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Hal Holbrook Reads Civil War Letters

Adam D. Fisher

A soldier who lost an arm and a leg in the war, wrote to his fiancée releasing her from her promise to marry him.*

Abigail is weeding the kitchen garden when her father comes home from town and hands her a letter. She puts down the hoe and runs to the far corner of the garden, wipes her hands on her apron and eagerly tears open the envelope.

“Dear Abigail,

I have lost my arm and leg in the war and fear I cannot be a proper husband. I know that I cannot take over my father’s farm as planned and do not know if I can provide the proper support to which you would be entitled. It is only fair that I release you from your promise to marry me.

I will always love you,

                      William.” 

She reads it twice, three times knitting her brows and shaking her head. She goes off behind the large oak to be alone, leans her back against it and keeps shaking her head. Her William could not have been injured so badly. She saw some men who’d lost limbs and come back from the war, pale, weak, unsure of themselves, bitter, afraid, reduced to begging in town. She closes her eyes trying to picture William that way and can’t. He is the same tall and strong man she’d known, except that he has only one leg and one arm. Otherwise there is no change. How could there be? Yes, nothing has really changed.

She hears her father call her name and mutter, “Where is she? Always disappearing, avoiding her work. If she weren’t a grown woman, I’d take a switch to her.” She thinks how mean he can be.

She sits down by the tree and pictures the day William will come home. She is wearing her blue dress, the one he says makes the blue of her eyes light up. She is fidgeting in the kitchen and out in the garden waiting for him, and then a wagon comes up the road crossing the field—corn on one side, potatoes on he other—and stops. At first there is only the driver who steps down then goes around to the back of the wagon, pulls out a crutch and helps a bearded man down. She squints, is it William? Yes, it must be him, he hasn’t shaved in weeks. She puts her face in her hands unable to look. No, she runs up and stops. He is thin. His clothes are much too big. His right pant leg is pinned up. His left sleeve is pinned up. She steps forward holding out her arms, brushes tears away with her sleeve. He cannot hold out his remaining arm which grasps the crutch. She comes toward him, holds him and feels his bony body, his one arm leaning on her.  She turns away and runs back into the house. No, she stays and holds him, then kisses his cheek.

Now, she settles on the ground and leans against the oak. She has an image of him in the hospital wincing in pain, not sure what to do, trying to think through their future. He thinks about all the things on his father’s farm he cannot do and a deep sadness comes over him. He thinks of her, of her seeing him, only a part of a man, broken, so fearful that she will run away at the sight of him. It is even hard for him to look at the stumps of what was once his arm and leg. He lays in bed, grim, descending into deep hopelessness and writing to her. She is angry. Does he think her so shallow that she will turn away from him grateful for his release? And in the next moment she feels grateful not have to contend with the stumps of his arm and leg. And just as quickly she asks herself, Has he lost all courage and given up on himself? How can I let him sink that way? She can feel the rough bark of the oak through her thin dress.

Lately, she’d used her little money to buy some Dr. Flambé’s Beauty Cream which Mr. Green, the traveling salesman from whom she bought needles, pins and fabric, had promised would turn every girl into a beauty. She knew her skin was drab and dry and her hair a little thin; she knew she was no beauty but wanted to be beautiful for William. She’d waited until no one was around to make the purchase.

She gets up and walks slowly into the woods. I know, she tells herself, he wrote because he’s afraid I will turn away from him, I will find him repulsive; didn’t he see my discomfort when a cripple begged in town? Would I really be repulsed, resent him, break the engagement? How could he think that? She is quiet, walking slowly looking at the thick green moss on the trees. She takes a deep breath: Maybe he is right and it is for the best. Maybe he knows me as I am and not as I’d like to be. She weeps at the thought of losing him. She weeps because she wishes she had no second thoughts. She weeps because she is ashamed of herself.

For some time now she has paid special attention to her mother who has been struggling to teach her to cook. Before William proposed, her mother would say, “Abigail, don’t forget to add seasoning to the potatoes …young lady how do you expect to ever get a husband if you can’t cook?”

A poplar has fallen near the path and she sits on the trunk thinking, It can’t end like this, and then the idea that perhaps he is like those broken men she’d seen and not like he used to be, intrudes but she pushes the thought away. She watches squirrels chasing one another. She picks up a gingko leaf and twirls it. She shakes her head back and forth, allows the question: What could our lives be like? Could we even have children? Could he support us? But didn’t he once, when they were walking on this very path say that maybe he should leave the farm and become a lawyer or a teacher? He wouldn’t need both arms and legs for that. She has the urge to go to him immediately and remind him of what he could do, to tell him that they could still live on the farm, rent out the fields, and she could be a sales girl at Belk’s Emporium while he learns law or accounting or something, anything.  She sobs, I can’t abandon him. He is my…I want to be with him. She reads the letter again. His face comes into view. She sees his sparkling eyes, the crooked nose broken when a horse threw him, the little-boy-who-has-just-stolen-a-cookie smile. She smiles. She reads the last part, “I will always love you, William.”  She turns and runs home, finds, paper, ink and pen, takes them to her room and sitting on her bed pulls over a small table to write back,

“So long as you have a body sufficient to hold your soul, I will cling to you.”*

*The italicized sentences at the beginning and the end are the actual words from a civil war letter read in a performance by Hal Holbrook.