Chapter 4

April 14, 1867

“Jonathan!”

Elizabeth Carter woke from her nightmare and sat up in their big four-poster feather bed, shaking from the vividness of the dream, her head reeling. She had dreamed she’d been standing on the bank of a wide river and Jonathan, in a very small boat, was being swept away by the current while the tempest raged around them. The scene was only illuminated by a constant barrage of lightning. She had called and called for him, but he refused to look at her or acknowledge her in any way. She was distraught and fearful of losing him. Finally when he deigned to look, his eyes were filled with the most dreadful sorrow.

In the pre-dawn darkness she reached across the bed knowing she would find comfort in his arms, but he wasn’t there. His side of their big bed was cold and the blankets undisturbed. She trembled from the cold and the after effects of the dream. Jonathan had not come to bed. Where could he be?

She pulled the feather comforters around her and curled in a ball trying to preserve her body heat against the spring-time cold that pervaded the room. She wished she had a fire but it was too early to summon Abby and she was too cold and miserable to do it herself. She was grateful the nausea of the previous morning had not reappeared.

In her miserable state she dozed, only to be awakened by distant church bells. She peered from the bedding and looked at his side of the bed in the early morning light, and remembered the dream. The feelings of despair and fear returned. Jonathan had not come home last night. It was the Sabbath, so it had been two nights she’d been alone. He had never been gone more than a night since he had returned from the war. Her face burned with shame as she recalled the last time they spoke.

On Friday night, she had been out with friends seeing a new review at the Alexander Theatre. Jonathan had to attend an evening board meeting at the bank. He had been appointed president of the bank by the board of directors to replace her father who had died after a year-long illness just over a month ago. Jonathan had refused to join her after the meeting saying it was unseemly that she should be going out to the theater within such a short time after the death of her father. He had been right of course, but she had been bored witless with staying home except to receive visitors or the occasional foray to see her mother. The enforced idleness had grated on her. She knew the conventions but chafed under the restrictions. Even her mother encouraged her to ‘go and enjoy yourself.’

Of course, her mother knew that Jonathan would disapprove of her actions, so all the more reason to encourage her daughter to defy her husband. Elizabeth did, and regretted it almost immediately, but she was too proud to apologize when she had come home on Friday evening rather late. As she passed the door to the parlor on her way up to bed, he had called to her. But when he had asked to speak to her she had rebuked him with harsh words, and left him sitting in his shirt sleeves near the fire looking weary and perhaps sad. It was unfortunate that she had not paid more mind to his condition, but she had been tired and suffering from a headache caused by too much wine and not enough sleep, plus an odd feeling that carried an undercurrent of pending illness.

Jonathan had an uncanny ability to select the correct course of action. He was not a prig, just a man who conducted his life with a moral code that had been instilled in him at an early age in western Pennsylvania, by parents who had been loving but strict. She had met them a few times and had felt their mild disapproval at first, but they had accepted her and their son’s decision, and their relationship had flourished. That was certainly more than she could say of her mother and Jonathan. In fact, when she had lost their child, Jonathan’s mother had endured several days of travel to be with her and nurse her. She had spent two months as a guest and had shown love and compassion and they had become friends. Elizabeth quite looked forward to her letters.

She knew she should not have been out on the town making merry while they were still mourning her father. She loved Jonathan with all her heart, but could not rid herself of the habit of doing things that caused trouble in their marriage. She knew Jonathan loved her and perhaps she had to test the limits of that love. That puzzled her, but the answer also eluded her. Her uncaring actions may have precipitated this separation. Where could he be?

Even after more than five years of marriage her mother had not warmed to Jonathan, and she knew Jonathan barely tolerated her, and were it not for her father he might never have visited her parents’ home. During the past year the relationship had deteriorated further and now that her father was gone the animosity seemed to have reached new heights.

Elizabeth knew Jonathan would never be accepted by her mother and indeed most of their social circle, despite the fact he had proved to be twice the man of any of her erstwhile suitors. To the world he presented the appearance of a stolid banker, but she knew that he was much more than that. He was a man who was fiercely loyal to his friends, a loving husband, a man of principles, and a man who had gone to the war out of a duty to his country, despite her pleas.

She had been angry with him for months after his departure. That anger had been encouraged by her mother and older brother, Mark. Her anger and hurt made her blind to their devices, their subtle and not so subtle questioning of his love and dedication to her. Mark scoffed at the very idea of patriotism and loyalty. In fact he paid another to take his place in the Union Army, and boasted of it. Elizabeth loved her brother but his desultory ways had only worsened as he had gotten older. He was also jealous of Jonathan, jealous of the love their father had for this farmer from Pennsylvania. Jealous of the responsibilities their father gave to Jonathan, making it clear that he, not Mark, would someday take his place as the head of the bank.

Elizabeth knew that Mark was incapable of success at any position of responsibility. He gambled and drank and ran up debts which could not be covered by the meager salary he made at the bank in a position that was clearly make-work. Her mother seemed oblivious to the fact that Mark’s failings would be ruinous to them all if he was ever placed in a position to manage the bank.

