the tears continued to flow.

I wept for all we had had and I wept for all we had lost.

***

Lydia didn't awaken when Edward came in to inquire after me. He simply asked, "May I assist you, Madame?"

"Yes, I'm ready to go," I replied trying to hide my face from him. I glanced toward Lydia and then back at the trunk. "Could you take this to my carriage please, Edward?" touching the trunk with one hand and holding Warren's letter in the other.

"Certainly, Miss Cunningham," he said. Deftly, despite his age, Edward picked up the trunk by its worn leather handles and proceeded to carry it into the hallway.

Behind him, I paused at Lydia's bedside for a moment. With her chin angled away from me, her breathing was timid. I turned to go, and then I paused, moving back towards her bed.

Reaching gently for her hand I whispered, "Thank you Lydia, thank you so very much."

At the bottom landing, I paused again, taking in Warren's portrait. I found it haunting how the artist had captured his demeanor in oils. The glint in his eye was a dab of white paint or was it a reflection from the oil lamp perched across the hallway? I looked at the light, then back to the oil painting before taking my leave, with his letter still my hand, I silently thanked him and instinctively put it to my lips and proceeded towards the door.

Reaching the carriage, I saw that the driver was busy lashing the yellow trunk to the back end of the carriage while Edward spoke with you, a tall, beautiful woman in your late twenties.

As I write this and remember his portrait, I see that your eyes are just like your father's.

Approaching, I turned to look at Edward who handed me my coat and gloves and said, "I see that you've met my daughter, Charlotte Dodd."

Looking up, Edward smiled at us. "Yes indeed, Miss Cunningham." Then he turned to me and said, "Mrs. Dodd has asked that I give you this letter explaining that she wants Mr. Dodd's daughter, his only child, to inherit the house and its contents."

Turning to you, Charlotte, I'll never forget how you looked. We were both in shock, I'm sure when Edward added, "Her attorney will be contacting you after her passing." Then he kindly added, "I hope to see you both again as that time comes."

***

This early summer night of writing has seen two tides and the marsh birds are restless with the early light of dawn. A retreating current brings the salty scent up on the wind again and as my memories have been recorded here for you, I must sleep now. I was determined to write down these details over the last few weeks for you, Charlotte, so that you may know every fiber of this tale as I do. For this is also _your_ story, and as so, it is my gift to you. You see, I am convinced that only because of each other, are we ourselves.

## About the Author:

Pamela Erickson is an artist and librarian who lives in northern Massachusetts with her husband and pets. Having taught for over 30 years, she seeks writing as a form of reflection, exploration, conversation and solace. _Each Other_ is her first novel.
