From Winslow, a work in progress:

Joshua Winslow
New York 24^th
Hagerstown, Maryland
September 11, 1862

Miss Sarah Davison
Winslow, New York

My Dearest Sarah,

After a hard march of five days, we have stopped, at least momentarily. We are near Hagerstown, Maryland. I’m not sure when I will be able to post this letter. We have been moving quickly of late.

We have been ordered to rest for at least this day and maybe the next. I am writing this letter as the sun is setting over a tent-covered ridge to the west. No fires are permitted after dark, lest the glow of them alert the rebel forces of our position.

The place where we are was once a farm, or more accurately several farms covering hundreds of acres of fertile ground blanketing graceful and gentle hills. If there were a place to rival the beauty of our home in New York, this would be it. What few buildings stand here, barns and farmhouses, have been occupied by the officers as temporary command posts.

I can now barely imagine what this place looked like before the Union Army arrived. It was a quiet place and gentle in its stillness. Now, in any direction I look I see an ocean of men and tents, all moving in small waves. It’s as if a large living organism has engulfed this place and forever destroyed its tranquility. When we arrived here yesterday we thought that we were the last, but more men kept arriving through the night. There must be over ten thousand men here by now and still more come every hour. They have come from all over the Union, from Maine and Vermont, from a place called Deer Island, from New Jersey and Pennsylvania, from Illinois and Michigan and Ohio.

And also from New York. My sweet, beloved New York. I remember this time of year up in Winslow as my favorite. The stifling heat of August has broken but the days are still warm and golden, perfect for a picnic near a lake with my love. When the sun goes down, the evenings are cool again. Down here, the heat has not broken and that five-day march was brutal. Several men in our unit collapsed with heat exhaustion and had to be left behind. Many of the men arriving in camp are on stretchers. The drummer boys formed bucket brigades to distribute water from the stream flowing through the middle of the camp.

When I think about the purpose of this convergence of humanity, this temporary city, I try to imagine the destruction it is capable of and I become fearful. I imagine all of these men and their rifles, headed toward me and I can see no escape and I am helpless. Surely we are all here for a reason. Somewhere beyond the horizon is a similar force trying to find us as much as we are trying to find them.

Rumors fly around and buzz through the camp like so many gnats. First we hear that we will continue west and meet the rebels in northwestern Virginia. Then we hear that the rebels are heading north through central Maryland and that we will attack them as they pass to the east of us. Another rumor tells us that they are already to the north of us in Pennsylvania. Still another says that they are to the south of us near Sharpsburg. For all of these to be true we would have to be surrounded by them. As unlikely as that may be, it still gives us all an uneasy feeling that we don’t talk about much.

Our Captain spends most of his time over at the command post that has been set up in a nearby farmhouse. Several times today he has walked through our encampment on foot. Normally when we see him and he addresses us, he is on horseback. Today, he walked through our camp, making sure we were resting, and that we had enough to eat. He is a man of some forty years with a graying beard and a regal manner. He has always had a stern look about him that appeared to be his duty to maintain, but today the sternness was replaced by a deeper, more serious look. His boots were scuffed and his uniform was still dusty from our march as he walked through our camp with his lieutenants. He spoke to us in small groups. He seemed to know more than he would tell us, but nobody was going to speak up and ask a Captain what was going to happen. Instead, he diverted our attention by asking us about ourselves, our names, where we were from. When I said, “Joshua Winslow, Winslow New York, sir,” he turned and approached me. I’ve now gotten used to how people react when I tell them I have the same name as my hometown, but this was different. As he walked toward me, a look of recognition come over his face as he repeated, “Joshua Winslow, Winslow New York.”

“Son, is your father Erastus Winslow?” he asked.

“Yes sir.”

“I know your father, son. We attended Harvard together and I visited him in Winslow some twenty-years ago. We have met several times in Manhattan when he was there on business.”

