Upon My Return From This Distance

August 1863

My Dearest Abigail,

I write this letter in some haste as the courier will not remain long, and his visits have become less frequent as of late.

My heart remains heavy as I have not seen your face in so long. I do not know when I may see you again as furloughs are no longer given. Too many men have chosen not to return.

I have always wished to spare the horrors of war, though I know you must see your fill of the aftermath as I know you have been volunteering at the hospital. I also recall the promise we made to never hide our truest thoughts from each other.

I am afraid.

No so much of death, as death may come at any moment, whether on the field of harvest or the field of battle. And I am confident that, should death find me, I will awake in our Creator's embrace.

Furthermore, I have no doubt in the righteousness of our cause, but I know our brothers opposing us are as convinced of their own. When this conflict ends, regardless of who is victor, I believe God will look on us all, ashamed of what His children have done to each other.

No, my dear Abigail, I am afraid I shall return to you as not the same man that left.

I have looked into the eyes of my fellow soldiers and seen an emptiness that has overtaken them. It spreads like gangrene, but there is no limb to remove to halt the infectious spread.

It is your love, and the grace of God, that sustains me daily. Blessings for which I am most humbly grateful.

But I fear I will return to you as a stranger or, at worst, a man no longer worthy of your love.

There is no doubt that I have taken away brothers, sons, and husbands from those that love them. How many Minié balls have I fired from my musket that ensured these men will never gaze upon their loved ones again?

And all the while I dream of your perfume to replace the scent of gunpowder and death that lingers in my nostrils. For your singing to dance in my ears instead of the firing of guns and cries of agony. For your tenderness to replace the wool of this uniform.

Oh what manner of hypocrite am I that I my thoughts are of your affection, while I carry the burden of death and war on my hands.

Will you look upon me the same, knowing I have killed other men? Will I be some uncanny specter of what I once was?

These thoughts plague me, even as I feel the warmth of your love, though you are so far away from currently.

I am filled with such contradiction, such worry, that in writing these words that you will think me a weak man, and that I have already lost myself to this worry and this war.

But I place myself at your, and our Creator's, mercy, and pray that your loving smile will shine upon me once more.

In hope that I am forever yours,

Your loving husband,

Jeremiah Clemens

September 1863

My Darling Jeremiah,

I send you 1000 kisses. No more, since I will save the 1000 for when I see you face to face upon your return to me.

I have poured over the words of your last letter many times, and though they are drenched in a worry and sadness most palpable, my heart still dances because they are your words.

As I am certain you remember, dear husband, I vowed that your joy would be my joy, and your sorrow would be my sorrow. It was in love that I made this promise. It was in love that I asked you to never spare me from truth, and it is in love that I receive it.

I have seen that look of which you wrote in some of the men at the hospital where I am volunteering. And yes, my dear husband, the thought of you returning to me broken as such has frequented my thoughts.

However, as sorrowful as those thoughts may be, they have fortified in me that, should such a fate befall us, I will love you with an even greater strength and resolve.

What would my love for you be were I simply to abandon you should you return wounded from this war?

If my affection for you is such a fragile and dainty thing to kept from all possibility of blemish and destruction like the fanciest of lace, then it is I who would be unworthy of your love.

We have been thrust into these times by men above us who claim to only have the best interests of this country, and her people, in mind. God will judge them should their words be insincere. But it remains there is no map to follow through this territory. No sextant to navigate the night we find ourselves in. It will only be together that we might find our way.

I would ask you to think upon our walks by the creek, and I beg you think of it often. How you so gentlemanly escorted me down. How your quivering fingers touched my hand and you so tenderly, and quite bashfully, brushed my hair away from my cheek. Our love was like some new born rabbit; blind and uncertain of its footing in this world. But we found our way. And, should we find that we must, we will find our way again.

In whatever guilt and turmoil you carry, as you have expressed in your letter, I cannot absolve you, as it is not within my power to do so. But in all that is within me, this I promise: I will aid you in carrying your burden as ill equipped as I may be.

Return to me Jeremiah Clemens. And know I love the man you were, the man you are, and the man you may yet be.

Your true and loving and affectionate wife,

Abigail Clemens