The Girl He Left Behind
Wesley Dutton took longer than usual dressing that hot August morning of 1861. For one thing, he was not used to the uniform, having spent most of his life in the loose-fitting clothes of a farmer. For another, he wanted to put off his departure as long as possible.
In the dim glow of the oil lamp placed in the center of the mahogany dresser, he watched Caroline, his wife of less than a year, sleeping peacefully on the old four-poster bed. As he buttoned his muslin shirt, his wife stirred.
"Why didn't you wake me up?" she asked sleepily.
"I didn't have the heart to. You didn't get much sleep last night."
Caroline blushed at the memory of their lovemaking and replied, "Neither did you."
Wesley sat on the bed beside her and brushed a lock of black hair from her face. He stared down at her, trying to memorize every feature.
"I have to get used to it. I don't think I'll be getting much sleep from now on," he said.
Caroline sat up in bed and hugged her husband tightly.
"I wish you would stay here with me."
"You know I don't want to leave, but Mr. Lincoln has issued the call and I can't shirk my duty."
"I thought the war was supposed to be over by now," she said with a pout her husband found adorable.
"Cheer up, my beauty," he joked. "Once we Massachusetts men go down South, the fighting will end in no time."
Yet as Wesley put his blue sack coat on over his shirt, he knew the war was far from over. The defeat at Bull Run proved that the Confederates would not be beaten as easily as the North had believed.
"You won't forget to write, will you?" he asked his wife, thankful that they were both literate.
"You know I won't. And don't you forget to come home in one piece."
"I'll try not to get shot."
Now that the time of his departure was imminent, the good-natured banter and laughter came to an end. Caroline's eyes were brimming with tears as she walked arm-in-arm with her husband to the front door of the farmhouse.
"No crying now," Wesley teased. "I don't want to remember you with red eyes and tear-stained cheeks."
After one last lingering kiss, the young soldier took his leave of the woman he loved and took the first step in his journey toward war.
* * *
After spending several weeks in Camp Cameron in Cambridge, the Massachusetts Sixteenth Regiment Infantry traveled to Virginia. It was the farthest Wesley Dutton had ever been from Puritan Falls.
As Caroline had promised, the letters came almost immediately. She began nearly all her missives by filling her husband in on the local news: who died, who got married or betrothed and who had a child. Weather was a popular subject as was the condition of the crops. When she had exhausted all the domestic subjects, Caroline moved on to national events, mainly the war. As the daughter of the town's schoolteacher, she was an educated woman and freely gave her opinion of current events and Mr. Lincoln's policies. It was only in the final paragraphs of her letters that the lonely wife poured her heart out to her husband, avowing her love and repeatedly entreating him to be careful and to return to her safely.
Inside the envelopes she often enclosed small tokens of affection: a lock of her hair, a dried flower that had been pressed between the pages of a book or a scrap of fabric that smelled of her perfume. These small treasures her husband kept in his knapsack, except for the lock of hair, which he kept with her photograph inside his uniform, close to his heart.
Whenever time permitted, Wesley wrote back to Caroline. His letters were short since paper was scarce, but they contained as much love as a volume of Shakespeare's sonnets.
* * *
During the next year the young soldier saw a good deal of action on the Virginia Peninsula but nothing that would prepare him for December of 1862. Whether it was the will of God, karma, fate or just plain dumb luck, Wesley survived the battle of Fredericksburg unscathed. After the Union Army retreated across the Rappahannock River, he wrote to Caroline, telling her of Burnside's disastrous assaults on Prospect Hill and Marye's Heights.
"But you need not worry," he assured her. "I am completely unharmed. I'm doing my best to keep my promise to you to return home safely."
As he wrote, Wesley reached into his pocket and took out the cherished lock of black hair. He closed his eyes and kissed it, remembering the scent of his beloved's skin and the softness of her touch. Wiping a tear from his eye, he hastily finished writing.
Mail call brought with it a letter to him from his wife.