Then he did something that I’ve never seen an officer do to a private infantryman. He held out his hand to me. After over a year in the army, serving with boys from all different stations of life, I had forgotten that I come from a family of wealth and position. Indeed, I had spent most of my time keeping that a secret and in many ways I found comfort in fitting in with the rest of the fellows. Of course, all the boys from Winslow know, but many others in the 24^th didn’t. When I was growing up, I always felt a weight on my shoulders walking down Main Street in Winslow. My family owns most of the town, so I could never be sure if people were friendly to me because of me or because of my father’s position. I also felt a weight of expectation on me not only from my father, but from nearly everyone in town.

The anonymity of being just myself in the army, not a town, not a family, not a legacy, felt liberating. While others bristled as they adapted to military discipline, I embraced it because it made me feel, for the first time in my life, like I was like anybody else. It’s hard to find your way when you feel the expectations of your family and community weighing on you. I think that when I finally return home, it will be with knowledge of myself that I never would have been able to gain at home.

The small throng of soldiers that were around the Captain and myself were looking at me and several more who were nearby and heard what was happening joined the group.

I glanced at the other men and realized that I could not deny my heritage any more than I could deny my loyalty and devotion to them. I may have forgotten it, but it’s also who I am, now, it seemed as though I stood form them with this Captain, as if his recognition of me was his recognition of all of them.

I took his hand in mine. His grasp was firm and he pulled me closer. Quietly, for my ears only he said, “Your father is a fine man and I know he is proud of you, son. God bless you.”

“Thank you, sir.”

He released my hand and I took a step back from him. He stood there silently for a moment and raised his hand to the side of his face ran his fingers down the edge of his beard. His sternness was replaced momentarily by a puzzled look and his eyes suddenly seemed tired. Then he regarded the whole crowd that had gathered around us and said loudly to them, “And God Bless all of you.”

Then he gripped the hem of his dusty uniform coat, tugged on it firmly to straighten it out over his shoulders, and nodded to his lieutenants that it was time to continue their tour.

It was probably this event that has put me in such a reflective mood for the rest of the day. It is obvious to me that we are soon to be in as large a battle as any of us has ever seen. All of us can sense it. Even if all we know are rumors and all of them cannot be true, our experience tells us that one of them actually is true.

In this past year I have seen many things that I never would have imagined growing up in Winslow. Most of my experiences have been bad and I’d prefer never to experience them again. The hatred in the eyes of those who should be our brothers and sisters but are instead our enemy. Firing our weapons at them and cutting them down during the riot in Baltimore. Seeing an army move over the landscape, destroying everything in its path, not by fighting but simply by trampling it under its boots and consuming every barrel of grain and every bit of livestock just to feed its hungry hordes. Seeing my closest friends slowly dying from disease and wondering why them and not me.

I fear that this war, which we all thought would be over by last spring, is going to be far more destructive than anything we might have imagined. I can only look around at the ocean of men stretching out in all directions to the horizon to tell me that. I fear that I have only had a glimpse of the horrors that are to come.

During all this time, the letters that you have written to me have sustained me. They are now a quite handsome stack and I carry them in a small leather bag that hangs over my shoulder. I can’t count how many times I’ve read each one of them. I read them in the morning when I awake. I read them when we are marching down a dusty road, I read them when we are resting on the side of the road and I read them by firelight before slipping into my tent and dreaming about you.

In all of the letters you’ve written to me, I’ve seen numerous references to my smile. It’s not something that I would normally think about myself, but you mention it when talking about that first dance we had, the smile I would greet you with when you came into my father’s store, and the smile you imagine I will have for you on the day I finally return home.

When you wrote about that smile, you told me how it made you feel, as if you were the most important person in the world for me and how special it made you feel that your presence alone could bring such joy. I’ll tell you now and forever that I was totally unaware that I was smiling and that it can only mean that it was simply a true and natural expression of how you make me feel.

