• My Dearest Wife Susanna,
    In The Year of Our Lord, 1863

    This war waged by the North has dredged on for almost two years now with nye end in sight. I grow fearful for my coldness; with every man that is dropped in our most just cause, my eyes seem to dull with every drop stolen by the ground. I may be mistaken though in my language, as nothing seems to justify this feud between kin. There seems to be practically no difference now between us between color and what we name the flag; they're so commonplace that we've even gone to the length of renaming the same shape. We here, Sons of the South, carry our battle flag with pride, the Stars and Bars and our Yankee counterpart carries the Stars and Stripes. It seems by these stars which we carry and shine above us that bind us into a blood-bond so tightly knit that no man will stand after this war has laid waste to the land we've given all to defend.
    Enough though, we're marching North from Tennessee and I have a fear that each step takes us closer to the Lord's Heaven. I've enclosed in this letter five dollars, half this month's earnings, as always and I dream ever vigilant that this war will end and I may return. Love the boy (he must be what, fourteen already?) for me and never allow him to take arms in the event of my passing. Tell him I was a fool, not a martyr.

    Your Loving Husband,
    Captain Robert Abbot