My Dearest Samuel, Your Thomas

April 14, 1863 Fredericksburg, Virginia

Samuel,

I hope this letter finds you well and the city kind to you in my absence. It has been long since I last wrote, but I pray you understand the difficulty of finding pen and quiet in this place. War is a great thief of time, of all that is familiar. Yet, in the moments before dawn, I find myself thinking of home, of evenings spent in your company, of long walks. Content with you.

You always were the better writer, Sam. With fine words and poetic turn of phrase. I fear mine are clumsy, unworthy of the reader. This will have to suffice.

Nights are cold here. Men huddle together for warmth. I find myself missing our evenings by the fire and the way you always kept the hearth burning. I hope you have not let it die altogether.

Write to me. Tell me of the city. Of anything. It will be enough to see you upon the page.

Yours in friendship, Thomas

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May 3, 1863 New York City

Dear Thomas,

I must confess, I nearly wore the ink away reading your letter over and over. Your words may be clumsy, but they are yours, and that makes them dear to me.

New York is the same as you left it. Busy, loud, full of movement. I go about my days as I should, but find little joy without you here. I go to the cafe on Greenwich Street, but find the coffee bitter without you. I take walks along the docks, but the wind is colder without your voice beside me. The city feels less itself in your absence.

I will keep the hearth burning. And, though I know it is foolish, I sit beside it and imagine you here, shaking the cold from your coat, grumbling about the world.

Do not think me foolish, but I find I miss you more than I ever thought I could miss a person. More than is reasonable. More than I should.

Keep warm. Do not be reckless. I do not think I could bear it if anything were to happen to you.

Yours, Samuel

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June 20, 1863 Culpeper, Virginia

My Dearest Samuel,

You are not foolish. Or if you are, then I am as much a fool as you, for I have read your letter so many times that the paper may soon tear. Your words are with me always, tucked into my coat, near my heart, so that in the worst moments, I may remember there is still something good waiting for me.

The war is not as I imagined it, Sam. The stories do not tell of the waiting, of the way time drags between battles. They do not tell you of the quiet suffering, of the way a man can be surrounded yet feel utterly alone. But when I read your letters, I do not feel quite so alone.

It is a dangerous thing, I think, to miss another man as I miss you. To feel the way I do when I picture you sitting by the fire, waiting for me. I have no words for it, not any that would be proper. But it is there, unshaken, unrelenting.

If I am reckless, it is not because I am unafraid. It is because the thought of coming home to you, of standing before you once more, is enough to make a man fearless.

Yours, Thomas

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July 10, 1863 New York City

My Dearest Thomas,

I had hoped to hear from you sooner, but I understand why you could not write. The papers tell of terrible things and I have tortuously read every account, searching for any mention of your regiment, praying that your name would not appear in the lists of the dead.

You say it is dangerous to miss another man as you miss me. But how can that danger possibly compare? How can you speak of peril while standing amid the roar of cannon fire? You stand where bullets carve the air and men fall before they take their next breath, and yet it is longing that you call dangerous?

If missing you is as great a threat as war, then I am dangling from a parapet by the tips of my fingers. If absence is a battlefield of its own, then I am already mortally wounded.

And yet, I cannot deny that danger lingers even here, in ink and paper. I have worried, as you have, about how our letters might be read if they were intercepted. How many times have I read and reread my own words, smoothing them over, dulling the edges of my heart so they might pass as something harmless? How many times have I hesitated, terrified that a single misplaced word might betray me?

I have spent years tiptoeing around, dressing my feelings in careful phrases, tucking them between lines as though I might fold them away from prying eyes. I have written of friendship, of longing in a way that any man might speak of a dear companion. But it is a lie, Thomas. A half-truth twisted into something I could defend if questioned.

I cannot lie any longer. I cannot write to you as though my heart does not ache, as though the thought of you returning does not consume my every waking hour. I cannot pretend that my longing for you is the same as one friend might have for another. It is something else, something I have no name for but which burns in me all the same.

