Narrative:  Sammie Wade
 "John Wade is my Mom's great grandfather from Floyd County, VA."

  When I was a child my mother would tell me bits of information about her family: how they lived in the Blue Ridge Mountains; how the men marched away to fight in the Civil War: how some of them never returned. One of my ancestors died in the Battle of Spotsylvania, she said. She even took me to the battlefield.

I remember the battlefield as a solemn, quiet place. There were rows of tombstones in a nearby graveyard. At intervals across the field, there were grassy embankments, the remains, my mother told me of crude fortifications. It was a little eerie; a place of death. A light breeze rippled the grass. In the wind it was easy to hear the sighs of the fallen, a whisper of lost lives and lost causes. I was glad when we left.

In those days I knew only the name of the dead ancestor at Spotsylvania: John Wade. Many years later I would come to know him personally.

My mother told me a lot of old family stories, but I was not a very good listener. When years later my mother died, I missed her fiercely and realized I then had no link to her family. In my loneliness I began writing down everything I could recall her saying, and by what I can only describe as a miracle, I finally located her living relatives. After I got to know them, they told me about the letters:

John Wade, I learned, had written many letters home to his beloved wife, Rutha. She retained these treasures throughout her life. Later, they were in the possession of John Wade's son, Eli. According to my family, the letters were usually kept in a trunk at Eli Wade's house. Fortuitously, some family member took them out to read them in another location. In the interval, Eli Wade's house was struck by lightning and burned to the ground.

When my family shared the letters with me, I began to know the grandfather who had died so long ago. He was far from the stereotypical Confederate soldier I knew from the movies. He was not a rash young man eager to fight Yankees; he was not a colonel or even a captain; he was not wealthy or a slave owner.

He was a mature man devoted to his young wife and children. He was a peaceable man, loathe to bear arms or take a human life. He was a man deeply torn by the conflict between his duty to the Commonwealth of Virginia and the South and his duty to his family and his own principles.

At the time he was conscripted for service in the Confederate Army, John Wade was in his thirties, a husband and father living in Floyd County, Virginia. His wife, Rutha Cox Wade, was only 21 years old. They had two small children, Eli and Mary. John's younger brother, Jacob, 18, was conscripted for service at the same time as John Wade. Together they were sent to Camp Narrows in Giles County, VA, for training.

At the time John Wade and his brother Jacob entered the Confederate Army, the War Between the States was well underway. The first Battle of Bull Run had been fought, as had the Battle of Shiloh. The Confederacy was already having difficulties in Tennessee. The Union had captured Fort Henry and Fort Donelson in February, 1862, and on February 25, Nashville was the first Confederate state capital to fall to the Union.

Desperate for manpower, the Confederacy began conscription in April, 1862. By August John Wade and Jacob had been conscripted. The only men exempt were under 18 or over 35. Ironically, a man who owned 20 slaves could be exempted, as could one who could find a substitute or pay $500.00. Thus, a man like John Wade, who owned no slaves and was of modest means, found himself going to war to defend the rights of slave owners.

At Camp Narrows, he wrote his family that he and Jacob were "as well as common," a phrase he often used. He informed his family that he and Jacob had enough to eat and adequate clothing. He desperately hoped for a way to return home, but on July 30, 1862, he wrote that he and Jacob might have to stay until "peace is made." His immediate concern was the survival of his family. To his wife he wrote, " I am at a loss to tell you what to do with my oats and wheat." Many letters expressed his concern about the farm and the details of farm life. In one letter, he urged Rutha to take care of his tools and "don't let my gun and handsaw lie and rust." In another he reminded her to take care of the bees.

In August he told Rutha that he is ill and worried about getting the wheat threshed. He said his "mind is flustrated[sic], but advised her to live as much in the service of God as possible. In closing, he begged her to "take good care of my dear little Mary and Eli."

A letter in September, 1862, indicated that he was feeling healthy again and trying to give concrete suggestions to Rutha and others. He reminded her that they were in the hands of the same God that they were when he was home. He said he had talked with Jacob about doing better and hoped that his father would quit "studying" frivolous things. He told Rutha to get a neighbor to sow that field along the road with wheat and rye.