There is a sense of joy and wonder that I feel. It is like that sense of joy and wonder that we find when we are out walking along a beautiful stream or through the woods. It’s that sense of wonder about all of Creation. And in addition to all those beautiful things that God has given the world, he also, for some reason that he alone knows, added you. I spend all my days and nights filled with joy and wonder that you exist, and I can’t imagine that living in a world that didn’t have you in it would be worth living.

In all the hardships that I have endured, and in all the hardships that I will endure, my faith has been and will always be tested. My faith in myself, my faith in our cause, my faith in humanity and ultimately my faith in all the world. It is the joy and wonder that that you bring to me, and that alone, that sustains my faith. In a world that is marching down a path of violence and destruction, your letters, and you yourself, tell me that no matter where we may be now and whatever may happen to us, the world is ultimately a beautiful and just place and that God’s covenant with us is enduring. I know this because he has given me you.

All my love,

Joshua

On September 17, 1862 the Battle of Antietam was fought near Sharpsburg, Maryland.  More Americans died on that day than any other single day in American military history.

Sculpture by Rodin, Photograph by Caroline Bubbers

Does this work for you:

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou are more lovely and more temperate
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And Summer’s lease hath all too short a date:

How about this:

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

Finally, how about this:

I could digress and say that you have the ability to give magnificent gentle kisses, or that I love your tan lines or that I love the curve of your hips, the erotic beauty of you holding yourself (or two magnificent parts of yourself) in the faded glow of the night’s light – but hey, that would be going into sexual details …

Ouch.  It starts out pretty good, but soon turns awkward, and, well, nerdy.  Since we know that unlike Shakespeare and Browning’s words, which were written for the world to see, we  don’t get uncomfortable reading them as we do with Mark Sanford’s love letters to Maria, his Argentinean paramour.  And if it weren’t for his holier than thou past, we might feel some sympathy for his predicament.  In this private email, the Governor, ran into a common problem that writers face when they attempt to capture romantic love in its physical incarnation: language.  It’s hard to find the right words that evoke the emotion and sensation without being either crude or giggle-inducing.  “Breasts,” Governor.  You can say that word and not burn in hell for eternity.  “Breasts” works because it’s neither too pornographic nor to clinical.  If you still want to maintain your biblical piousness, I suppose you could use “Bosom,” but I can’t promise I won’t giggle.  The intended recipient of your email may giggle at bosom, but she would still be touched by your sensitivity and vulnerability in expressing yourself.  In love letters written by pious amateurs, surely it’s the thought that counts.

For the past several years I have been working sporadically on a novel.  Ironically, while I have never been a fan of metafiction, Winslow falls into that self-conscious category.  Even more ironically, a major portion of it is in the form of an historical novel, a genre I have never highly regarded.  Finally, this historical novel-within-a-novel is written in epistolary form.  The layers of artifice seem never ending.

How did this come about?  As near as I can tell, it was a kind of psychosis brought on by interrupted circadian rhythms, sleep deprivation, and oxygen-poor airliner air.  I had been working in Seattle for about six months on a consulting contract, each week flying out on early Monday morning and returning home to Baltimore on Thursday night/Friday morning red-eyes.  Over time, this schedule took its toll on me.  The three hour difference in time zones doesn’t seem like that much, but after a while, switching twice a week left me settled into my own time zone.  My home was Eastern Time, my job was Pacific Time, and I existed in an alternate dimension called “Fred Time.”  My client, who shall remain nameless, would probably agree that I was in an alternate dimension.

While working in Seattle, I tried as much as possible to keep myself on eastern time.  This meant getting up before dawn and going to sleep early.  Over time, however, that was difficult to maintain, so while I continued to get up early, I was going to sleep on Seattle time.  I did manage to get quite a bit of writing done during that time.  I wrote in the mornings and evenings in my hotel room and during thirteen hours I spent each week on airplanes.  My story “Indian Summer” was written while watching the golden sunlight fade away on the face of Mount Rainier.

