A third letter, almost illegible, came from Axel Weatherwax, who was in Vic and Izzy’s company and whose sister Henrietta knew: he was only sixteen (he’d lied to get in) and from his writing might have been eight. His note was so hard to decipher that she wrote out what she thought it said on a separate piece of paper:

A man I know in the 123rd says he saw several wearing our Corps badge mixed in with them. All fell, either captured or dead. Vic is searching everywhere for Izzy as am I but no one knows anything. Can you send food package for Vic? And ask my mother to send to me? Nothing here is working right. Will send more news if get some.

She had always been a good student, but that week and the next she drifted off during classes, scanted her homework, and was several times scolded by her teachers. Izzy missing, Izzy possibly dead: when she thought of how little comfort the neighbors had been when her father died, anything she could say to the Deverells seemed wrong. She’d hated the neighbors who said nothing and pretended the accident hadn’t happened. Hated the undertaker, the funeral, the condolence cards and the baskets of food; hated those who probed for more details. Hated most those who assured her that her father had gone to a better place. But now she in turn was baffled. She redoubled her efforts around the house and tried to be especially cheerful with Bernard.

News arrived of the other local boys: Axel was fine, the Gazette reported the following week, as was Philander Scott. Ezra Mattison and Darius Tefft had been wounded. Izzy was listed among the dead. And yet one sunny afternoon near the end of May, Henrietta found Aurie and Mr. Deverell marveling over this:

Dear Brother—I’m in hospital at Aquia Creek—alive although apparently reported otherwise. A ball went through my left hand—the wound probably not too bad at first but much infected since. Was shot again trying to make my way off the field—that broke my right arm below the elbow & tore me up pretty much. Our boys scattered everywhere in the confusion of the first nights attack & caught hard words from some not there who don’t know what we went through—we could not keep together & even our company was separated. That night and next morning I fought among strangers. Was overrun again—our boys skedaddled again & when I fell was near a stream the Johnnies took. Later some moved us wounded—their enemies—to flat ground around a house. We went eight days there with no care & little food & much rain. Some drowned—I was able to sit up. Our surgeons retrieved those still alive & took us in wagons to this hospital.