The Last Dance
Violet Chilton was a beautiful, intelligent, vivacious debutante who lived with her wealthy, socially prominent parents on a large estate in southeastern Maryland where she frequently entertained the fresh recruits in blue who stopped in Washington, D.C., on their way south to fight the Confederates. In the Chilton's grand home, these green Yankee soldiers, who faced an unknown and perilous future, joined seasoned warriors on leave who sought temporary escape from the horrors of war by flirting and dancing with the pretty girls who flocked to Violet's elaborate parties. None of the fair maidens in attendance, however, could hold a candle to the divine Miss Chilton herself, and more than one young soldier fell victim to her charms.
Jeremiah Lynn, the only son of a humble New England fisherman and his Boston-born wife, had grown up in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Until that fortuitous day in 1863 when a Union lieutenant from Pennsylvania took him to Violet's home, the young man from New England had never been to a grand party, had never danced with a girl and had never seen anyone as lovely as the beguiling Miss Chilton. Before the end of the evening, the inexperienced soldier had fallen in love.
Every evening during his three-week sojourn in Washington, Private Lynn traveled the short distance from camp to the Chilton estate to visit the object of his affections. Although Violet was as much a coquette as the famed plantation belles to the south, she sincerely cared for the shy, handsome young man from Gloucester.
On the evening before he was due to depart the nation's capital, Jeremiah went to visit his beloved one last time. When the pretty young woman greeted him at the front door, she was softly weeping into a monogrammed lace handkerchief, a gift from one of her many suitors.
"What's wrong?" the Yankee soldier asked with concern.
"You will be leaving tomorrow morning," she replied, turning her head away so that he would not see her red-tinged eyes.
Jeremiah's heart filled with hope. Could her tears mean she loved him?
"Will you miss me?" he asked.
"You know I will," she replied with a lady-like sniffle. "I've grown quite fond of you these past three weeks."
Violet's admission emboldened the timid New Englander.
"They say the fighting will not last much longer and that the Rebels will soon surrender."
"I hope that's true. This dreadful war has lasted far too long already. Once it's over, you can return to Massachusetts."
"War or not, I don't know if I will be going back to New England. I've been giving some serious thought to finding a job in Washington. There ought to be plenty of opportunities there for an able-bodied man, once peace is restored."
Violet smiled, and her blue eyes glistened through her tears.
"Then perhaps you could find the time to pay me an occasional visit."
Jeremiah's heart nearly burst with love for the girl. He could no longer sit next to her and keep his passion a secret. Suddenly, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her.
"Marry me, Violet," he pleaded, forgetting himself in the heat of the moment. "Marry me tonight, before I leave for Virginia."
"I do love you, darling," she replied. "With all my heart. But I couldn't possibly marry you now. My mother and father would never condone such a short engagement."
Jeremiah looked heartbroken, and Violet wanted to console him.
"You mustn't fret, my love," the distraught young woman cried, kissing him on the cheek and holding him tightly against her petite frame. "Before you leave, you must go to my father and ask for my hand in marriage. He couldn't possibly refuse a man in uniform, one willing to risk his life for our country. Then, once the war is over and you return to Washington, we can be married."
"And you will promise to wait for me to return, my darling Violet? Regardless of how long the fighting lasts?"
"Oh yes, Jeremiah! I'll wait for you forever, if necessary."
* * *
Although her betrothed was somewhere south of the Mason-Dixon Line fighting Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, Violet Chilton saw no reason to shut herself away from the world as though she were a grieving widow. There was no stopping the parties at her parents' estate. The local girls kept coming to the Chilton house where the music was as lively and the spirits as high as ever. Violet continued to dance with and charm the Yankee soldiers who came to her parties to escape the grim realities of civil war. In all fairness to Violet, however, it should be noted that she made it quite clear to all would-be suitors that she was engaged to Jeremiah Lynn and that their paying court to her would be a useless gesture.
"My fiancé and I will be married as soon as the war is over," she warned every young man who showed even the slightest romantic interest in her, "so save your heart for another girl, one who is unattached."