I also began working on what I thought might be a long short story or a novella.  I had been haunted for many years by a short story I had written that I could never get right.  Finally, I realized that my whole approach to it had be wrong and decided to start over, this time writing in first person rather than third.  The story was about a beleaguered young teacher at a fictional private school in a fictional upstate New York town named Winslow.  The writing was going well and I decided to enlarge the story even more with a bit of the history of this school and town that I had invented.  Trying to imagine what the town might have been like a hundred years ago got me within range of the civil war.  It was then that “Fred Time” and that alternate universe took over.  One morning, I got up as the sun was rising and wrote:

The Battle of Antietam was the single bloodiest day in American combat history. The events of that day are documented and the numbers of the dead and wounded have been counted and re-counted. Those numbers include the twenty-seven sons of the town of Winslow, New York. The numbers of the spiritually wounded include eight widows and nineteen children. The sorrow that enveloped Winslow lasted generations and is still recalled by the statue that stands in the square in front of the post office.

Time has forgotten, however, the wounded that are never counted. They were not widows; they were not orphans. They were the young women of the town of Winslow, who had tearfully posted their perfumed letters at that very same post office. Some of those letters were later found, muddy and blood-soaked on the battlefield. Their sorrow was private and they carried it for the remainder of their days. Their betrothed had left the earth, leaving no tangible sign that they had ever existed. These women would never see their lovers smile in a child’s face.

Instead, they were left to mourn their whole lives, driven from joy to sorrow and then back again by memories of lives they had only imagined.

I had no idea where it came from.  I didn’t even know what it had to do with the story I had been working on the night before.  I had no idea where Antietam was, whether it was a Union or Confederate Victory and why I even cared.

As it turns out, The Battle of Antietam was fought near Sharpsburg, Maryland, about fifty miles from where I live.  My excuse for not knowing that is that I grew up in New York and only moved here in 2000, so my knowledge of the state’s history is limited.

Since the story that I was working on was a contemporary one, I realized that I was now working on something much larger than a short story or a novella, and considerably more complex.  I wasn’t sure how to proceed.  I set it aside for a few weeks, occasionally rereading what I had decided would be the epilogue of my unexpected epic.  Those “perfumed letters” kept coming back to me.  And that is how we return to the original topic of this post: love letters.

One Sunday afternoon, in the comfort of my home office, I sat down at the computer and challenged myself to write one of those “perfumed letters.”  I imagined a seventeen year-old girl, perhaps the minister’s daughter, writing to her eighteen year-old beau, the young prince of the town that bears his family’s name.  It was very early in the war, too early for anyone to comprehend the devastation would would occur.  Both of my lovers had heretofore lived idyllic, somewhat sheltered lives, and they are idealistic.

Sarah Davison, of Winslow, New York writes:

Dearest Joshua,

Once again, I hope this letter finds you safe and in good health.

I can scarcely believe that it has only been a fortnight since you and the others are gone and already I am writing my fourth letter to you. I have no way of knowing where or when this letter may find you, but I am sure that wherever you are, you are smiling and saying, “stop using those fancy English words, Mrs. Shakespeare.” I’m sorry my darling Sweet Boy, but someone must bring some refinement and culture into your life. I have always wanted to use the word “fortnight” and now that I have the opportunity, I am going to write it as often as I can in this letter. I hope that each time you read it, it makes you smile and laugh and that it makes you miss your beloved “Mrs. Shakespeare” as much as she misses you.

Since that day, a fortnight ago, when you and the other young men disappeared down the road to Albany, I have been willing myself to be strong. The other women in town are looking to me, the daughter of their minister, for strength and courage. I hardly know what to say to them. I smile and stand straight, with the posture expected of the young lady I am supposed to be, but in my heart, I feel an emptiness that I know will only be filled when the Good Lord sees fit to return you safely home. I have promised myself that I would not burden you with my girlish lamentations, for you surely have many more pressing things to think about, but my darling, I cannot keep from you what I must hide from everyone else. Even my mother seems to be looking to me for some sort of solace. On the night after you and Daniel left and after the house had fallen silent, I heard my mother in the parlor downstairs, quietly weeping for my brother and praying that he would come home. Please do not tell Daniel of this. Just tell him that we all miss him and pray for his safe return.

