“Sergeant Joshua Wheeler of the First Ohio, sir. Taken prisoner of the Army of Tennessee after Chickamauga and had my wounds tended by a Reb sawbones.” He lifted the partial limb and was satisfied to see respect and not a little regret in the officer’s gaze. “The night before the Federals retook Lookout Mountain, a company of us made our escape, helped by Miss MacFarlane here, and her brother.” He nodded toward Clem. “So I most respectfully request, sir, that you show this family all deference for their grace and hospitality.” He hesitated. “Despite the fact that they’ve family members fighting on the Confederate side.”
The officer shook his head then regarded the others thoughtfully. “We’ll escort these men back as prisoners, and I’ll get authorization to use this house for—well, more Federal wounded, I suppose.” He eyed Pearl, still nestled in Josh’s arms, but quiet now and obviously listening. “Would that be acceptable to you, Miss—did you say MacFarlane?”
After a moment’s hesitation, she nodded, then lifted her head, swiping at her cheeks. “It would, sir. Thank you.”
“And—my condolences on the passing of your father, miss.”
She sniffled but held steady. “Thank you for that as well.”
As the Federal cavalrymen rounded up the Rebels, Clem came closer. “Is it true, Pearl? About Pa?”
She nodded, shuddering against Josh. “It is.” She struggled with her next words but choked out, “Could—could you go fetch Jeremiah and Lydia? I think they returned home this afternoon.”
Clem nodded, his own face tight with the threat of weeping, and mounted the horse they’d ridden in on.
With a long sigh, Pearl took Josh by the hand and tugged him inside the house. “Come.”
He let her lead him through the sitting room, empty and clean save for the beds still standing along the wall, and to her pa’s bedroom. There, the elder Mr. MacFarlane lay, pale and gaunt but with an expression that spoke of near happiness.
“Do you see?” Pearl breathed, her voice trembling again. “The last words he heard from me were Psalm 23. ‘I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.’ He’s at peace. After all he’s suffered.”
For lack of anything better to say, he drew her back into his arms. The weeping returned, but not with the storm of earlier.
“He asked after you,” she murmured after a moment. “He wanted to know whether ‘that red-haired Yankee’ would return to read to him.”
“Oh Pearl.”
“He … approved of you,” she went on, “or would have, if there had been time and opportunity—and understanding on his part.” She swallowed. “He … faded so much these past few days. But today, he wanted me to read psalms to him. So I did.”
Josh tucked her closer. “Is there anyone I should speak to about asking for your hand in marriage?”
She gave a little hiccup, which sounded suspiciously like a laugh. “My older brother, I suppose. But—perhaps you might start with—me.”
A grin pulled at his mouth as he drew back to look at her. Remembered abruptly to pull off his hat and comb at his hair, likely a futile effort.
Pearl’s eyes brimmed with mingled hope and apprehension. Her lips trembled.
“Pearl MacFarlane,” he said. “Oh, Pearl of great price. Would you—”
To his acute distress, she dissolved again into tears.
“What is it, sweetheart?”
“He—Pa—” She gulped, trying to get the words out. “That was Pa’s pet name for me.”
A soundless oh escaped him, but she put a hand out and clutched his sleeve.
“No, it’s … all right. I don’t mind. It’s just …”
He relaxed, this time reaching to smooth back a few loose strands of her hair. “I’m glad. Because you are of very great worth to me, Rebel girl.” When she regained some semblance of control, he went on. “Will you, then, do me the very great honor of becoming my own Rebel bride?”
At that, she did laugh through the tears, then leaned her forehead on his shoulder.
He realized she was slowly shaking her head, back and forth.
“How?” she said. “How can we make this work, Josh? I am—well, you know what I am. My allegiance to the Confederacy has not changed one whit, except that I long even more for all true Christian men to cease taking up arms against their brothers. But—where will we live? If the Union prevails, Southern sentiment will die hard here in Tennessee. In Georgia too, I reckon. None here would easily accept my marrying one that they consider an invader of our country. But … I’m afraid to come North. Would your family accept a Secessionist? Especially if your mother had her heart set on you marrying a cousin as well.”
