The Last Vigil

s C Vigil 40 G^CTfte Last Vigil^D by Richard King She knew what the letter would be like. James Bailey's wife had read her letter to Aldecha when news arrived of Jim's fall at Vicksburg. "It becomes my painful duty ..." would be the first line, followed by a heavily worded declaration on the courage of Confederate manhood and ended with an impassioned reminder of a hero's flight to glory. At least that is' what she pictured in her mind when she sat out on the porch on muggy afternoons and watched for the rare uniformed Confederate riding swiftly by in the retreating light of the sun as it cast its long-fingered shadows from behind Thunderstruck Ridge. If he carried a letter from Vance Camp in Asheville, he would slow his horse to a trot and call out in a thin, hollow voice, "Aldecha! Aldecha Bailey!" until she stood and returned his hello along with assurances that no Torries* lurked in the thicket that stood between her house and the road. Sometimes the letter bearer would be a neighbor, on his way back from Asheville . In that case he would ride directly to the house cutting across the cow path that wound across the ridge and led almost to Aldecha's back door. When this happened, and Aldecha was caught unawares, the poor man likely as not received a tongue lashing for slipping up on a woman like that. That is, until he began reading Harvey's letter. Then Aldecha would lean back against the door frame, closing her soft, brown eyes as she tried to hold on to each word. Later, sometimes two or three days later, when one of Harvey's brothers dropped by, she would give him the letter and he'd read it out loud once again. Aldecha listened even more closely to the second reading. It was usually the last time she ever heard it. The latest, arriving but a week before, had been the worst of all. On the back someone had scribbled, "eight miles from Atlanta," and Aldecha had inter- *The term "Torries" refers to a local designation of pro-Unionists who frequently formed guerrila bands to terrorize the supporters of the Confederacy during the Civil War. (Author's explanation) 41 rupted the reader, a sergeant from Celo, to ask him what Harvey was doing way down in Georgia. "Fighting the butcher Sherman," replied the sergeant, pausing only long enough to let the message sink in before plunging back into his reading. The letter was short, clear. "I have got shot through the hand in the fight on Saturday the 18th, " said Harvey. "lam suffering very bad at this time and expect I shall lose my hand and do not know whether they will let me come home or not." Aldecha shivered. Suddenly, Sherman 's march on Atlanta seemed very close to her. For a moment, she could almost hear the crash of cannon, far off in the empty hills, and the groans and cries of a thousand wounded men. She could almost see the doctors, carelessly hacking off limbs with grim abandon, burying them in deserted trenches alongside their owners who didn't make it. "Mrs. Bailey," said the sergeant. Aldecha looked up from her nightmare and smiled. "I'm sorry, my mind must have been someplace else," she said. "Thank you." "No trouble," he said, tipping his hat brim awkwardly. "Just sorry I couldn't have brought better news. If it hain't the Yankees, its the bushwhackers. Hear'd what they done in Burnsville?" Aldecha nodded but he continued anyway. "Women, must have been forty or fifty of them. Came in after their men shot up the whole place and made off with as much corn as they could tote away. Weren't nothing the Home Guard could do either." "People have got to eat," Aldecha said, fully expecting the sergeant to get mad at her for saying such a thing. But he just shrugged. "We'll beat 'em yet," he said. "Yankees ain't about to keep fighting much longer." With that much said, he remounted his horse and rode back in the direction...