"Dear me," Pat said. "She couldn't drop the subject, could she? I wonder if Peter tried to see Susan while he was at home."
"He'd try, if only out of spite." Josef looked disapproving. "Charming young man, wasn't he? I particularly like his inimitable humor about robbing a helpless old man."
"He was eighteen that year," Mark said.
"Is that an excuse or an explanation?" Josef inquired.
"Go on," Pat said quickly.
"Well, they fought after that at Harpers Ferry and at South Mountain, near Hagerstown. A lot of it was right around here, you know. Union troops, pursuing Lee, passed through Poolesville. The maneuvering of the armies ended on September seventeenth, in the bloodiest one-day battle of the war-Antietam, or Sharpsburg, as the Confederates called it. The whole countryside became a huge hospital, as far south as Frederick, with wounded soldiers in barns, private homes, and churches."
"I remember reading that the mortality rate among the wounded was incredibly high," Pat said, with a shiver. "Of course they had no idea of antisepsis then."
"A few days after the battle, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation," Mark said. "He had been waiting for a victory, so it wouldn't look as if he did it out of desperation. But Antietam wasn't a victory for either side. At best it was a bloody draw. Of course, to Mary Jane it was a Confederate triumph.
"We ache for those sisters, wives and mothers who have lost all, but believe me, Cordelia, they will return, the weary but indomitable men in gray! And our men are safe. We received a letter yesterday from Papa, through the usual channel. Peter was wounded slightly in the left arm, but we are assured it was trivial. No doubt a black silk sling adds to his romantic looks, but I wish I could be near him to nurse him.
"Cousin Alex was with us last week. He is recovering from his illness and we hope to have news of his safe recovery soon. He was here when the news of the infamous Proclamation arrived, and we had a good laugh over the irony of it; for only blacks in what Lincoln is pleased to call "the rebellious states" will be freed on January next. There were many sulky looks when I explained this to our people. No doubt others of them will run away, but we shall do very well without them.
"One result of the Proclamation is that our neighbors have now condescended to join the fray. The old devil has taken a post with the government in Washington, and the young one has enlisted. The absence of the men will make our work easier, but I could wish that one other member of that household had been removed from it."
"Guess who," Kathy said.
"Now," said Mark. "We skip almost a year. The following June, 1863, Lee again crossed the Potomac into Maryland.
"He had to win this time. The North had lost a lot of battles, but they were winning the war. The blockade, Grant pressing in the west, no help from Europe -the South needed a big victory, deep in enemy territory. Well, they had the big one. Gettysburg.
"They fought for three days-the first, second, and third of July. For two weeks before that Lee's men were all over Maryland, burning bridges, capturing horses, generally raising Cain. On June twenty-ninth Stuart's cavalry captured some Union supply wagons in Rockville. Stuart was a dashing, brilliant commander, but that time he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. If he hadn't been fooling around in Maryland he might have arrived at Gettysburg in time… It was awfully close, you know? So damned close…
"Don't digress," Josef said.
"What? Oh. Well, guess who was among the gallant horsethieves in Maryland? Right. The Turnbulls came home for a visit, and Mary Jane got off her pedestal for once.
"They have suffered so much. I have never seen Father eat with such voracity, almost forgetting his table manners. He is horribly thin. Peter says he insists on sharing everything with his men; and there has been little to share. He is too old for war. God help us, cannot we let the old men rest?
"But when I look at my brother, my spirits revive, and I know we must conquer. He too is thin, but deprivation and battle have only hardened him. He is so handsome! He wore a buttonhole of roses, the gift of some admiring girl along their route. If I could only be sure he has abandoned that other attachment! When I quizzed him about it we came close to quarreling…
"They stayed only to eat, and to embrace us; Union troops are all over the area. Now they are on their way north, to carry the war into the enemy's camp.
"Mrs. Turnbull forced herself to vivacity while they were with us, but I saw that her appearance shocked my father. As soon as they left she collapsed again. I fear she is not long for this world."
"Is that how she speaks of her stepmother, after twenty years?" Pat demanded. "And what's that about her illness?"
"Mary Jane mentioned it before, rather casually," Mark said. "Obviously she didn't much care what happened to poor old Lavinia." He looked up from the book. "And that, friends, is Mary Jane's last letter."
"What? But that was only 1863. The war went on for two more years. Did she die, or something?"
"Something, " Mark said. "This is what her friend Cordelia wrote at the end of the book:
"This was not my dear friend's last letter; but it was the last I could spare for the eyes of posterity. Sudden, devastating tragedy struck thereafter: an entire family wiped out, almost at a single stroke. Major Turnbull died at Gettysburg, his blood staining the bullet-riddled flag he had snatched up when the standard-bearer fell. The news of his death stopped the heart of his affectionate wife. Mary's beloved young brother was also a casualty of the great battle, though no news ever came to his grieving sister of where or how he fell. Bereaved of all she had loved, my poor friend lost her family home and lived out her days in penury and illness, in a retreat in Poolesville. I received the news of her death last year, and determined to publish these letters, as a tribute to a heroine of the Confederacy."
"She goes on and on," Mark added. "But that's about it. Well? What do you think?"
"I see one obvious discrepancy," Josef said. "The pamphlet stated that the Turnbull men were killed in a local skirmish. According to this source, it was at Gettysburg."
"Mary Jane's letter proves that they were still alive in late June of 1863," Mark said. "Of course that was before Gettysburg, just before… There's another discrepancy. We've been assuming the Turnbulls were with White's Raiders. Officially, the Raiders were Company B of the Twenty-fifth Virginia Battalion-and it wasn't formed till the summer of 1862. They must have been with some other unit. At least the old man was; he joined up in 1861."
"What are you driving at?" Josef demanded in exasperation.
"I told you. I want to find out where and when Peter Turnbull died. We can't do that unless we know what his unit was. Maybe it was the First Virginia Cavalry. Company K was a Maryland unit; it was formed at Leesburg, Virginia, in 1861."
Josef eyed his stepson-to-be with poorly concealed hostility.
"Mark, will you stop making mysteries about everything? Tell us what you have in mind."
"I can't! There's a piece missing, and it's the key to the whole business. You'd laugh if I told you what I'm thinking now. I was hoping you'd have the same reaction to Mary Jane's letters that I did."