Fair questions, all. Most echoed his own thoughts. But the only reply he could summon in the moment was to tip her face up toward his and to claim those sweet lips.
The fact that she responded as if already pledged to him helped not a bit.
“You can’t kiss me that way and not say yes,” he said at last, his own breathing ragged.
“I know,” she said mournfully.
“Can we at least agree to trust, if this is right and ordained of God Himself, that He’ll make a way?”
Pearl sighed, her fingers twining through his hair and beard. Leaned her forehead against his shoulder again. She had to trust. What other choice was there? But she just couldn’t say the words. Not yet.
Josh let out a long, uneven breath, and his arms loosened around her. “I’m sorry. It’s all too much right now, isn’t it?”
She couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe. Don’t leave me, she wanted to plead.
All she could do was take Josh’s hand and lead him this time out to the kitchen, where she pulled two chairs close together and gestured for him to take one.
They sat, side to side, and once more his arms came around her. She sank against him, breathing in the scent of woodsmoke and the outdoors, and something else that was uniquely Josh. Soon enough the others would be back, and the rush of life would pick them up and fling them downstream. All she wanted was to savor the moment.
“I still can’t believe you’re here,” she said, at last.
His lips moved against her temple. “I am.”
“I suppose you have to go, soon.”
A tiny shake of his head. “No. A doctor examined me but refused to put me back on duty. So there’s nowhere I have to be right now, other than here. Unless—unless you want me to leave.”
The terrible tightness in her breast began to ease. “No. I—” Her breath caught. “I want to trust, Josh. I do.”
“God will make a way,” he whispered.
She leaned closer. “I pray so.”
Could that be enough for them, for now?
He pressed another kiss to her forehead. “Would you have shot me, earlier?” his voice rumbled, under her ear.
Tilting her head, she peeked up at him. “You? Never. The others? Possibly.”
He laughed and shook his head. “I should not find that so amusing, but I do.”
An answering smile came to her own lips, in spite of herself. “I have a great-aunt who fed her future husband at gunpoint, the first time they met.”
Josh straightened enough to look at her. “What?”
“Yes. It’s true.”
Another laugh. “Mm, so I should expect more of this sort of behavior from you?”
“Likely so. I am not, after all, a lady of genteel breeding. I’m told my grandparents were quite wild, as well, having both suffered captivity with the Shawnee.”
She loved the sound of his chuckle, under her cheek.
“Well,” he said, “I suppose that’s some proof that we should suit very well. Our family is fond of whispering about how my grandpa Sam, during his wagonmaster days before the American Revolution, doubled as a masked vigilante—with a whip. My grandma fell in love with him before she found out he was someone she already knew.”
It was Pearl’s turn to sit up and stare. “A whip?”
“Yes, a long bullw
hip. He died when I was very young, but I remember how good he was with it, right up until the end. I used to practice for hours and never could match what I saw him do.” Josh smiled. “I should probably give it another try.” His gaze fell. “Once I get back home. If I get back home.”
A shadow crossed his face. Pearl reached up to touch his cheek again, and his eyes came back to hers.
“Pearl. Please—I want only you—”
She put her lips to his for a moment to silence him. That dratted tightness had returned to her throat, but saying the words at last felt right. “You’ll get back home,” she whispered. “And I would be honored to go with you, when that time comes, if God makes a way.”
The dark eyes widened, his lips parting a moment before he swooped in and kissed her, at once tender and desperate.
Mercy, but right or wrong, hopeless or not, she did want to be his wife.
And she wasn’t sure she could get enough of his kisses.
Pearl smoothed out the skirts of the blue dress, held wide by her corded petticoat, and adjusted the cameo and collar at her throat. After all this time, she could not help but think of Mama and that dream.
