ABSTRACT
Writing in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine in 1864, when the Civil War was in its fourth and bloodiest year, Belle Spencer recalled her reaction to her husband’s departure for the battlefield over two years previously:
I had seen much before, and borne a great deal, yet it seemed but little comparatively when I came to take leave of my husband, and turned back to my lonely room to await his return. True, I had expected this, was prepared for it in a measure; yet a strange and overpowering sense of my position came over me that I had not felt before, when I stood by the window to catch a last glimpse of a beloved form. He was standing upon the deck of a large boat, with hundreds of others around him; yet I seemed to see him only, his sad face turned to me in mute farewell as the bell clanged and the ponderous vessel swept slowly out into the stream, and turned her prow toward the mouth of the Tennessee. It was but a moment, during which I leaned against the casement, breathless, agonized. There the waters lay cold and glittering under the spring sunbeams, and the sadness of utter desolation seemed to have fallen upon my spirits.1
