The Union Quilters (8 page)

When the Union Quilters gathered at Two Bears Farm three days later, they began by sharing letters they had received from the front since their last meeting. In the more than five months since the men had marched off to war, the women had learned that letters from the regiment were more reliable and informative than the out-of-town newspapers, which exaggerated triumphs, glossed over misfortunes, and omitted the small, precious details of their men’s daily lives that were admittedly not newsworthy but mattered greatly to the women who loved them. Since the letters described the experiences not only of the author but also of friends and neighbors in the company, the Union Quilters had come to think of them as community property, to be read aloud to all, except for paragraphs of the most personal nature. Mary took notes for her father, who printed the most relevant excerpts in the
Water’s Ford Register
on the same page as the list of regimental casualties, which thus far had been blessedly light, and included no one from Company L.

Mary herself read first, a letter Abner had sent more than two weeks before. Next, Dorothea shared Thomas’s news, which had arrived at the Water’s Ford post office the same day as Abner’s, though it was dated a week later. “The rest is just for me,” she said, when a half page yet remained. She forced a smile and fought back tears as her friends teased her, mistakenly believing that in the passages Dorothea had not shared, Thomas’s prose had taken a turn for the romantic. What they did not know, what she could not bear to tell them, was that Thomas was grieving for the child she had lost on the day of his departure. She had finally summoned up the courage to tell him how she had returned home from the rally only to be overcome with cramps and to find that her courses had come upon her, heavy and painful. She had assured him she had fully recovered, and that she was under Mrs. Hennessey’s watchful care, and that they would surely be able to try again. But relief that she was well and hope for the future did not mitigate their sorrow.

“I have a letter,” said Gerda as Dorothea carefully folded Thomas’s and returned it to the envelope. “From Jonathan.”

Charlotte drew in a sharp breath and shot Dorothea a look of outraged incredulity, but Gerda did not seem to notice. An awkward silence descended upon the circle as Gerda unfolded the pages. “My dearest friend,” she began. Dorothea exchanged a quick, stricken glance with her mother, Lorena, and silently chided her friend for her insensitivity—and her brother for his indiscretion. “Thank you for your warm and witty letters, which provide me with pleasant company at the end of my exhausting days. If not for my fatigue and the noise of the camp, I could almost imagine that it is Saturday afternoon and I am seated at your kitchen table, enjoying a delicious meal and a clever argument—”

“That’s very nice,” Mrs. Claverton interrupted coolly. Beside her, Charlotte flushed scarlet, fists balling up her skirts in her lap. “However, if you don’t have any relevant news to share, perhaps someone else—”

“I’ll skip ahead,” said Gerda, turning over the page. Dorothea could not tell if she was oblivious to Charlotte’s consternation or enjoying it. “He continues, ‘We have had some new arrivals in camp of late, and among them I discovered some companies from western states that had not yet been examined or mustered into service. I commenced with the examination, and to my consternation I discovered that a full fifth of the men were unfit and would have to be dismissed.ʹʺ

“And yet some perfectly fit men aren’t even allowed to get that far,” said Constance, frowning as she tightened her lap hoop around her most recently finished top. She sewed and knitted as diligently as anyone, though her creations went to neighbors or strangers rather than her own kin. For his part, Abel provided an abundance of cheeses in every shipment of goods sent to the regiment, as if he harbored no ill will over his exclusion and was content to contribute to the army in this manner instead. The Union Quilters knew otherwise. Since the company had left the valley, Abel had grown increasingly outraged and resentful that he was not allowed to fight, and the strain of Constance’s utter inability to placate him was beginning to show.

“It’s a grave injustice, Constance,” said Gerda, frowning as she returned her gaze to the letter. “Jonathan goes on to describe some occurrences of typhoid in the camp, but apparently no one in Company L has been afflicted.” A sigh of relief went up from the circle. “And now this: ‘Ever since we were attached to the 1st Brigade of the Army of the Potomac, we have anticipated forthcoming orders to depart Washington City and move further into Virginia to engage the enemy. For days rumors have abounded that we will strike camp soon.
’ ”

“Oh, dear,” murmured Mary.