“What our Lord has for you lies out there.”
She smiled, closed her eyes for a moment, then met her own gaze in the oak-framed glass hanging on the wall.
The Lord had made a way so far, after all.
Jeremiah, Lydia, and the children had returned to the house and helped wash and dress Pa’s body, and they’d all seen to his burying. Reverend Mason had conducted the burial—a simple, private affair, with the entire countryside in mourning over Chattanooga’s final fall to the Union, as the entire Confederate army retreated into Georgia. Josh stayed long enough to stand by Pearl’s side through all of it, and then, having if not Jeremiah’s express permission to marry Pearl, at least without her brother forbidding it, he returned to the Federal camps to see what could be arranged. And to Pearl’s astonishment, Josh had been granted a transfer to a regiment delegated to stay and keep the garrison at Chattanooga, at least through the winter, with promise of a month-long leave beginning in January. They would use that time to travel to Ohio as man and wife, for Pearl to meet his family.
Jeremiah had questioned Pearl hard about it, despite his former encouragement. “And what about Travis’s proposal?” he’d finished.
That had given Pearl pause. “I refused him once already,” she said. But nevertheless, when Portius returned with the distressing news that Travis had been taken prisoner and shipped out to some Yankee prison to the north but that Portius intended to find him and see to his welfare, Pearl sent along the message that she wished him well and would pray daily for his health and safety, but her heart had found its true home in a certain fiery-haired Yankee.
Because for better or worse—as she was about to vow, in spoken words—she knew that wherever Josh was, that was where she wanted to be, whether North or South or, as they’d been discussing more recently, out West once the war came to a close.
Or sooner, if the opportunity arose.
She and Clem and Jeremiah were still discussing what best to do with the farm, whether to sell or have Clem stay to work it. Jeremiah and Lydia were feeling the tug west as well. Pearl was inclined to recommend that they do whatever was necessary for them to live peaceably as man and wife in truth.
And that likely would never happen, here in southern Tennessee. Although Pearl had done her best to see that they were given at least a beginning.
A knock came on the door of what was once more her own bedroom. Lydia slipped inside and gave Pearl an approving smile. “It’s time.”
Pearl caught her breath, trying vainly to steady her suddenly racing pulse. “What our Lord has for you lies out there.” Or more properly, who the Lord had for her, and doubtless he was not only standing, but pacing.
“Come now,” Lydia said, her voice cajoling. “No more delay. Belonging to one man can be a very sweet thing.” Her teeth flashed white, the golden eyes sparkling.
“Even when that one man is my most difficult brother?” Pearl teased in return, despite her furious blush.
But Lydia just grinned all the more and held the door for Pearl.
She stepped through to the sitting room, hands knotted in her shawl, that beautiful Oriental piece Pa had paid a dear sum for years ago for Mama. And across the room, Josh turned, his neatly combed hair and beard so vivid in the gray of the misty day that he seemed to light the entire room on his own. Warm brown eyes met hers, widening, then crinkling in his own grin. He reached out his hand, and she crossed to him.
“Well then.” Reverend Mason cleared his throat. “Shall we begin?”
Jeremiah and Lydia stepped up beside her, similarly clasping hands. Pearl had bargained with the minister—threatened, more like—for his grudging agreement to read the marriage vows over her brother and Lydia at the same time he performed the service for her and Josh. To say the man was not happy about any of it was a sore understatement. But he also knew their family well enough to see that neither she nor Jeremiah would be swayed, and the prospect of Pearl traveling with a man not yet her husband and thus living in apparent sin, as he considered her brother had these past years, was enough to sway him. Not that Pearl would have necessarily followed through, although their status among neighbors had suffered enough already, she wasn’t sure she’d have minded.
And all she wanted, at this point, was to follow Josh wherever he might lead—and someday to where North and South did not matter.