"It is December already," she wrote. "The days are short, and the weather is cold, signifying the approach of winter."
Caroline went on to talk about the news in Puritan Falls. She also touched on the subject of Christmas, their second one apart.
"I try not to dwell upon the distance between us, preferring to remember the happiness of the past and of the future when we will be together."
She ended the letter by sending him her love and her prayers. Below her signature, Caroline quoted the opening lines from a poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning:
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
Wesley read and reread the lines over and over, imagining his beloved wife standing beside him, whispering the words in his ear. With this image in mind, the horror of battle temporarily faded, and he was able to endure the holiday away from home. He memorized the words and recited them to himself in the months ahead, even through Burnside's grueling "mud march."
Thankfully, the inept, bewhiskered General Ambrose Burnside incurred Lincoln's wrath and was replaced by a Massachusetts man, Joseph Hooker. The declining morale of the Federal troops greatly improved under Fighting Joe, who saw to it that the soldiers received adequate food supplies and medical care.
Wesley Dutton's morale was further bolstered by continued correspondence with his wife. Whenever there was a lull in battle and mail was distributed among the men, there was always a letter from Caroline.
As the Civil War dragged on, the young soldier from Puritan Falls saw many of his friends fall in battle, watched his comrades lose limbs and witnessed men die from diseases that ran rampant through the Army.
"I don't know why God has seen fit to let me live," he wrote to his wife. "Men that are better Christians than I am are dying every day. It must be you, my darling, that has influence over His judgment. But that's no surprise. You could charm the devil himself if you had a mind to it."
* * *
April led to May, and the men from the Sixteenth Massachusetts again crossed the Rappahannock, this time above Fredericksburg. The Army of Northern Virginia met the Union Army at Chancellorsville, and after what many later believed was Lee's greatest victory, the North retreated back over the river once more.
Wesley, who had lost one of his closest friends during fighting near Salem Church, was despondent. Before falling asleep one night, he wrote his wife by the dim light of a glowing candle.
"I begin to fear the North will lose this war. Oh, the waste of lives it has caused! I would just as soon put up the white flag and let us all return home to our loved ones, but then I think of the poor souls held in bondage, and I grow more determined to see this thing through. Still, my heart grows heavy. Were it not for your letters, my dearest Caroline, I would probably lose my mind."
The following day brought another letter from his wife and additional lines from Elizabeth Barrett Browning:
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
"Whether the North wins or loses, whether we succeed in our noble cause to free the slaves," Wesley fervently prayed after reading his wife's letter, "please let me survive this damned war for her sake. Let me return to her and be the best husband I can be. Dear God, I beseech you to grant me the opportunity to spend my life easing her burdens, drying her tears and making her happy."
* * *
President Lincoln, like Wesley Dutton, was exasperated at his generals' failure to strike a blow at the South. After the defeat at Chancellorsville, Fighting Joe Hooker resigned, and Lincoln replaced him with George Meade.
Not long after Meade assumed command, Lee invaded Pennsylvania, and the two armies met in Gettysburg. It was the victory the North had long sought, and it proved to be the turning point in the war. Those three days in July 1863 left an indelible mark on American history; but for the men fighting at the Peach Orchard, Culp's Hill, Little Round Top, Devil's Den and the Wheatfield, it was three days of purgatory. It was only when the ill-fated Pickett's Charge was repulsed and Wesley heard the Northern soldiers on Cemetery Ridge defiantly shouting "Fredericksburg!" at the enemy that he felt the sweetness of victory.
Lee's attempt to break the Union lines was a disaster. The devastating casualties forced the Confederates to retreat across the Potomac, back to Virginia. While Meade's failure to pursue the retreating army may have delayed the end of the war, it meant a respite from battle for his men.
Wesley took the opportunity to write to his wife and tell her of the Northern triumph.
"Many of us feel Meade should have pursued Lee and finished him off. Although I am weary to the bone and stink of gunpowder, sweat and blood, I would gladly march down to Virginia and engage the enemy again if it meant I could return to you even one day sooner. My prayers join yours that by the end of 1863, I'll be back in Puritan Falls and our nation will be at peace."
