Don’t believe the rumors about the rout of our boys. If we ran, so did everyone—our generals did not know what to do and other regiments skedaddled too as our flank was rolled up. Vic fought elsewhere & while only grazed along the side of his head has some burns & is very shaken. It took him a long time to find me as I was not where expected, lost from corps and regiment too. Our capt. detached him for light duty a ways downriver—I must for now dictate my words & a new acquaintance has kindly volunteered.

I hope to be furloughed home when I am well enough to move—love to all & would be most grateful for news of you & any of our boys, also I need boots.

Your Izzy

(written & signed by Savery Stokes of Avoca. Yours respectfully & hello to the scribe at the other end)

He was alive; then he was dead, and then alive again. Neighbors who’d come by to offer the Deverells condolences (Henrietta retreated when they came, she took Bernard and went out back, behind the kiln and the stacks of wood, where she made him a little doll with a walnut for a head and willow twigs for limbs) left with the news of this miracle: Izzy’s survival meant that not one of their own had died during what, as the weeks passed, they were told had been a terrible defeat. Everyone blamed everyone, but the corps to which their boys’ regiment had been assigned came in for the harshest words of all.

So many questions—but Izzy would tell them everything when he got home, which surely would be soon. School would end in a couple of weeks, and once she was working at the Deverells full-time she’d be able to help Aurie with whatever Izzy needed. But in early June they got, instead of Izzy in person, word of him from Vic:

Izzy’s wounds are infected and the doctors are worried; he’s being sent to Washington as rumored we will all begin moving north soon and the hospitals here are being emptied. I have been detailed to help with some observation balloons. At least it is something to do but I wish I was closer to where Izzy will be.