Had you not been gone for this past fortnight, I don’t think I would have seen you more than three or four times. There would have been Sundays in church, of course, and then your weekly visits to the parsonage to deliver The Crier. I might have made an excuse to come to your father’s store for some contrived purchase, just so that I could see you. Now that you have left town, however, I don’t know how I could have taken so little care to see you as often as I could. I have no idea where you might be at this moment, but I am certain that you must be marching somewhere. Whether you are fifty miles away or five hundred, it really makes no difference since I cannot see you in either case, but my heart feels every mile farther you march away from me. Is it not strange how the heart can so accurately measure distance?

Your father has begun publishing The Crier twice weekly since the whole town is now anxious for any news of the war. If you were here, of course, that would have given you one more chance each week to see me! He has also hired little Samuel to deliver the paper to the shops and houses closest to town. You should have seen him on his first day! He so looks up to you and he was proud to be huffing and puffing his way up Main Street with your canvas bag slung over his shoulder. The bag is almost as big as he is and, when you see him from behind, there is no little boy, just a canvas bag filled with newspapers waddling up the street on two little feet.

Abby has moved in with us for a time. With Daniel gone, she is by herself, so it is good that she has a family to live with. She has been very quiet lately and seems to be feeling unwell. Yesterday morning at breakfast, she became sick but thankfully, this morning she ate well. Don’t tell Daniel of this as it will only trouble him and there is nothing he can do. Although she has no family of her own, she is now a part of our family and I finally have that sister I’ve always wanted. I will try to keep her spirits up.

I have imagined that on your way south that you have traveled through Manhattan. My father took Daniel and me there once when we were children. I remember seeing the girls in their pretty fashions. Tell me darling sweet boy, did they smile and wave to you in your uniform and did you return their smiles and get an extra spring in your step?

Oh, forgive me. You know I have such a jealous nature when it comes to you. I remember how you teased me at the church dance last fall. You had told me that you don’t like to dance, but you promised you would dance with me when we sat in church the week before. Then at the dance, you went right ahead and danced three times with that Ruth Campbell. I know you did that just to make me jealous. I saw you looking over to me all the time to see if I saw you. I’m sure you remember the pain of my boot heal on your toe when you finally did allow yourself to dance with me. My temper is now well known to all. My father tells me that there must be some Irish blood in the family stock, but I’ll have none of that. You deserved it, Joshua Winslow! In educating you, didn’t your father teach you not to trifle with a girl’s affections?

Now that you are gone and I miss you so, I forgive you for all your ill manners and I apologize for my very wicked behavior. All I pray for now is for your safe return.

In spite that brave mask I am forced to wear for others, my father knows of my anxiety. He scolds me less for the gossip I like to talk about at the dinner table and for my strange interpretations of his sermons. He knows of my love of the written word and has asked me to compose a new benediction for him that mentions the brave twenty-seven of Winslow:

“May the Good Lord and his son, Jesus, bless each and every one of you with courage, wisdom and charity, and may he watch over our beloved sons, every day and every night until they are delivered safely home again.”

My darling Joshua, be well and be safe and know that I am praying for you and dreaming of you. My letters will continue to flow over the fortnights to come.

All my love,

Sarah

PS – We have acquired a new peacock and I have decided to name him Jefferson Davis, since he loves to puff himself up and strut his way around the pen all with the pomp and arrogance that I imagine a Southern Gentleman to have. He is no match for me and my broomstick as I am sure that rebel scoundrel is no match for the brave twenty-seven of Winslow.