John Wade's sense of helplessness at not being able to help his family, was heightened whenever he heard that they were ailing or in distress. In late 1862 he received a letter informing him that Rutha had been unwell and "little Eli" very sick. "You do not know the trouble I experience being confined here in this place away from home and people," he wrote to Rutha.

Later in September, 1862, he and the rest of his regiment saw their first combat in Fayette County, WVA. He told Rutha about 13 were killed and 30 wounded. It would get worse. The troops moved east to an area near Petersburg, VA. Getting food, particularly decent food was becoming a problem. "We have to take any kind of fare we can get," he wrote. Their mainstay was "bad beef and wheat bread," but sometimes they could obtain sweet potatoes if they paid for them with their own money.

In February, 1863, he told Rutha there had been more fighting and their Colonel Page had been
killed by a cannonball. He felt fortunate to have escaped because the cannon shot "flew thick among them." In the predawn hours he had seen cannon balls flying by with a streak of fire. Born and reared in the Blue Ridge, he found it strange that the ground was level, and there were no hills to shelter a man from a cannonball.

Soon his unit was put on railroad cars and shipped westward to Pulaski County. En route, the train passed through Christiansburg, VA, and he expressed his sorrow at passing so close to Rutha's home and being unable to stop. But he reminded her, paraphrasing the hymn "Amazing Grace," that they had already passed though many dangers, toils and snares, and he remained her "dutiful husband until death separates us."

Nonetheless, soon after the transfer to Pulaski County, he was allowed to go home on leave. To his surprise, when he rejoined his unit, he discovered that everyone in his mess had run away because of a rumor that they were being shipped east.

And shipped they were. !863 had begun with President Lincoln issuing the Emancipation Proclamation. Despite having three times the available manpower of the Confederacy, the Federal government had begun conscription in March, 1863. Before the end of 1863 Federal superiority in man and materials would begin to have an effect. John Wade and his regiment were shipped to the south bank of the Rappahanock River to defend Richmond. The war was intensifying, leading to the crescendo of Gettysburg.

Ironically, John Wade's hope of peace seemed to flower in the encampment along the river. His letters reflected his conviction that peace was imminent. On April 13, 1863, from Caroline County, Virginia, he wrote to Rutha that there was no fighting nearby and that the Yankees and the Rebels talked with one another across the river. They even traded with one another, "one plug of tobacco for five pounds of coffee." John Wade supposed that the soldiers also declare they will "never fire another gun on our side." According to rumor, the regiment had been ordered there until the first of May, at which time John Wade fully expected peace to be made. Instead, his future was considerably more grim.

We do not have another letter from him until after the Battle of Chancellorsville. Although it was a Southern victory, it cost the South General Stonewall Jackson. A letter to Rutha dated May 21, 1863, stated that they had driven the enemy back to the other side of the Rappahanock. He estimated Southern casualties at seven to ten thousand. The enemy had suffered more losses, he said, because the Southern Army had forced them to charge out from behind their breastworks. Sadly, he reported that Stonewall Jackson had been accidentally wounded by his own men and was dead.

Besides the rigors of combat, John Wade wrote of the petty deprivations the soldiers endured. It cost forty-five cents to mail a letter. "Robbers" called sutlers charged two dollars for a plug of tobacco and four to six dollars for a pound of dried apples. Worst of all, some men were stealing from the soldiers while they were "on the hot and sultry bloody battlefield."

The next letter bore an ominous date and location: Franklin County, Pennsylvania, June 25, 1863. John Wade apologized to Rutha for not writing sooner but said the regiment had been on the move since June 5. Jacob had contracted measles and was no longer with the regiment, but before his departure, John had made sure he had clean clothes and money. In view of what lay before them, many would count Jacob a fortunate man indeed to have come down with the measles.

The Battle of Gettysburg, fought July 1 to July 3, 1863, is generally considered a major turning point in the War Between the States. Chronicled in film and literature, Gettysburg was an attempt by the South to successfully invade enemy territory. It ended in a defeat for the South and many casualties on both sides. Along with the fall of Vicksburg, Mississippi, on July 4, 1863, Gettysburg was the beginning of the end for the South's hopes of victory.