“It was inevitable,” said Dorothea, though her heart plummeted. “They’ve been posted at the capital for months. With the coming of spring, the fighting has picked up, and they’re needed elsewhere.”

Gerda nodded, eager to continue. ‘ “Last night speculation reached such a fevered pitch that many of the men convinced themselves that they would see fierce fighting by the next afternoon, and they began to celebrate their impending departure, and, regrettably, to fortify themselves with liquor courage. A few of them got hold of some rum and made themselves quite merry on it. I’m sorry to say that our own Rufus Barrows overindulged, tripped over a tent peg, and managed to knock out a tooth and sprain his ankle in the fall.’ ”

Someone quickly choked off a laugh, and Prudence coughed into her handkerchief. “Our first casualty,” said Mrs. Barrows dryly, shaking her head. “I should have known it would be my husband, and rum the weapon. Does Jonathan mention my boys? They’re usually smart enough not to get caught up in their father’s carousing.”

“I’m sorry. He doesn’t.” Gerda turned to the second page. “The next few paragraphs are . . . inconsequential, but he added a postscript : ‘A few lines more, written in haste: The rumors have proven true. We are striking camp and advancing to Manassas. Barrows cannot march on account of his ankle, and as he will remain behind in camp, he has promised to mail this for me. I will write more as soon as I am able.ʹʺ

The room fell silent except for the rustling of paper as Gerda returned the letter to the envelope and slipped it into her pocket. Dorothea’s heart pounded, but she took a deep breath and asked, “Did Jonathan date his letter?”

“March the ninth,” said Gerda.

Dorothea felt a hand upon her shoulder and glanced up to find her mother smiling at her reassuringly. “It could be a while before we hear anything more,” said Lorena. “We can’t waste that time in worry. We must continue to work and pray, and hope for the best.”

“You’re right.” Dorothea cleared her throat and inhaled deeply, and straightened her shoulders. “Our biggest challenge now will be figuring out where to send all the goods we’ve been collecting for the men.”

“If the next letter from the company doesn’t say, I’m sure the Sanitary Commission will advise us,” said Lorena.

Dorothea started, remembering the second letter she had meant to share. “I’ll ask when I respond to their letter,” she said, retrieving it from the fireplace mantel. “Apparently our fame as skilled quilters has spread beyond the Forty-ninth Pennsylvania throughout the Army of the Potomac. The secretary of the Sanitary Commission has written to us personally to ask us to provide quilts for a new military hospital in Washington City.”

Her friends brightened and a murmur of excitement filled the room. It was no small honor to be recognized for their handiwork, and they quickly agreed that they could continue to support their own regiment while also providing quilts for these other sick and wounded soldiers. Indeed, they should look beyond carrying for only their own and support all soldiers who fought for the Union.

“How many quilts do they need?” asked Prudence. A dressmaker, she was probably calculating how many bags of scraps she had on hand at her shop and how far they would stretch.

“They’d like sixty.” Exclamations of astonishment went up from the circle, and Dorothea raised her voice to be heard above them. “But they’ll take whatever we can give them.”

“If they need sixty, we should give them sixty,” said Constance. “We don’t have to make them all ourselves. We’re not the only women around here who sew well enough. Let’s invite other ladies to join us.”

“We couldn’t all fit in Dorothea’s front room,” said Charlotte, glancing around at their chairs drawn closely together. “There’s just enough room for each of us; that’s why we’ve limited our membership all these years.”

“We could hold a quilting bee at the school,” said Eliza, who had served as the schoolteacher after Thomas, until her recent marriage. “Didn’t you do that years ago?”

Dorothea could not have asked for a better introduction for her ambitious proposal. “We do need more space,” she agreed, “and not only for this grand quilting bee. Think of what we could accomplish if we had a place of our own to host any fund-raiser we could imagine.”

“A place of our own?” Mrs. Claverton echoed, with a hint of amusement. The Claverton farm was adjacent to Uncle Jacob’s—now Jonathan and Charlotte’s. Not only had she known Dorothea since childhood, she had also been a member of the original library board. She could recognize the signs that Dorothea had a scheme in mind.

