Something To Look Forward To, Part Iv
...Emmet would converse with Sophie,
pretend he was a normal man,
while April and Abner slipped away…
young infatuation was grand.
And after their third time out there
April and Abner were engaged,
not coincidently there
was a new baby on the way.
They would have kept on going back
but orders came up from the south,
Sherman did march for Atlanta,
their unit was needed there now.
They had no time to say good-byes,
a letter was all he could send
as they rode to join Kilpatrick,
and fight with his cavalrymen.
For months they rode, and fought, and bled,
and burned Atlanta to the ground,
then Sherman started his great march,
there was just no stopping him now.
No letters came amidst all that,
until Christmas in ’64,
when they had taken Savannah,
and all foresaw end to the war.
A battered letter reached Emmet,
it had been written months ago,
he saw Sophie’s name on the front,
started reading in with gusto.
But as he did his heart went cold,
he teered at the words that were said,
April had perished giving birth,
the child itself was near dead.
He sat for hours with the news,
tempted not to tell young Abner,
who endlessly spoke of April,
had planned his future around her.
All he’d had too look forward too,
snatched away by cruel tragedy,
Emmet wanted to spare him pain,
but wouldn’t lie egregiously.
To deny a man the whole truth,
to dishonor him and to lie,
would cause greater pain later on,
so he went, and Abner did find.
The youth choked up as he read on,
which all took as matter-of-course,
his squad-mates ducked their heads sadly,
and Abner jumped up to his horse.
“I need to think for a while,
I will be back before nightfall.”
Emmet knew such pain, and let him go,
not sure if he’d come back at all.
He half expected him to desert,
ro ride hard, back for Tennessee,
he learned later Abner had gone
to a Reb base out by the sea.
Camp gossip told him the details,
of the madman who’d charged the fort
alone, taking on fifty men,
who’d shot him clean off of his horse.
Emmet just ducked his head at this,
he was sad, but could understand,
knowing better than most folks did
what such loss could do to a man.
Yet still it hurt him all the more,
for in the loss he did realize
that he had hoped Abner would live,
go home to his child and wife.
He’d allowed himself to believe
that he’d be there to see that time,
the thought of Abner’s happiness
had been a salve to his grim mind...
CONTINUES IN PART V.
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