The Fire Within

Chapter 22

A cool breeze bringing the promise of cold weather and more hardships rustled the trees, blowing the red, orange, yellow, and brown leaves through the autumn skies. The firestorm of colors throughout the lands and the fields full of crops ready to be harvested evoke reverence and wonder in all who look upon the beauty. One could never deny the beauty that surrounds the bringer of the winter. It’s like a promise that although the hot months are behind and hardships abound with the coming snows, now is the time for beauty and bounty.

The colorful rolling hills that surrounded the Tennessean Mountains seem to be on fire while the valley below bursts with overflowing fields waiting for harvest. The grey clouded sky promises the coming of a cold autumn rain that will provide the last sustenance for the fields before they are reaped of their reward. Unlike the storms of July and August, this would be the kind of storm that brought on chills and illness to those who find themselves in the throes of the onslaught.

Zachariah returned to his post with the Union artillery at the beginning of August with Grace following a week later as a nurse. She desperately tried to convince him to just allow James to return, but after lots of arguing and tears, she agreed to volunteer as a nurse instead. One thing she’s learned since getting married is that she cannot have things the way she wants all of the time. She’s learned to compromise and do things to make him happy, especially since most everything he does outside of the army is to make her happy.

After leaving Philadelphia, Zachariah’s unit marched south toward Tennessee where the Union was engaging with the Rebs on a constant basis. Small skirmishes and altercations were erupting all up and down the Appalachian Mountain Trial. Within a two week period, they were involved in several small battles when their paths crossed that of the Rebs.

Ezekiel left his pregnant wife in the care of Isaiah and Elizabeth just after Zachariah left. Ezekiel stayed in northern Virginia near Washington D.C. were he was charged with readying troops to send out to the units in the South. He wasn’t happy about being kept from the fighting in the south, but he was happy to be so close to Mary just in case she needed him.

Once his brother, Zachariah, and Grace deployed to their assignments, Isaiah became restless with the women. Furious with the idea that he was no longer fit for duty, he began to take out his anger on his wife and especially Helen. He hated being treated like he was incapable or like he was useless and his old way of thinking regarding women and slaves started to show through in his dealings with the women in the house. His behavior came to a head when Elizabeth threatened to turn him into the Confederates for abandoning. If that happened they would come for him and if the return trip didn’t kill him, they would hang him for being a traitor. This forced him to realize what he was doing and how his anger and behavior was affecting the others in the home.

Soon after the others left, Helen moved out of the Wheaton house and moved in with William as his personal nursemaid. She was not going to be treated so poorly by a man that owed her his life. She agreed to continue to oversee Mary’s pregnancy, but she would do it from William’s home on the other side of Philadelphia. Once she was living with William, their friendship blossomed into a relationship. Although the idea of mixing races was illegal, they didn’t care. She was perfectly happy to keep their lives inside of the home and he was happy to have her as his own.

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September proved a difficult month for Zachariah and the Union forces. They engaged with the Rebs in Tennessee and pushed them on to the Tennessee-Georgia border, near Chickamauga Creek where they engaged once again. After the battle, Union forces retreated to Chattanooga, and the Confederacy maintained control of the battlefield forcing the Union troops back through Tennessee where they would remain fighting small skirmishes.