Your letters give great pleasure to us all. We thank God your health
is fine and that you have a friend like Lieutenant Kelly to lighten
your days in that dark jail. I am sure it must work the other way as
well. How fondly I remember the many times when I was blue until you
made me laugh!
Perhaps I shouldn’t say it in a letter that might be read by your
captors, but it seems the war has taken a turning now. The defeat of
Lee at Gettysburg was a blow to the Confederacy. Now we have news
that General Grant is Supreme Commander in the west. Maybe he will be
paying a call on you soon. Or perhaps your next letter will come from
the comparative freedom of one of our Army camps. How fervently you
must hope for exchange!
Kate had written the letter on small, thin paper, and Tim was surprised
to see that the second page was blank. But when he looked more closely
he saw that it was double. It was covered with spidery lines and
printed all over with the faintest legends. As he looked Tim heard
footsteps on the stony earth and was startled by a voice close by.
“Time to go back inside,” Red said. When he saw Tim’s face he laughed.
“Did I frighten you, lad?”
Red started for the jailhouse door, and Tim read on:
My prayers will be with you wherever you are. God give you strength
to take whatever course you may deem wise. Your folks have written
and we will post our letters at the same time. We have sent a
surprise in a separate packet. There’s something there from me. Can
you guess what? I hope it will reach you in good time.
Your loving,
KATE
At four o’clock as the prisoners moved into the yard Captain Senn
hailed Tim. “Lieutenant,” he said solemnly, holding out an envelope,
“there was a letter with the money your family sent. I’m sorry I had to
open it.”
“Thank you, Captain.”
“Here is another,” said Senn, making a ceremony of giving up the second
letter. “Since it came from a soldier, we opened this one too.”
It hadn’t appeared that Kate’s letter had been opened but suppose
it had? Then Senn would watch him like a hawk. Tim looked sharply at
Senn’s face and saw nothing there but that patient, meaningless smile.
When they were out of earshot Red said, “That stuffed shirt doesn’t
need to apologize for opening our mail. After all, we’re prisoners of
war. But don’t let me keep you from your mail.”
They stood in the middle of the yard while Tim read the letter from his
family. He finished reading and said, “Things are fine at home.”
“What’s in the letter from Hilton Head?”
Tim looked at the irregular, unfamiliar writing. “Don’t know,” he said.
He unfolded the letter and read the first line. “Here, Red, it’s from
Greene. Did you know Greene?”
“Hardly at all.”
“Well read it, anyway.”
They read:
HILTON HEAD, S. C.
November 14, 1863