JoBeth did not keep a daily diary. Her journal entries were sporadic. Sometimes days passed, even weeks, without her writing in it. However, there were times when something unusual happened during the otherwise rather uneventful passing of her days, and then she would write at some length.
November 1863
President Lincoln issued a proclamation declaring that the last Thursday in this month be set aside as a national day of Thanksgiving. Mrs. Hobbs invited Wes and me to have dinner with her and a group of her friends to celebrate the event. She told me it was a holiday long observed in her husband’s native state of Massachusetts, and I guess it is celebrated in other New England states also. The Pilgrims’ landing at Plymouth Rock is as great a cause for celebration as almost any other.
We dined on roast turkey, mashed potatoes, several kinds of vegetables, salad, and both pumpkin and apple pie. I could not help but contrast all this abundance with the probable fare of my relatives in the South. Even before I left, they were experiencing shortages of all kinds, due to the successful blockade of ports along the Southern coast.
Oh, that all this would soon be over and we could be one country again! That was the fervent prayer in all hearts, I’m sure, as we bowed our heads for grace before that festive meal.
December 8th
President Lincoln offered amnesty to any Confederate who would restate his allegiance.
Would that it were that simple. He doesn’t understand or realize the strength, determination, resentment, of most Southerners, who are fighting for what they believe are their states’ rights.
December 1863
The early days of the month passed by pleasantly enough, even though JoBeth had to fight back nostalgic thoughts of bygone Christmases in Hillsboro. This third year of the war, she knew that Christmases back there must be much different now than those she recalled so pleasantly. She was sure the Northern blockade of Southern ports intensified all the hardships, shortages, that had already begun to affect the lives of her family and friends before she left. Naturally, she missed her mother and Shelby terribly. Nevertheless, she was determined to make her first Christmas with Wes especially happy.
JoBeth was giving him her pledge quilt as a Christmas gift. For the first time, Wes would see her labor of love, the record of her constancy all during their separation. She worked in Mrs. Hobbs’s apartment so that it would be a surprise. JoBeth spent hours stitching the squares onto the under-cover batting and binding the whole with yards of blue trim the color of Wes’s army uniform. When that was done, she carefully embroidered her name, the date of his departure, and the date of their wedding in one corner patch.
She planned to have a small trimmed tree, a new holiday custom popularized by Queen Victoria’s German husband, Prince Albert, who had introduced it to England. Americans quickly adopted the idea, integrating it into their own Christmas decorations.
Besides giving Wes the now finished pledge quilt, she could afford only a few small gifts for him. A lieutenant’s salary was small, and everything was so expensive. Still, she enjoyed being out among the bustling shoppers, who evidently had money to spend. JoBeth was sure that Washington was in sharp contrast to most cities in the South at this time. Downtown stores were blazing with lights until evening, windows displaying all sorts of attractive merchandise. One afternoon while mostly window-shopping, JoBeth happened to catch a glimpse of the newly wed Kate Chase, now Mrs. William Sprague. The woman was getting into her shiny, gilt-trimmed carriage outside one of Washington’s most expensive department stores. She was extravagantly elegant, wearing a moss green brocade jacket with a pale mink collar and cuffs, a graceful skirt, a bonnet laden with shiny black and green feathers. JoBeth found herself gawking like a pauper viewing a duchess. She couldn’t wait to tell Mrs. Hobbs about it.
JoBeth’s time with Mrs. Hobbs was always amusing and diverting, and their conversations were not as gloomy as the war news Wes reluctantly brought home. The war seemed a seesaw: First, one side seemed to have the advantage, achieving some strategic objective; the next time the other won a decisive battle, claiming victory. However, Wes expressed the general feeling in Washington about the final outcome of the war, that the North would eventually emerge victorious.
JoBeth had mixed feelings—a Union victory meant a Southern defeat. She sometimes did not want to hear the latest news of battles. Perhaps she was acting like an ostrich, she thought. But if there was nothing she could do about the situation, what harm was there in being entertained by the reports Mrs. Hobbs related about the chaotic private lives of those in the White House?
Mrs. Lincoln’s extravagance was notorious. Her frequent shopping sprees to the New York emporiums were widely reported. But even more interesting to JoBeth was the strange “behind the scenes” melodrama. It seemed that since their little son Willie died, Mrs. Lincoln had been consulting spiritists and attending seances. Although fascinated by these bizarre stories, JoBeth could not help being sympathetic toward this woman.
Christmas Eve afternoon JoBeth felt restless and a little homesick. She didn’t want Wes to come home and find her melancholy, so to offset her mood she decided to go out for a while and mingle in the holiday crowds to try to capture some spirit. It worked. After browsing through a succession of shops, she made a few impulsive last-minute purchases. Some scented candles, a book of Browning’s poetry, a pair of house slippers for Wes to wear when he kicked off his boots at night. Feeling better, she came out into the street to find it had begun to snow. She hurried home through the wintry dusk, anticipating the evening ahead. The snow was still falling when she let herself into Mrs. Hobbs’s house, grateful for its welcoming warmth.
Upstairs in their apartment, she drew the curtains against the growing dark, looked around the cozy, firelit parlor with satisfaction. She fitted the spruce-scented candles into the brass holder on the mantelpiece.
Mrs. Hobbs had insisted they have Christmas Day dinner with her and some friends. But tonight was to be just for the two of them. Soon Wes would be here and they could have a candlelit dinner before the fireplace. From one of the small catering establishments that flourished in this city, she had bought a small roasted chicken, salad, a plum pudding she could heat on the spirit burner. They planned to attend the Christmas Eve service at a nearby church, then open their presents.
JoBeth wrapped the poetry book and the slippers and had just placed them under the tree when she heard the sound of Wes’s voice speaking to Mrs. Hobbs on the landing.
She turned to greet him with a welcoming smile as he came in the door. But one look at his expression stopped her. Something was wrong. Something had happened. She opened her mouth to speak. Then, without knowing why, her heart chilled.
“What is it, Wes?”
“I’m sorry, darling, A telegram. Your Uncle Harvel died of his wounds in Tennessee.”
JoBeth felt her knees buckle, and she had to hold on to the table to steady herself.
Poor Uncle Madison and Aunt Josie—and all those poor, adorable little children. She felt dizzy. She swayed and Wes was beside her in a minute, holding her, supporting her over to the sofa.
JoBeth’s gaze moved to the tiny trimmed tree, with its paper chains and gilt candleholders. It looked so gaudy, so bizarre, taunting, in the face of this tragedy.
In her mind she was transported to Holly Grove. Remembering the gaiety of that last Christmas scene, the merry laughter of Harvel’s children as they ran through the rooms festooned with evergreen boughs, holly, and mistletoe. Everyone had been so happy—
JoBeth closed her eyes against the pain.
In wartime everything is on the precipice. No one is guaranteed even a full day of happiness…