If these letters were intercepted, what would they see in them? A dear friend grieving a distance too long endured? A soldier’s brotherhood, the bond of war, the love that forms in the face of death? Would they believe the words I have written? Would they understand that beneath them, behind every line I have crafted with such careful restraint, there is something else, something so fragile that to name it aloud would be to invite its ruin?

I grow weary of hiding, of swallowing these words before they can reach you. If you return to me, I will not hide. No more vague words, no more cowardice in ink. No more standing apart when I long only to be beside you. No more pretending that my love for you is anything less than what it is.

Come back to me, Thomas. And let the world say what it will.

Yours, Samuel

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June 30, 1863 Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

My Samuel,

By the time this letter reaches you, I may already be gone. The air here is heavy with the certainty of what is to come. Men sharpen bayonets, mend uniforms, and pray under their breath. We all know the battle ahead will be unlike any other. I know too much of war to believe I will leave this field unscathed. But before I face whatever waits for me, I must write to you one last time. I must say what I have never dared to say aloud.

I love you, Samuel.

I have loved you in quiet ways, in letters filled with your words that delicately dance around the truth, in glances stolen across crowded rooms, in the warmth of your hand lingering on mine. I have loved you in all the ways the world tells us we should not, and yet I do not regret a single moment. If there is shame in this, then I carry it gladly, for I would rather live—would rather die—having loved you in secret than never having loved you at all.

I dream of coming home to you, of standing with you not as a soldier but as a man. I imagine you waiting for me by the fire, your face illuminated by its glow, the way it was on the night I left. I think of our walks through the city, of your laughter, the way the world seemed gentler when you were beside me. I carry these memories with me like a talisman, something to press against my heart when the fear sets in.

If I do not return, you must do something for me. Live. You must go on, build the life you deserve. Do not spend your days in mourning. Do not let my absence become a chain around your heart. Let the world bring you the happiness I was never allowed to give.

If there is a world beyond this one, I hope it is a place where you and I can walk without fear. Where I can take your hand in mine, where we can sit by the fire and speak plainly, without hesitation, without hiding. If such a place exists, I will wait for you there.

Until then, live.

And remember that I loved you.

Yours, always, Thomas

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October 22, 1891 New York City

My Dearest Thomas,

It has been many years since I last wrote to you. I do not know why I am writing now. Perhaps it is the time of year, the way the autumn wind rattles the windows and stirs the dying leaves in the streets. Perhaps it is because I heard an old war song today, played on some distant violin, and it carried me back to the days when I waited by the hearth.

Or perhaps, my love, it is simply because I miss you.

I have done as I promised. I have lived. I have built the life that was expected of me. I have a wife and children who fill the house with laughter. I have known love of a different kind, one built on duty and devotion rather than stolen moments and whispered truths. And yet, in the quietest hours, I feel your absence as though you only just left the room.

My eldest son bears your name—his middle name only, but it is there, tucked away, a secret I carry with me always. He does not know why. Perhaps one day I will tell him, when he is old enough to understand what it is to love someone.

And I did love you, Thomas. You knew that before I ever spoke the words aloud, didn’t you? I never had the chance to say it properly. You were gone before I could stand before you, before I could give you all the things I had promised. Before I could lay my hands upon you without fear, without hesitation.

I still dream of you. I dream of you in the way I remember you best—laughing, eyes bright with mischief. I wake some nights reaching for you before I remember where I am, who I am now.

It is a strange thing, Thomas, to live a life that fits well enough but still hangs in awkward places, like a coat meant for another man’s shoulders.

I have made peace with this life. There is joy here, and I do not take it for granted. Yet there are days I am reminded of the life we might have built together. If time had been kinder.

I try not to wonder where you are. If there is something beyond this life, I hope it is a place where I can find you again. Where we can speak plainly, without fear. Where we can sit by a fire, as we once did.

I shall bury this letter as we once buried you, pressing it into the earth with the same quiet prayer I whispered over your grave—that you are at peace, that somehow, in some way, you might still hear me. I do not say your name as often as I once did, but I think it with every breath. If there is justice in this world or the next, then perhaps the wind will carry the weight of my longing to wherever you rest.

I love you, Thomas. I will always love you.

Yours, always, Samuel