Caroline's letter that came within hours of Lee's retreat brought good news. Wesley's sister had given birth to a baby boy.
I'm an uncle, the weary soldier thought with a smile.
The successful outcome of the battle of Gettysburg became much sweeter. Perhaps the war would soon come to an end, and in a year or two he would be a father himself.
He finished reading his wife's letter, which again cautioned him to remain safe. The post script included another two lines of the poem by Mrs. Browning:
I love thee with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
Wesley folded the letter and placed it back in its envelope. Then he closed his eyes and dreamt of home and the private, passion-filled moments he had shared with Caroline.
* * *
The end of the war for which everyone prayed did not come after the Union victory at Gettysburg. There were other battles to fight, other losses to endure. When 1863 came to an end and 1864 dawned, the North and South were still engaged in a bloody civil war.
At a time when spring coaxed new life from the ground, the Army of the Potomac, now under the command of Ulysses S. Grant, was headed toward Richmond. In early May the Yankees fought Robert E. Lee's forces at the Wilderness, an expanse of nearly impenetrable scrub growth and rough terrain that encompassed more than seventy square miles of Central Virginia. Although the battle was later deemed inconclusive by historians, Grant's army suffered more than eighteen thousand casualties, not only from Confederate guns but also from a brushfire that took the lives of wounded soldiers in its path.
Wesley's spirits were at the lowest point since Chancellorsville. He began to think that he would never sleep at night without being tortured in his dreams by the sound of men screaming in agony or by the putrid smell of rotting flesh. Would he ever be able to view life with the same joy and wonder after being surrounded by death and destruction?
Once again, it was his beloved Caroline who gave him hope. The letter that arrived soon after Grant withdrew his men from the field expressed as much love and devotion as was humanly possible. Even Mrs. Browning's poetry, which his wife had been sending him in installments, did not warm his heart and renew his hope as did his wife's simple, heartfelt declarations of love.
On the final page of her letter, which was heavily scented by Caroline's homemade lavender sachet, were the last lines of the poem Wesley would receive from his wife:
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints—I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!
That letter, as well as those sent before, would sustain him through the grueling times ahead, for the war was soon to end for Wesley Dutton of the Massachusetts Sixteenth Regiment Infantry, and he was to experience a nightmare worse than any battlefield on which he had fought.
* * *
The day Grant withdrew from the Wilderness he sent his men to take Spotsylvania. In the fierce fighting that ensued, Wesley was wounded and captured by the Confederates. He recovered from his injury but was sent to Camp Sumpter, more commonly known as Andersonville Prison, in southwestern Georgia.
If Gettysburg had been purgatory, Andersonville was hell! Moments after entering the newly constructed fifteen-foot-high stockade, Wesley glimpsed prisoners so emaciated they could scarcely be called men. They looked more like walking skeletons covered with rags, filth and vermin. Yet for close to a year, he managed to stave off death, despite starvation, exposure to the elements, deplorable sanitary conditions and disease that continually threatened his life. He watched men die on a daily basis, saw prisoners shot while attempting to escape and, worst of all, witnessed men being murdered by fellow inmates for their food or clothing.
For the first time since he left Puritan Falls in 1861, Wesley felt truly bereft. Not only were there no more letters from Caroline in prison, but those he had been carrying throughout the war were gone, along with her photograph and lock of hair. It was the poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, which he had committed to memory on dozens of battlefields, that alone sustained him.
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
Those lines and the ones that followed replayed again and again in his mind, providing a soundtrack over images of Caroline.
Finally in April of 1865, Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House, an event that hastened the end of the Civil War.
Although a much thinner and paler man than he had been a year earlier, Wesley was able to walk out of the stockade without assistance. He and other survivors of Andersonville were sent to a repatriation center in Vicksburg where they would find transportation north. A hot bath, a nourishing meal and a good night's sleep worked wonders for the freed prisoner, but it was the knowledge that he was at last returning to the woman he loved that lightened his heart.