“Imagine: no more asking the churches to let us rent their halls. No more restricting the attendance to our fairs and entertainments based upon how many people we can squeeze into the Barrows Inn.” Dorothea threw an apologetic look to Mrs. Barrows, who nodded ruefully and shrugged, for she knew the hotel’s dining room was too narrow for a ball and too full of echoes for lectures or musical performances. “I’m tired of working so hard to raise twenty dollars here, thirty dollars there. Aren’t you? If we had our own hall—spacious, bright, comfortable, with fine acoustics—we could raise a hundred dollars or more with a single event.”

Constance and Lorena looked intrigued, Mary and Mrs. Claverton, amused. The others looked uncertain, or even wary. “When you say large,” queried Prudence, “what exactly did you have in mind?”

“Large enough to comfortably accommodate six hundred people,” Dorothea replied, forging ahead with her argument before they had time to convince themselves that such an undertaking was too ambitious for a simple sewing circle. If they owned a suitable hall, they could sponsor fairs, concerts, balls, lectures, exhibitions, and other public events, including quilting bees. The money they earned selling tickets to these performances would far exceed everything they had raised thus far. They need consult no one before planning and scheduling an event, they need pay no rent—in fact, they could raise even more money for the soldiers by renting the hall to other organizations on days when they did not need it. “We have been thinking too small,” said Dorothea. “That’s not a criticism; it’s simply the truth. We’re neither accustomed nor encouraged to think beyond our own families or close circle of friends. But just as war demands noble deeds and courageous action from our men, it also demands the same from us. Yes, there is risk involved, and a great deal of work besides, but if we want to accomplish great things, we must think on a grander scale than we have in the past.”

Dorothea had risen to her feet as she spoke, her excitement mounting as she tried to make her friends see what she envisioned, and now she sat down again, studying her friends’ expressions with breathless anticipation. They would either get behind her idea now and carry their accomplishments to unforeseen heights, or they would demur and her dream would founder, never to be mentioned again.

Mrs. Claverton broke the silence. “There’s that vacant half acre behind the Lutheran church.”

“My uncle owns that lot,” said Eliza. “I could speak to him. I think he would be willing to sell it, considering our intentions.”

“Land and buildings cost money,” Lorena reminded them. “As Dorothea has pointed out, our fund-raisers barely bring in enough to supply the regiment. What would become of our soldiers if we direct our efforts elsewhere?”

No one wanted the soldiers’ immediate needs to be forgotten in the pursuit of long-term goals, but Dorothea had accounted for that. Their current efforts would continue as before, the soldiers remaining the beneficiaries. They would launch new endeavors to pay for the hall.

“We shall sell subscriptions,” she proposed. “For twenty dollars, an individual will be permitted to attend all events at the hall in perpetuity.”

“All events?” echoed Prudence.

“All events. We need sell only twenty-five such subscriptions to raise five hundred dollars, which would be sufficient to buy a half-acre lot and materials, even without a discount from Eliza’s uncle.”

“But no one wants to attend lectures and concerts alone,” objected Charlotte, “and forty dollars may be too much for many families. Why not fifteen dollars for an individual, twenty for a couple? People will believe they’re getting quite a bargain and be inclined to spend the whole twenty dollars.”

Gerda raised her eyebrows as if astounded to hear such wisdom coming from the young beauty, and the others quickly chimed in their agreement. “Think too of how we raised money to purchase books for the library,” Dorothea called out, smiling as she waved them to silence so she could explain the rest. “We charged five dollars for those brass plates bearing sponsors’ names affixed to the bookshelves. Similarly, we could engrave bricks or stones with sponsors’ names and include them in the construction. Those funds could be put toward furnishing the hall with chairs, draperies, a stage—anything else we would need.”

“You can’t furnish something you haven’t built,ʺ cautioned Mrs. Barrows. “You’ll need money to pay for labor too, not that there are many men to hire these days. My Mr. Barrows built our inn, but he’s off to war and can’t help us. Who’s going to build this grand hall of ours? Me? You? Young Charlotte there with a baby on the way?”

Constance’s voice carried proudly above the others. “My Abel will lead the construction. He’s a fine carpenter and helped build the library. I’m sure Hans Bergstrom will do his part too. There are other men around who can’t fight for one reason or another but can still swing a hammer, and boys like mine, too young to fight but old enough to help. We’ll get our hall built, sure enough.”