One handsome officer from New Jersey, Theobold Hutchins, who was permanently stationed at the War Department in Washington, was not so easily put off. He realized that the longer the war lasted, the greater the probability was that Private Lynn would not come back alive. Accordingly, he bided his time and masked his amorous feelings under the guise of simple friendship.
Much to Violet's dismay, the prediction of the war's end proved false. Fighting continued and showed no sign of surcease. After the Union victory at Gettysburg, there were terrible battles at Wilderness, Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor that brought heavy casualties to both sides. And despite General Grant's superior numbers, Lee showed no sign of surrendering.
"I don't think this ghastly war will ever end," Violet cried to her friend, Captain Hutchins, who visited her every weekend.
Then, in June 1864, Violet received word that Jeremiah Lynn was missing in action after the Battle of Lynchburg. The young girl was devastated by the news and sought the support of her friend, Theobold, more than ever.
* * *
In early April of 1865 the City of Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the Confederacy, fell to Union General Godfrey Weitzel. People in the North believed the end of the war was in sight at last. Violet Chilton, who was no longer the vivacious young woman who blithely danced in the arms of handsome Yankees, felt a sense of exhausted relief.
On the day that President Abraham Lincoln walked into the former Confederate Executive Mansion and sat at President Jefferson Davis's desk, Theobold Hutchins decided it was time to confess his true feelings to Violet.
"I've loved you for some time now, and I want to marry you," he announced, going down on bended knee.
"But I am already betrothed to another. You know that, Theo."
"Darling Violet, it has been almost a year since the Battle of Lynchburg. You must face facts. If your young man were still alive, you would surely have heard from him by now."
"He could be in a hospital or even a Confederate prison camp."
"Had he gone to a hospital, someone would have written to you. My dearest, you know as well as I do that Jeremiah is probably dead. The number of unidentified bodies on both sides is staggering. And even if he were captured by the enemy, the likelihood of his surviving in a Rebel prison camp is slim, at best. I've heard horrifying stories about places like Libby Prison, Andersonville and Salisbury. People in the South are starving. There's not enough food to feed the army and the citizenry, much less any to give to their captured prisoners."
"I just don't know what to say," Violet cried, wringing her hands. "I have grown to care for you very much, Theo. I do want to marry you, too, but what if Jeremiah should come back? I promised I would wait for him."
"This war has caused more than one promise to be broken. Just look at the thousands of widows and orphans it has created on both sides of the battlefield. Jeremiah Lynn is more than likely dead, but there is no need for you to throw your life away because of a foolish promise you made in a moment of great emotional turmoil."
Captain Hutchins tenderly took Violet in his arms, and she rested her head on his strong, comforting chest. The previous ten months had taken a heavy toll on her. She was physically and emotionally exhausted and more than willing to let him make the decision for her.
* * *
Finally, on April 9, 1865, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at the home of Wilmer McLean in Appomattox Court House, Virginia. Although this did not yet mean the conclusion of the War Between the States—that would later occur on June 2 when General Edmund Kirby Smith agreed to a surrender that would bring the Confederacy to an end—the most serious threat to the Union was over.
On that historic day, Captain Theobold Hutchins and Miss Violet Chilton were married in the bride's parents' house in Maryland. A bountiful feast was prepared in honor of both joyous occasions, and for the first time since June 1864, the double doors to the Chiltons' grand ballroom were thrown open wide to welcome family, friends and neighbors. Once again, music filled the stately house. Only now, the bride did not feel like dancing. Although Violet had aged less than a year chronologically, emotionally she was much older. The gay, flirtatious coquette of the past was gone—another innocent victim of the American Civil War.
After the wedding ceremony, the cheerful, laughing groom sat at a table drinking brandy with his new father-in-law. Meanwhile, the subdued bride stood amidst several female cousins and girlfriends who were flirting with the few single men in the room, most of whom were, like Theobold, Union soldiers stationed in Washington.
"Cheer up, Violet," one of her closest friends advised. "You have just married a very handsome, personable young man with a good future ahead of him. Count your blessings that you're no longer doomed to spinsterhood like us. The war has managed to whittle down the number of eligible bachelors considerably."