By the time I was done, needless to say, I was hopelessly in love.  I was enraptured.  I was overcome with that blissful sense that everything on earth and in heaven is in harmony.  I sat at my desk and sighed.

Then I came to my senses and realized I needed a second opinion.  As proud and as touched by what I had written, I realized that it may just be a case of literary…self gratification. I printed it out and then nervously gave the letter to my wife. “Tell me,” I asked, “is this a letter that a seventeen year-old girl would write or is it just a letter I would like to receive from a seventeen year-old girl?”

“That’s good,” was the verdict.

I needed more.  “Is it believable, or is it a creepy middle-aged man’s fantasy?”

“No,” she said. “It’s good. Write more.”

“Write more” is a ringing endorsement to me, especially from my wife.

That was a couple of years ago.  Since then I have occasionally worked on the various parts of the novel: a present time narrative line, a narrative line from the early 1980’s and the epistolary novel set in 1861 and 1862.  I haven’t decided whether the letters are “true” or are just imagined by one of the characters in the other two story lines.  Making them imaginary frees me from having to be historically accurate and helps justify the idealized relationship between Sarah and Joshua.  I’ve written Sarah letters and Joshua letters sporadically since then.  Each of them tries to explore some aspect of love, be it emotional, psychological, physical, or spiritual. Collectively they also tell two stories: life in Winslow during the Civil War as told by Sarah, and the life of a Union soldier as told by Joshua.

When all is said and done, however, they are, quite simply love letters.  One of the things I discovered as I was writing these letters, is that to a large extent, I’m able to throw away all the rules that I normally live by when dealing with emotion in writing fiction.  In general, the more intense the emotion, the more controlled your language needs to be.  To make emotions real for your reader you need to show, not tell.  Emotion isn’t verbal, so it cannot be directly described.  Instead you need to record the effects of emotions.  Physical sensations, descriptions of body language and movement, tone of voice, and dramatic structure evoke the emotion in your reader.  Emoting uncontrollably on the page doesn’t work.

Except in love letters.  Writers of love letters, whether they be literary writers creating fiction, or confused Governors writing emails never meant for anyone other than his lover to read, can throw caution to the wind, have no fear of appearing silly or foolish and simply let go.

Whether or not I ever finish this novel, let alone publish it, writing these letters has been a learning experience for me as a writer.  The fate of my characters is known from the beginning.  Sarah never sees Joshua again because five days after writing his last letter he is killed in the Battle of Antietam.  As the narrative content – the stories Sarah and Joshua tell each other – evolved, so did the characters.  During the course of the year and a half that this correspondence takes place, both Sarah and Joshua are changed by both the words they write to each other and their separate experiences.

Along with the, well, mushy parts of each letter, I also have each character write about their current circumstances and experiences, much in the same way Governor Sanford tells his beloved Maria little tidbits from his political life.  The experiences that I describe are not planned, they are complete improvisations created in the moment.  The historical accuracy of these improvisations is extremely questionable, so I’m leaning toward the view that they are figments of another character’s imagination.  It also helps me continue to tell myself that I am not writing an historical novel.

Governor Sanford’s love letters show great potential.  The emotions seem genuine but he still seems self conscious expressing himself.  He also seems to be unsure of his lover’s devotion to him and tries to impress her with his political credentials.  Relax, Governor. You had her at “hola.”   It’s private, just between you and her, light the fuse and let loose your passion.

While Sarah and Joshua’s letters never come close to the eroticism that Governor Sanford attempts, here’s one of Joshua’s letters that the Governor might use as a guide to how to lay it on the line. It’s not erotic, but it’s about as sensuous as two teenagers from religious families can be in a nineteenth century small town.  In place of Sarah and Joshua, I have substituted the names of Governor Sanford and his beloved:

My Dearest Maria,

Your father may understand the ways of the Lord and the hearts of men, but he has no understanding of the ways of the Union Army. We have not reached the Blue Mountains of Virginia. We have not reached Virginia. It appears that we’ll not see Virginia or even Maryland this year. We’ve marched some, we trained some more, but mostly what we do is wait.