HISTORICAL NOTE
I’ve often commented that history itself is too complex, too nuanced, for a novelist to do more than offer a snapshot, or maybe a series of snapshots, of any particular time period. The body of information available on the American Civil War is so vast that even if I’d been able to research nonstop from the moment I first learned I’d likely be writing this story, I wouldn’t have covered it all, much less absorbed everything needed to make every detail correct. I often feel crushed under the burden of my own craving for historical accuracy. Human experience being what it is, however, perfection is, in a word, impossible.
Also, war is terrible, the Civil War particularly so in many aspects.
The statistics alone are staggering. Losses from both sides total well over 600,000, perhaps as much as 750,000, more than the number killed in all America’s other wars combined. The dead and wounded in individual battles (which sometimes stretched over several days) numbered in the tens of thousands. The challenge of drawing a single story from the battles themselves, or from the overwhelming chaos and need afterward, felt so far beyond me, I despaired at times of even completing this work.
The story opens during and after the Battle of Chickamauga, which took place September 18–20, 1863, and is named for Chickamauga Creek (“River of Death” in the Cherokee tongue), flowing through the hills of northern Georgia up into the Tennessee River near Chattanooga, Tennessee. I chose this conflict because first, it garners little enough attention in works of fiction, and second, an interesting historical contradiction exists in the question of who won or who lost. It has been said that the Confederates won but thought they lost, while the Federals lost but thought they won. General Rosecrans of the Union forces had it in mind to take and hold Chattanooga, which he did (and initially without firing a shot). What he tried to do, however, was push the Confederate army, led by Braxton Bragg, southward into Georgia, only to find himself pushed back. The two armies stood at an impasse (really, a siege) for two long months, while Rosecrans was removed and General Grant put in his place. Another tactical push on the part of the Federals, referred to now as the Battles for Chattanooga, took place November 23–25, and what Rosecrans had initially attempted was actually accomplished by Grant, when Bragg withdrew his troops into Georgia.
For those interested in reading more, many excellent works are available. I would especially recommend those of David A. Powell, who has spent twenty years and more studying this particular set of battle
s. I wish I had discovered his work sooner! Among other things he addresses is something he refers to as the Myth of the “Cracker Line,” which basically deals with the assertion that Federal troops were starving during the Siege of Chattanooga and that relief came only with Grant’s arrival. Confederates had succeeded in cutting off Federal supply lines, naturally crucial for armies of any time but especially of that size, but Powell points out that even primary sources offer conflicting accounts of how dire was the situation behind Federal lines and that reports of need and starvation might have been exaggerated to add urgency to pleas for aid. I chose to be deliberately vague about this.
The situation of prisoners of war and whether exchanges and paroles were still commonly practiced at this time is also somewhat ambiguous. I learned that parole was simply a soldier being released with the promise that he would not return to fighting until being informed that he’d been formally exchanged as a prisoner. What this actually meant—whether soldiers went home or were still held elsewhere with a relative degree of liberty—is unclear. (It did seem to be halfway common for men to take advantage of parole and simply go home because they were weary of the fight, anyway.) My research tells me that most prisoner exchanges had been halted by this time because of the South’s refusal to treat Negro prisoners as anything but escaped slaves, but David A. Powell documents that several groups of wounded were exchanged in the days immediately after Chickamauga. We also know that in addition to the establishment of several temporary field hospitals (usually large tents capable of holding up to a hundred men, but often nothing so grand), public buildings and private residences alike were conscripted for use as hospitals. This was provenance enough for my situation of Pearl’s family being asked to host wounded prisoners, although in all honesty, the reality was far worse than I describe here. Perhaps Pearl and her family lived far enough out from everything going on to avoid the worst of it.
By all accounts, however, Confederates were still transferring Federal prisoners of war at this time to North Carolina and Virginia. Libby Prison in Richmond housed officers, while enlisted were placed in Belle Isle on the James River. Confederate wounded were often taken south into Georgia, to hospitals in Dalton and Atlanta, but the infamous Andersonville Prison wasn’t established until 1864.
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