Close-up
and Personal—
Drawing
Inspiration from the Harsh Reality of the Civil War
By
Mysti
Parker
If we compare our nation to those in the eastern hemisphere,
we might say we are lucky to have had only one war fought within our borders.
But the Civil War claimed more American lives than WWI & II, the Korean
War, and Vietnam combined. This war between our states has probably been
studied and reenacted by history enthusiasts more than any other conflict. A
million intriguing stories and other fascinating tidbits
can be found with a simple internet search. Yet, when we look through a
close-up lens, we discover the reality during the conflict and in the aftermath
is much less intriguing. It’s downright tragic.
The Southern states endured the most suffering, with women
being left behind to raise the children and run the farms when their men were
drafted into the fighting. The North cut off supply routes, and passing armies
often took what little livestock or crops they had to sustain themselves,
resulting in widespread hunger.
We don’t see the details of these stories in the history
books. We must turn to personal accounts to get a view from the inside. In “A
Woman’s Civil War”, for example, Cornelia Peake McDonald, a Confederate widow
from Virginia, kept a diary from the time her husband left for battle until
after the end of the war. She describes in detail the reality of rearing nine
children on her own, having to stand in line to get a little bread to feed
them, Union soldiers confiscating their home, and the death of her baby
girl.
From the soldiers’ point of view, those who were lucky enough
to make it home had a good chance of returning with a missing limb and a
morphine addiction, and to decimated farms and dead loved ones. We can imagine
the burden these veterans carried throughout the rest of their lives. How do
you rebuild and provide for your family when you are disabled and have no
money, materials, and very little help?
It is these personal stories of desperation and loss that
I’m drawing from to write “A Time for Everything”. There’s Portia McAllister, a
Confederate widow who lost her husband and only child, and Beau Stanford, a
Union veteran who came home to find his wife dead and his horse farm on the
verge of collapse. How will they find the strength and heart to love again when
the world they knew has been turned upside down and the battle of
Reconstruction has just begun?
I hope you’ll enjoy this excerpt from my work-in-progress,
and I hope you will see it in its entirety within the next year. In this
passage, Beau is recovering from an injury he received while saving Portia and
his son from an accident. While she sits at his bedside, they share some of the
horrors they faced during the war:
[Portia said,] “….During the war, men from both
sides found their way to my door, asking for help from me and Ellen. Some had
minor wounds that needed stitching. Others were starving. I did what I could,
but…”
“But what?”
She fiddled with the handkerchief on
her lap. “There’s always a cost.”
“Tell me. What happened?”
“Typhoid.” Fresh tears dripped from
her eyes as she twisted the handkerchief into a tight rope. “A Rebel soldier
came to the house sick. That’s how Abby took ill. I should have turned him
away. She’d still be here. My baby would still be here.”
She buried her face in her hands.
Wracking sobs shook her body. Beau pushed himself up, steadying himself as the
room wobbled. Reaching out, he took her in his arms and let her cry it out. He
stroked her half-fallen hair and rocked gently back and forth. Things like
money and marriage seemed trivial now; his heart ached for Po. On one level, he
understood her pain. He’d lost Claire, but to lose Jonny too? He’d have
probably put a bullet in his head.
“Shh. It’s not your fault. It’s
nobody’s fault. You did what you could, like any good woman would. And you put
yourself in harm’s way for my son. I can’t thank you enough for that.”
After a little while, her crying
subsided and her body relaxed, but she remained in his arms and rested her head
on his shoulder. Beau closed his eyes, glad that she felt comfort in his
embrace.
“Beau,” she said, her voice muffled
against his bare skin. “What was it like? The fighting, I mean. What was it
like out there?”
His jaw tightened, as did his hold
on Portia. “I don’t think you need to hear about all that now.”
“What are a few more tears in the
sea I’ve already shed?”
Elbows resting on his knees, he hung
his aching head. He’d never spoken about the specifics to anyone, not even
Harry, though they’d lived through the same hell together.
“I want to know,” she said, though
her voice quaked. “I heard the cannons and gunfire, and I heard stories from
the men who sought our help. But, Jake never talked about it in his letters,
and I never got the chance to ask him face to face. My mind sculpts images of
what he must have seen and felt, but I can’t sort truth from fiction. It haunts
me, not knowing, and I fear I may lose the courage to ask about it again.”
An inner war raged inside him, but
courage won the battle. Po’s husband fought and died out there, so she deserved
to know the truth of how things really were. Or at least part of it. He
swallowed hard and forced himself to speak.
He scratched the stubble on his jaw,
focusing on the rug and her little feet. “At first, we didn’t think the war
would amount to much. We enlisted and went through training, learned about
formation, how to use cover fire, things like that. It was all orders and
marching, forming columns and dressing the line. We got to know each other, and
we learned to hate the enemy.”
Portia let out a soft groan. He
looked up to see if he’d said too much. Her fingers curled around the ends of
the armrests with white-knuckled tension, and she averted her eyes. But, she
wasn’t leaving, and she wasn’t asking him to stop, so he continued.
“Once the real fighting began,
everything changed. One minute you’re cuttin’ up with your friends, and the
next minute, you’re watching them get blown apart. And you forget all the
strategy, you forget the reasons you’re there in the first place. All you want
to do is stay alive. You want to get back home. Nobody’s your enemy—not in the
smoke and blood and sweat. It’s life or death, shoot and don’t think. Just get
back home.”
She turned to him again, with tears
budding from the corners of her eyes. Without a word, she reached for his hand
and took it in both of hers. When she nodded for him to continue, his muscles
relaxed; her strength gave him the courage to keep talking.
“And
when it’s all over, if you’re not dead or wounded, you have to bury the bodies.
You have to bury your friends. And God…some of them were just boys, Po. Little
boys who would never get back home.”
Mysti Parker
Can't wait to read Mysti's newest book when it is released. Until then check out her Tallenmere series, A Ranger's Tale, Serenya's Song and Hearts in Exile. You can buy them here:
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