After mustering in Albany, we traveled down to Manhattan Island by boat. We camped there for two weeks while we waited for some more boats to carry us across the very river we came down. Every day we could see ferryboats crossing the river, but we had to wait for the Army’s boats which were being built in Delaware.

After we landed in New Jersey, we marched some, and then we stopped and set up camp on the plains near Trenton. It was a long march and we were glad for the rest, but we have now been here for close to three months. We train on most days and are now very disciplined and sharp, but we have yet to see a rebel flag, see a rebel soldier, or hear a rebel gunshot. There may be a war being fought somewhere, but it’s definitely not in Trenton New Jersey.

We’ve met some boys from other parts of the Union. Having spent all my life in Winslow, I only know farming, farming ways and farming people. I have made friends with a boy named Pete Shotten, from Deer Island, Maine, whose father is a fisherman. There are some other boys as well from his town and they are all sons of fisherman. There’s also a boy named Johnnie Woodbine from Port Jefferson on Long Island. His father is a fisherman. I have to say that after listening to them talk about how much they miss their lives on the water and their homes, I think that I would someday like to live near the sea, at least for a little while. We’ve also got a boy named Boucher who comes from far north in New York, near Canada. His name is pronounced “Boo-shay.” Before he joined the army, he trapped furs with his father and brothers. He speaks English, but we call him “Frenchy” because of his name.

While we have been camped here, there haven’t been too many hardships. The training is hard, but the New Jersey farmland would make all of the farmers in Winslow jealous and the growing season is longer here, so we are well supplied right now. The camp has a still, a laundry, a chapel and a post office. The officers order us to visit the laundry. They don’t have to order us to visit the still or the chapel or the post office.

On the day when that last batch of letters from Winslow arrived at the post office tent, the tent and the whole area around it for at least twenty yards was filled with lavender scent. You and your friends sure mixed up a potent batch of lavender water. The other men have been teasing us about it and they have taken to calling us Winslow boys, the “Perfume Brigade.” They tease us but I think they are also a little jealous that we are all together and come from a home where all the girls would send fragrant letters to their men.

For all of us, those letters remind us all of how much we miss home and to thank the Lord for what we have waiting for us.

For me, that scent brought back a memory of a very special day. It was that day this past June when you and I had our first picnic alone, down by the stream at the edge of Jeb Wilson’s property. I hope you remember it. You had worked so hard to make sure everything was just right, and then everything seemed to go wrong. The ants got into the peach cobbler, you dropped the plate of fried chicken on the ground and I kicked over the jug of cider. All we had left of our picnic were some cherries. You were so upset after all the work you had done, but I didn’t mind it at all. Having that time alone with you in that beautiful place was all that mattered. Finally, you laughed.

That was the day you let me kiss you. We were sitting beneath that old oak tree at the end of Wilson’s rock wall. My ears were filled with the sound of swollen stream and the songs of your laughter. The golden sun was flashing off the pretty yellow dress you wore.

When I hold your scented letter to my nose now, I remember how, after seeing you home and continuing on home myself, I held my hand up to my nose, which had touched your hair, your shoulder and your hip. The scent of lavender reminds me of the taste of cherries and the touch of your lips on mine.

My dear, sweet Maria, please don’t fret because you didn’t say the words to me before I left. You have told them to me now. Paper may get old and crumble, ink may run and fade, but those words are immortal.