John Wade must have been a part of that battle, but the letters which survive never mention it. Less than a week later, from Washington County, Maryland, he wrote: "I want you, Rutha, to do the best you can. I hope I will get to go home sometime again." A few days later from Martinsburg, WVA, he said nothing specific but wrote "woe to man... the trouble I see." Then he mentioned people from home that he had seen, Lewis H. Slusher and John Hylton, obviously hoping that their families would hear that they were still alive. As for John Wade himself, he said" I have some hard marching to do and sometime a little fighting."

In the fall of 1863, John Wade confided to Rutha that he frequently dreamed of her. Someone, identity unknown, Rutha told him, robbed their beehives. He had dreamed of those beehives, he told her. "A few nights ago I dreamed of taking honey out of the bee hives and eating of it. I study and dream a good deal about home, so much so it makes me uneasy."

Longing for home, he wrote Rutha of renewed hope of peace. A man in his regiment had gone home on furlough. While home, he had a conversation with a Congressman that he knew well. The Congressman said that Lincoln was offering to pay for the "Negroes" they took and pay part of the South's expenses. According to the Congressman, the South was likely to make peace if Lincoln offered to pay for all the "Negroes" and all the South's expenses. The Congressman believed that Lincoln would soon make that offer, and the war would be over. John Wade hoped this rumor was true. In any case he admonished Rutha to keep it a secret, as it had been told to him in confidence.

On Sunday, April 3, 1864, John wrote Rutha that he hoped she was enjoying all the comforts of life and blessed with peace. Of his own situation, he wrote portentously, "It is not worthwhile for me to express the trouble and anguish of my soul confined in this army. I expect the coming campaign will be one long to be remembered by those that see it over." He signed it, "Your sincere and affectionate husband until death separates us."

His letter of April 23, 1864, informed Rutha that Jacob had been out on picket for a week but was due to return the following day. He closed with a simple coded message urging her not to forget him.

That is the last letter we have. Sometime in mid-May, 1864, he perished at the Battle of Spotsylvania. We never learned any of the details, perhaps because so many of his comrades died that there was no one left to report exactly what happened.

A few years ago, now middle aged, I returned to the battlefield I had visited as a child. This time, because of the letters, I knew more than just the name John Wade. I was proud of him for being the kind of man I knew him to be: devout, courageous, and loving. I walked the rows of headstones in the cemetery searching for his name but found nothing. The Park Service told me he was probably in an unmarked mass grave.

Brother Jacob was luckier. He was captured at the Wilderness a few days earlier and sent to Point Lookout, Maryland, and Elmira, New York. Many years later, when he was an old man, he told his granddaughter, Mildred Earles Weddle, about his experiences. In prison he survived bitter cold weather and starvation rations. Each morning the prisoners arose, formed a line and marched round and round in the barracks until they were warm. He was paroled in the summer of 1865 and returned to Floyd County. He lived to be over ninety.

Rutha, the wife John Wade loved until death parted them, never remarried. When he died she was pregnant with their last child, John Walter Wade. She remained in Floyd County, reared their children and died at forty.

Soon John Wade's descendants will erect a plaque in his honor at the cemetery at Greasy Creek Church in Floyd County. Many years after his death, John Wade is finally coming home. Many of his blood relatives lie in that graveyard. His son Eli is there. He grew into an imposing man and a successful farmer who had several children and many descendants. Brother Jacob is there. Rutha is buried elsewhere, but, in my heart I believe she and John, who loved each other so intensely, were reunited long ago.

My last visit to Spotsylvania was in May, almost one hundred thirty years to the day after the battle which cost John Wade his life. But this time the gentle breeze whispered of peace; the sounds of silence conquered the clash of swords and the roar of artillery. The field of battle was verdant with grass and wild flowers. This time I had come to tell my great great grandfather that his family missed him still. Until death, I bid you farewell, Grandfather. Rest in peace.