Too late, the well-intentioned young woman realized the callousness of her remark.
"Oh, I'm so sorry. I forgot about Jeremiah. I didn't mean to ...."
"It's all right," Violet reassured her with a pained smile. "I'm married to Theo now. Jeremiah Lynn must be consigned to my memories. It's high time I put the past behind me and get on with my life."
She looked over at Captain Hutchins and smiled, something she had rarely done since Lynchburg.
"Won't you excuse me, ladies?" the bride said sweetly. "I believe I would like to dance with my husband."
Violet walked over to the assembled musicians and asked them to play Aura Lee. Then she raised her arms toward Theobold, in an open invitation. He accepted with alacrity and started walking across the dance floor toward her.
A sudden gust of wind blew the front door open. Moments later an icy chill crept into the ballroom, a bitter frigidness quite unnatural for early April in Maryland.
The bride shivered, took a step toward her approaching husband and then abruptly stopped. Standing only a few feet away from the open doors, Violet Hutchins was the first to see the uninvited guest in the foyer. Private Jeremiah Lynn's handsome features were all but obscured by a strange bluish fluorescence. The frightening specter of the former Union soldier floated rather than walked through the double doors of the ballroom toward Violet and extended his arms.
The horrified young woman looked into the lifeless eyes of the man she had once loved and then swooned. Jeremiah caught her in his arms and carried her to the dance floor. The rest of the guests were too frightened or too stunned to react. Even the groom remained silent and still, too bewildered to go to his wife's aid.
Against their will, the musicians played an unearthly, discordant tune. Jeremiah began to dance, clutching the terrified bride to his chest. The music increased in tempo, and the revenant whirled across the floor like a dervish. The ethereal private from Massachusetts danced so fast that soon the wedding guests had difficulty distinguishing his form from that of the poor bride. They could see only a radiant bluish haze. Then the melody climaxed in a deafening crescendo that left many of the guests covering their ears in pain.
"Violet!" Theobold screamed with mournful agony.
The groom's anguished cry echoed through the room, but his beautiful bride and her ghostly dancing partner had vanished.
That fateful April day of 1865 soon came to an end. It was consigned to the history books, to be memorized by students and historians for years to come. The divided nation would soon be reunited; the surviving soldiers would return to their homes. Americans would bury their dead, mourn their losses and then seek to put the pieces of their shattered lives together.
For Theobold Hutchins, however, those pieces would never fit again. Not only had he lost the woman he loved, but he would never care for another. He would be plagued by memories of his nightmarish wedding day for the remainder of his life.
* * *
On a hot July afternoon, Colonel J. Risque Hutter, a former Confederate hero who had been wounded and captured during Pickett's ill-fated charge up Little Round Top during the Battle of Gettysburg, was walking through a wooded area adjacent to his home, Sandusky House, in Lynchburg, Virginia. There he saw a sight all too familiar to him during the preceding five years. It was the body of a dead soldier—a Yankee, he guessed, by what was left of the tattered blue uniform that stubbornly clung to the denuded bones.
"Another one," Hutter said with a weary sigh. "Dear God, have I not seen enough dead men for one lifetime?"
He then leaned forward and turned the rotted corpse over onto its back, hoping to find some clue as to the dead man's identity. Luckily, one of the soldier's uniform pockets had remained intact. Inside, Hutter found a well-worn photograph of an attractive young woman. On the back, the faded handwriting read,
My darling Jeremiah,
May God keep you safe while we're apart. Hopefully, the war will end soon, and you can return to me. Until then, I'll save a dance for you.
All my love,
Violet
"Poor soul," Hutter muttered, taking pity on the dead soldier despite the fact that the man wore the uniform of his enemy. "That's one dance you're never going to get."
As the former Confederate colonel dragged the corpse out of the woods so that it could be properly interred, a gold wedding band fell from the dead man's skeletal fingers. Unbeknownst to Hutter, it was the gold band that Theobold Hutchins had placed on the third finger of Violet Chilton's left hand three months earlier.
Although all members of Salem's family are great dancers, it's not true that Salem was offered the role of Johnny Castle in Dirty Dancing.