You asked me about what I dream and about how will I know that you will love me forever. Let me tell you about a dream that I have. I have it every night. I have had it every night since leaving home. Every time I dream this dream, liking a painting slowly coming into being, it has more form, more detail, and becomes more real. Every morning when I awake now, I believe I am in Winslow and you are beside me. Please tell me if you can imagine this dream:

It is early June. We are in that spot by the stream where we had our picnic. My love for you could never be contained in any church, any structure built by man, and your love for me is a wonderful gift from God, no less then all of his other gifts: the trees and flowers, the birds, his gift of beautiful summer days, the gift of life itself, and so we have asked your father that it be here in this sacred place among all the things that you and I love and cherish. The small roses in your modest bouquet were clipped from your grandmother’s rose garden. Your simple white dress was sewn by your mother who added piece of lace from her own wedding dress. Your beautiful brown hair was braided by your closest girlfriend and decorated with wildflowers gathered by the young girls in your Sunday school class. You are a vision of Nature.

After our vows and our meal, Callie Shaw’s violin plays that old Irish waltz that you love. In that golden afternoon moment, my hand on your hip, your hand on my shoulder, our two hands clasped, we begin our lives together.

If you tell me that you can dream this dream too, then that is all I need to know that you will love me forever.

All my love,

Mark

Well, okay, maybe asking his lover to marry him is a little more complicated for a married 21st century governor than it is for Joshua.  But again, it’s the thought that counts.

As I started working on the retelling, I imagined a history of the fictional town and prep school to include in the piece. I awoke one morning in a hotel room in Seattle, where I was working at the time, with the name “Antietam” in my mind. Suddenly, my novella became a novel, which I have been working on at a snail’s pace ever since.

I’ve never been a civil war buff, and in fact always thought those who are civil war buffs to be a little strange. Nonetheless, something Shelby Foote had spoken about in Ken Burns’ documentary had been rattling around in my subconscious during the twenty years since I had seen it. At the time, I had no idea where or when the Battle of Antietam occurred. To my surprise, a Google search later that morning revealed that the battle took place near Sharpsburg, Maryland, about fifty miles from my home. I knew that I would have to visit the site eventually, but work and family commitments made me keep putting it off.

Meanwhile, I began the work of writing a novel, something that I considered too ambitious for where I was, and probably still am, in my writing career. Winslow is a set of threaded stories about the fictional town and school located at the foot of the Berkshires that threads multiple time periods: a contemporary story about loss, missed opportunities and regret, a story set in the early 1980′s about the centenial anniversary of the school (the basis of the original short story), and story about the imagined romance between a minister’s daughter and a young man in the town who dies at Antietam in 1862. Clearly there’s easier things I could attempt for a first novel.

When I finally got a chance to drive out to Antietam it was spring of 2007. Like any other battlefield that has been turned into a memorial, Antietam’s natural beauty is overwhelming. The knowledge of what happened there, the tranquility of the setting, and the hushed tones of the visitors, who all seem to be on their own pilgrimage, makes the only way to describe the feeling as “spiritual.” I’m not a particularly religious person, but it brought to mind those words from Ecclesiastes: “One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.” I found myself mourning the death of a young man who existed only in my mind and on the pages of the novel I have been writing, and aching in sympathy with Sarah, the minister’s daughter in my imagination.

The Battle of Antietam was the single bloodiest day in American combat history. The events of that day are documented and the numbers of the dead and wounded have been counted and re-counted. Those numbers include the twenty-seven sons of the town of Winslow, New York. The numbers of the spiritually wounded include eight widows and nineteen children. The sorrow that enveloped Winslow lasted generations and is still recalled by the statue that stands in the square in front of the post office.

Time has forgotten, however, the wounded that are never counted. They were not widows; they were not orphans. They were the young women of the town of Winslow, who had tearfully posted their perfumed letters at that very same post office. Some of those letters were later found, muddy and blood-soaked on the battlefield. Their sorrow was private and they carried it for the remainder of their days. Their betrothed had left the earth, leaving no tangible sign that they had ever existed. These women would never see their lovers smile in a child’s face.

Instead, they were left to mourn their whole lives, driven from joy to sorrow and back again by memories of lives they had only imagined.

-Epilogue from Winslow

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