Love comes out of heaven, unasked and unsought.
– Pearl Buck
It took Andrea more than a week to track down J.J., thanks to the weather and his constant movements. When she rode into the bustling Union camp, the sound of shouted orders, galloping cavalry, and scrambling orderlies indicated something was afoot.
Her curiosity increased even more when she found that J.J. was not in his tent. A kind orderly allowed her to wait for him there, and after an hour’s time, he arrived. Andrea watched his expression change from one of fatigue and worry to shock and surprise when his eyes fell upon her.
“Jehoshaphat, Andrea! Where have you been? How did you get here? Why did you come?”
Andrea forced a smile. “Winchester. Horse. Do I need a reason?”
“I’m sorry,” he said, walking over and giving her a hug. “I’m just surprised. Is something wrong?”
“Does something have to be wrong for me to visit you?” Andrea kept her tone calm while suppressing the urge to remain in his arms and bury her head against his strong chest.
Despite her poker-faced response, J.J. seemed to sense that something was wrong. “You’ve heard.” His voice was soft and consoling.
Andrea pulled away and looked up at him. “Heard what?”
“Nothing. Nothing.” He waved his hand in air, then picked up some papers on his desk before putting them down again. Sticking his hands in his pockets as if he didn’t know what to do with them, he began to pace.
“Is something wrong with you?” she asked, noticing his nervousness.
J.J. looked hard at her, apparently weighing whether or not to divulge something of great importance. “Since you’re here, let’s take a walk.”
Andrea tried to keep up, but J.J. seemed anxious to distance himself from camp and all its chaos. He finally stopped in a picturesque grove of young trees on the crest of a hill, and took a moment to light his pipe. “We’ve got him cornered,” he said nonchalantly as if talking about the weather.
“Who?” Andrea’s gaze was locked on a squawking blue jay insulting them mercilessly from a limb right over their heads.
J.J. only sighed, resting his foot on a rock and crossing his arms over his knee. His silence told Andrea the obvious.
“Hunter?” She grabbed his arm in alarm.
He nodded but did not turn around.
Andrea’s heart stood still, then fell to her feet, before banging in her chest tumultuously. Yet her blood seemed stagnant in her veins. “Please, you cannot fight him.”
“It’s my sacred duty, Andrea. You know that.”
“But how?” she asked, fearing she was somehow to blame.
“They ventured north,” he said, “across the Potomac for forage. And now with the rain they cannot re-cross. We’ve driven them practically to the water’s edge.”
Andrea put her hand to her head. The two men she cherished most in the world were going to meet on the battlefield and she was helpless to stop the inevitable slaughter.
“We’ve given him the opportunity to surrender.”
“He will not back down from a fight for his beloved Virginia,” Andrea shouted, grabbing his arm again. “It is his lifeblood!”
Andrea knew Hunter better than she knew herself—knew he was a Virginian first, a man second. Surrender would never be an option for him. Even hemmed in by nature and the enemy, he would not consider yielding. She turned away, holding her stomach, gasping for breath.
How much more would she have to endure? She had faced death, anguish, and torment at every hour and at every step in this awful hell of a war. But not this! Please Lord, if you are there—not this!
She took a deep, quivering breath and turned back to J.J. “There is not a cowardly soul among them. They will fight you to the gates of Hell.”
J.J. nodded while staring at the tree overhead, seeming to search for the blue jay that had since flown away. “We are ready.”
Andrea looked at him, but she did not see. What she saw was a disturbing scene worthy of a nightmare —two groups of men preparing for mutual slaughter. She turned away and took a deep, agonizing breath, her prophetic gaze fixed on the distance. “I can take no more of this, J.J.,” she said, turning back to him. “For mercy’s sake, I swear to you, I can endure no more!”
J.J. placed his hand on her shoulder and she grabbed fistfuls of his jacket with both hands. “Can we not let them live in peace? They are guided by love of liberty and what they believe to be a just cause. Why must you fight them?”
Andrea looked up at him, blinking tears from her lashes, but she already knew his answer. He was too loyal and responsible a general to ignore the enemy and not press the advantage.
Drawing a deep, sobbing breath, she stared again at the landscape, thinking of the terrible ending to come from all her suffering and sacrifice. They were going to clash—the Union general who was too loyal to avert a fight and the Confederate colonel who was too proud to run from one. She would rather be dead than witness the bloodbath to come.
“Andrea, I know your loyalty is with the Union. But it appears your heart lies in the South.”
Andrea glanced over at him, confused.
“He cares for you, deeply. I could see it in his eyes.”
Andrea took a rapid breath and averted her gaze, knowing he had figured out her deception when Hunter had been captured.
J.J. took her chin in his hand and turned her face up. “You’ve given enough, Andrea. You’ve suffered enough. Go to him.”
Andrea looked into his eyes, astonished that he would suggest such a thing.
“The South’s Cause is not dying, it is dead. Petersburg is about to fall. The end is near and sure. Rely upon it.”
“They do not believe—will never believe—the Cause is lost.”
J.J. held her by the shoulders and shook her. “Tell him it is.”
Andrea thought again of Hunter, envisioned him plowing his way through against impossible odds with nothing but fury, resolve, and strength of will. How could she explain to J.J. that nothing short of annihilation would stop him? That his soul and the soil of Virginia were inseparable?
“This may be your final chance,” he said.
Andrea sighed deeply, thinking of everything she had battled for and how confused and complicated and distorted it seemed. She looked again at J.J., but her thoughts were miles away.
“He’s a dangerous man,” she said, as if revealing information new to him. “Too fearless and stubborn and loyal for his own good.”
“Perhaps that’s why you love him.”
Andrea blinked. “Love him?”
“You little fool.” He shook her gently again, his eyes full of pity. He knew better than anyone that she’d never witnessed love in her childhood—and it certainly wasn’t something expected in the midst of a raging war. “You do know you love him, don’t you?”
“No. I’m a— I mean…he’s a—”
“My dear, love of country should not exclude you from loving a man. You have sacrificed enough.”
“But how?” She gazed at him intently. “How can I love him and be loyal to the Union?”
He pulled her toward him again. “Just let your heart see what your eyes cannot. You love him, and neither you—nor I—can will it otherwise.”
Andrea nodded, staring over his shoulder, thinking back upon the longing, the yearning, the need for him that had never diminished in all their time apart. Closing her eyes, she experienced an epiphany as liberating as it was painful. A gush of warmth followed as something new and exhilarating awakened within her.
“How soon will you move? You will give me time? Engage while I am there?”
J.J. gazed into her eyes and smiled, apparently seeing in her resolute face the secret that had long lain dormant in her heart. “I will do what I must—as you should do. I will try to give you until tomorrow afternoon, but already Washington is breathing down my neck. You must tell him if he surrenders, he will be preventing the useless effusion of blood.
“I will tell him,” Andrea said, suddenly hopeless again. “But it will do no good.”