As the gaunt returning warriors boarded the steamship Sultana, laughter and singing could be heard from the men who gave in to the joy of the armistice. Wesley stood on deck, his eyes turned north, as though he could see Massachusetts through the darkness of night.
The ship, filled well beyond capacity, made its sluggish way up the Mississippi River. At about two in the morning, there was a loud, thundering sound when one of the Sultana's boilers blew up. Wesley was thrown into the cold water by the force of the explosion.
How cruel fate is, he thought as he turned and saw the steamship consumed by flames.
Around him weak, half-starved men who had survived both the war and Andersonville prison were drowning or being swept away by the current. This is the end, he feared. It was his time to die.
Not yet, my love.
It was a voice Wesley knew well. His mind had no doubt conjured up that voice to urge him on. Despite his weakened state, he managed to grab onto a chunk of floating debris and with monumental effort make his way safely to shore. Shivering from the cold, he lay back on the banks of the Mississippi, closed his eyes and gave in to his exhaustion.
* * *
When the train came to a stop at the Puritan Falls station, Wesley Dutton got up from his seat, limped down the aisle and exited the train. No one was waiting at the depot for him, but he had not expected anyone to be there. Although he had sent Caroline a letter after his release from prison, she had no way of knowing exactly when he would arrive home.
Despite his injury, the five-mile walk to his farm was no great chore for a man who had spent three years in the infantry. When he came within sight of his property, however, he felt a fear that had been absent in Fredericksburg, Gettysburg and the Wilderness. The land was overgrown with weeds, and no crops had been planted. What was wrong?
He hurried across the field, not even bothering to use the dirt driveway. The condition of his house deepened his fright. Some of the windows were broken, and one of the shutters had been ripped off.
"Caroline," he shouted as he took the front steps in one leap.
The door was ajar, and Wesley saw the house had been abandoned.
"Caroline, where are you?"
His echo was the only response.
On the walk back to town, he passed his neighbor, Josiah Reynolds, whose son Matthew had been killed at Cold Harbor.
"I'm glad to see you came back alive," Josiah said.
Wesley normally would have expressed his condolences over the man's loss, but he was far too worried about his wife to observe social custom.
"The place is empty," he said. "I have to find Caroline."
"No one told you?"
"Told me what?" Wesley cried, his heart pounding in his chest.
The old man looked away as he replied, "Your wife died back in 1861, not long after you left Puritan Falls."
"No. She couldn't have. I got letters from her up until I was captured."
"She got the fever and died early that fall. The farm has been vacant ever since."
"You must be mistaken. Maybe she got sick and went to Boston to stay with her relatives."
Josiah shook his head.
"She's not in Boston. She's buried at the Puritan Falls Church. My wife and I went to the funeral."
Wesley borrowed a horse from Reynolds and rode into town. He passed old friends along the way but did not stop to speak to any of them. When he got to the Puritan Falls Church, he immediately noticed the drastic increase in the number of graves, including that of young Matthew Reynolds. His eyes frantically scanned the names on the headstones: Morris, Redmond, Lowell, Bishop, Reynolds, Putnam ....
Wesley's heart suddenly jumped to his throat when he saw engraved in stone the words: CAROLINE DUTTON. BORN NOVEMBER 1841. DIED SEPTEMBER 1861.
Tears blurred his vision, and he collapsed onto the grave, cursing fate, God, Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, the Confederacy and his own stupidity for leaving Caroline and running off to fight the war. Wesley was not aware of know how long he lay prostrate on his wife's grave, but eventually he wiped his tears, blew his nose and rose to his knees. With his eyes dry, he could read the epitaph carved into her gravestone:
... and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
Thus, in sending her husband the last lines of Mrs. Browning's poem, Caroline Dutton reaffirmed her love and gave Wesley hope that they would eventually be reunited for all eternity.
I once went on vacation and left Salem behind. (Unfortunately, he found his way back home.)