But during much of Jonathan’s absence as he served in the war, Elizabeth let her loneliness and anger color her judgment. These feelings were compounded by the loss of their child, a girl. In her grief Elizabeth had pushed Jonathan away, as if it were somehow his fault. No matter how he tried she could not, would not, let him provide the solace she so badly needed. Selfishly she also ignored his loss. When he left with his regiment, she refused to go to the station to see him off. She took to their bed and sobbed, feeling abandoned.

Her letters to Jonathan were often indifferent and mere recitations of the social scene, devoid of her real feelings of loneliness and loss. She had longed to feel his strong arms around her again. By contrast, Jonathan wrote to her almost every week. Sometimes, because of the vagaries of the mail she’d not hear from him for a month and then a packet of his letters would arrive. She savored each one - carefully opening them to discern the date then reading them in order. And such letters they were – filled with the words she somehow couldn’t bring herself to write – how he missed her and how he longed to be with her holding her close. She blushed at the memory of some of the letters which spoke of his longing for their physical closeness.

The letters often described places she had read about in school, like the Mississippi River and the cities that dotted its banks. The vividness of his words allowed her to imagine the far places with the strange sounding names as if she were in attendance. He never described the battles or the conditions or included anything that might cause her concern. On occasion, he would make light of the privations of their lives as soldiers but always in such a way that made her smile.

Late in 1864 she received, folded inside a letter, a small pencil sketch that was clearly Jonathan standing beside his mount. He was in his officer’s uniform, bareheaded, his large black hat held by his side, a sword and pistol at his waist. His smile belied the gauntness of his frame. The backdrop featured low hills and trees, and the setting was described as ‘somewhere along the Chattahoochee.’ That sketch moved her and she had it framed. For the remaining months of his absence it sat on her night table.

Perhaps, it was that sketch that was the beginning of the realization of the foolishness of her actions in respect to Jonathan. There was also a letter from his commanding officer which was delivered by her father some weeks later. It shocked her and caused her to realize how she had neglected her duties as wife and friend to the man she loved.

As Elizabeth lay curled in her cold bed she watched the gray light of morning fill the room. She unsuccessfully tried to find warmth in their bed as she recalled how her father had come to call early one afternoon in late November 1864. His visit was quite unusual because he took little time away from the bank.

“Now father tell me the real purpose of your visit - is there something the matter?” She asked with some trepidation once they were seated in front of the fire in the front parlor - the servants dismissed, and the coffee served. He had taken the big wingback chair where Jonathan sat and she sat nearby on the sofa.

He took a cigar from a leather case that he kept inside his breast pocket and with great care, cut the end and struck a match to it. Unlike her mother, Elizabeth didn’t mind the smell of cigar smoke and her father felt welcome to smoke in her house.

Once the cigar was lit to his satisfaction, he blew out a cloud of smoke and fixed her with a stern gaze. “Elizabeth, I have a letter from my friend Colonel Keith.”

She felt the blood drain from her face and her heart felt like it had been squeezed by powerful hands. She had trouble breathing. “Has something happened to Jonathan?” She gasped.

Her father, seeing her distress, reached across and took her hand. “Yes, yes he is.”

Elizabeth let out a sigh. It suddenly struck her that until that moment she had never worried about Jonathan. It seemed beyond comprehension that the Jonathan Carter she knew would ever be harmed, or worse, in this war.

“I want you to hear something about Jonathan – something written by his commanding officer. You remember Colonel Keith don’t you?”

She nodded.

“He’s now Brigadier General Keith by the way.”

She said nothing as she watched her father reach inside his jacket to the same place from which he had removed the cigar case, and extract an envelope. She recognized the envelope as the type soldiers used, since it was the same cheap and coarse paper that Jonathan’s letters were written on. He took the pages from inside and unfolded them and smoothed them on his knee.

Without another word, he read,

Elizabeth winced as he read the words, and especially when he said, ‘mostly unharmed.’

As he had finished reading, her father said nothing. He simply handed her the sheets of coarse paper covered with neat handwriting. Her tears fell on the pages as she reread General Keith’s words, especially about her silhouette inside Jonathan’s watch case. How could she be such a fool?

That afternoon she wrote him and told him for the first time of her loneliness and longing for his presence and how she wanted nothing more than to have them together again. She made certain it was in the morning post. She vowed she would promptly answer each of his letters and she would be diligent in writing to him. The next day she went to her father’s tobacconist and purchased a box of Jonathan’s favorite cigars. With these she included a warm woolen scarf, and sent the parcel to Jonathan.

To her mother’s horror, Elizabeth began reading the dailies and following the war and she even placed a map on the wall in what had meant to be the nursery so she could try to keep track of General Sherman’s Army. She knew Jonathan was somewhere in Georgia.

Her efforts seemed in vain, since she heard nothing from him for the month of December, and when she received a letter from him in January it was weeks old. He acknowledged the gifts of the cigars and the scarf saying they had arrived the day before Christmas. He thanked her for her thoughtfulness, but there was an uncommon weariness in the tone of his letter. Gone were the protestations of love and the humor that had marked his other letters. She saw in his sparse words, a change that filled her with dread and worry. Those few sheets of unbleached paper told her little, but said much. She wondered whether it was some particular event, or was it the unremitting war over the two years he had been gone that changed him. Had he been injured? She was certain of one thing – the man who wrote the latest letter was not the man who had left her all those months ago. Her concern was heightened by the fact that she was also certain she had some part in causing this change.