Dear Rebecca

April 12, 1865

Appomattox County, Virginia

Dear Rebecca,

How I’ve missed you. The war is coming to a close at last.

I will soon be home, but I fear not as I left, with high thrown cap, turned out shoes, and a pack upon my back. Now I have a tattered hat worn low, no shoes, and a burdened heart. I have seen many things since I left you in Pennsylvania.

I have seen brother fight brother, father kill son, neighbor hurt neighbor. I have seen men who will, for the rest of their lives, live in agony, nursing bleeding wounds and burning hearts. I have seen men die.

We were right. Men are all equal. No man should be considered lower or without worth only because of the color of their skin. No man should be torn away from those they love simply because another man has a piece of paper. No paper is worth that much.

But did all those deaths truly set men free?

Or can there be another kind of slavery, one that entraps us all? Can not hate, resentment, and anger also enchain us and leave us in agony, nursing us only enough to keep us alive?

I have seen mothers, daughters, sisters and wives, sons, grandsons, brothers, and fathers, all wishing to avenge their loved ones’ deaths and their own empty lives, their faces hard, and their hearts harder.

If men value freedom so much that they would empty towns for it, why do they not fight now? Why do they not fight this hate? Not with hot lead and cold steel, but with warm thoughts and kind hearts?

Could it be possible that those men suffered and died for freedom, only for us to remain slaves to an even greater master?

North. South. These are just directions. Why do they now define who we are? Why does one man spit out the word “Yankee” and another “Rebel”?

There were men fighting for the South who did not believe slavery was right -- it was only a necessary evil to them. They owned slaves, but did right by them, as well as they were able. They fought because they had to defend their homes. They fought for their own freedom.

We fought in another man’s land, and nursed our wounded in another man’s house. We crouched behind another man’s fence and ate another man’s crops. Another man that could well have been facing us, fighting us, killing us, yes, but also being killed by us.

Some in the Union camps say with bitterness that the South started the war with the attack on Fort Sumpter. But they say the Union started it with the order to muster thousands of northern men to prepare to fight southern men. That the Union gave them “freedom”, but only if they did what the Union told them to do. They would rather die, they said, and so they did.

I hear with great admiration how William Wilberforce ended slavery in England with not a shot fired. He was no less determined or willing to fight, but he was not willing to end lives. After all, was not our original intention to save them?

And what lives have we saved? Yes, we freed the slaves, but we enslaved the South as a whole. We have laid waste fields, destroyed homes, and emptied houses.

I have seen them, Rebecca. The homes standing there, empty of people save a few, and those few wandering from room to room, some openly weeping, their few belongings still left to them in their arms. This will be the work of many years, decades even, to pick these people up and set them on their feet. If they do not spit in our faces as we do it, I shall be astonished.

They have their pride.

I can see it now. They will push our feeble attempts aside, wipe their eyes, roll up their sleeves, and get to work. These people will do more to rise from the ashes then we ever could. We have machines and factories, but they have heart and drive. And that is what they need. Perhaps the Good Lord foresaw this terrible war, and knew that if His people in the South were to survive, they would need an extra dose of family ties, stubborn pride, and a value of life. They don’t need metal and wheels.

In short, my dear Rebecca, this war seems to have done little good. The black man may be free from physical chains, but now all bear the burden of metal hearts. I pray fervently that we may yet have these hearts removed, and be given hearts of flesh, that beat with a passionate thrum for our brothers. Not just for our brothers beside us, but also for our brothers across the river. For those whom we deem have done us wrong.

It is in this way alone that all may be truly free.

I pray that this letter finds you safe and secure in the knowledge of our Savior, as I know that nothing can pluck you out of His arms, though you may, for the present, be out of mine.

Your loving friend,

Elias