The Union Quilters

Table of Contents

 

 

The Aloha Quilt
The Lost Quilter
The Quilter’s Kitchen
The Winding Ways Quilt
The New Year’s Quilt
The Quilter’s Homecoming
Circle of Quilters
The Christmas Quilt
The Sugar Camp Quilt
The Master Quilter
The Quilter’s Legacy
The Runaway Quilt
The Cross-Country Quilters
Round Robin
The Quilter’s Apprentice
◆
Elm Creek Quilts
◆
Quilt Projects Inspired by the Elm Creek Quilts Novels
◆
Return to Elm Creek
◆
More Quilt Projects Inspired by the Elm Creek Quilts Novels
◆
More Elm Creek Quilts
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Inspired by the Elm Creek Quilts Novels
◆
Sylvia’s Bridal Sampler from Elm Creek Quilts
◆
The True Story Behind the Quilt

DUTTON

Published by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

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Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) ◆ Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England ◆ Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) ◆ Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) ◆ Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi-110 017, India ◆ Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) ◆ Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

 

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

 

Published by Dutton, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

 

First printing, February 2011

Copyright © 2011 by Jennifer Chiaverini

All rights reserved

REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

 

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

 

Chiaverini, Jennifer.
The Union quilters : an Elm Creek quilts novel / Jennifer Chiaverini.
p. cm.

eISBN : 978-1-101-47585-0

1. Quiltmakers—Fiction. 2. Quilting—Fiction. 3. Pennsylvania—History—Civil War,
1861-1865—Fiction. 4. City and town life—Pennsylvania—History—19th century—
Fiction. 5. Domestic fiction. I. Title.
PS3553.H473U65 2010
813’.54—dc22 2010037238

 

 

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’ s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

 

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

 

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

I am deeply grateful to Denise Roy, Maria Massie, and everyone at Dutton for their contributions to
The Union Quilters
and the Elm Creek Quilts series.

I am indebted to the Wisconsin Historical Society and their librarians and staff for providing excellent research resources for this book, and to Dr. Paul A. Cimbala of Fordham University for his insightful responses to my questions about African American soldiers and the United States Veterans Reserve Corps.

Many thanks to Geraldine Neidenbach, Heather Neidenbach, Marty Chiaverini, and Brian Grover, whose careful readings and thoughtful questions offered essential help throughout the writing of this book, and to Nic Neidenbach, who never failed to assist me with computer problems at crucial moments. Thanks also to my teammates from Just For Kicks, Ignition, and Oh-Thirty—especially Marty Gustafson, Laura Wolf, and Jean Mescher—for offering camaraderie, friendship, stress relief, encouragement, insomnia remedies, and the occasional bag of homegrown tomatoes. My sons, Nicholas and Michael, enrich my life with laughter, joy, and love every day, and I am forever thankful.

Finally, the following works proved invaluable during my research : Samuel P. Bates,
History of the Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-5; Prepared in Compliance with Acts of the Legislature.
Volumes II and X (Harrisburg, PA: B. Singerly, 1871); William Blair and William Pencak, eds.,
Making and Remaking Pennsylvania’s Civil War
(University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001); F. F. Cavada,
Libby Life: Experiences of a Prisoner of War in Richmond, Va., 1863-64, by Lieut.-Colonel F. F. Cavada, U. S. V.
(Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1865); Paul A. Cimbala and Randall M. Miller, eds.,
An Uncommon Time: The Civil War and the Northern Home Front
(New York: Fordham University Press, 2002); Paul A. Cimbala and Randall M. Miller, eds.,
Union Soldiers and the Northern Home Front: Wartime Experiences, Postwar Adjustments
(New York: Fordham University Press, 2002); Michael A. Dreese,
The Hospital on Seminary Ridge at the Battle of Gettysburg
(Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2005); J. Franklin Dyer,
The Journal of a Civil War Surgeon
(Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2003); Tom Huntington,
Pennsylvania Civil War Trails: The Guide to Battle Sites, Monuments, Museums and Towns
(Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2007); Diane Ragan,
Grand Army of the Republic Department of Pennsylvania. Personal War Sketches of the African American Members of Col. Robert G. Shaw Post No. 206
(Pittsburgh, PA: Western Pennsylvania Genealogical Society, 2003); John F. Schmutz,
The Battle of the Crater: A Complete History
(Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2009); Keith Wilson, ed.,
Honor in Command: Lt. Freeman S. Bowley’s Civil War Service in the 30th United States Colored Infantry
(Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2006). Jinny Beyer’s outstanding and comprehensive encyclopedia of pieced blocks,
The Quilter’s Album of Patchwork Patterns
(Elmhurst, IL: Breckling Press, 2009) inspired several of the designs used in Melanie Marder Parks’s beautiful endpapers, and I believe no quilter’s library is complete without it.

“In this extraordinary war, extraordinary developments have manifested themselves, such as have not been seen in former wars; and amongst these manifestations nothing has been more remarkable than these fairs for relief of suffering soldiers and their families. And the chief agents in these fairs are the women of America.

“I am not accustomed to the use of language of eulogy; I have never studied the art of paying compliments to women; but I must say, that if all that has been said by orators and poets since the creation of the world in the praise of women were applied to the women of America, it would not do them justice for their conduct during this war. I will close by saying

God Bless the women of America.”

D
orothea tied up the sack of salt pork and hard bread—enough for a week if Thomas didn’t find some poor soul in greater need to share with—and pressed the back of her hand to her forehead, taking a deep breath, fighting to still the whirl of thoughts. She knew she had forgotten something, something essential, something her husband would suffer without on the long marches through hostile lands, on the cold, lonely nights away from home. If she remembered what it was after he left the Elm Creek Valley, after he crossed the pass through Dutch Mountain with the other brave and patriotic men who had decided to answer Mr. Lincoln’s call to arms, it would do him no good whatsoever. Though he was the love of her life and her most cherished friend, she could not follow him into war.

From behind her came the sound of a muffled sob, and Mrs. Hennessey emerged from the pantry, wiping her eyes with the corner of her apron. At the sight of the housekeeperʹs tears, Dorothea pressed her lips together and inhaled sharply, briskly tightening the knot on the sack of provisions. She would not weep; she must not weep. Thomas had asked her for only that as he held her after they had made love the night before, that she not mourn him until he was truly gone. “I have every intention of returning to you,” he had said, kissing her cheeks, her lips, her forehead, brushing her long brown locks gently off her face. “You must believe it too. Your hopes will sustain us both.” In the semidarkness she had nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Thomas was not a superstitious man; he knew very well that men died in war, and the prayerful wishes of a devoted wife would offer him no protection from a Rebel minié ball. But neither would worry, and with baby Abigail to care for and many friends and neighbors looking to her in their worry and distress, she must choose confidence, hope, and determination. She could not, on the eve of his departure, distract Thomas with worries that she could not manage without him.

Mrs. Hennessey did not need to disguise her true feelings. “A man like Mr. Nelson’s got no business marching off to war,” she said, her ruddy cheeks flushed with indignation, frenzied strands of curly gray-streaked auburn hair escaping the bun at the nape of her neck. A longtime employee of Thomas’s parents, she had cared for Thomas since he was a boy in Philadelphia and had accompanied him when he came to Water’s Ford to take over Two Bears Farm and run the town primary school twelve years before. “A man like him ought to be in Washington City running things, not risking his life scrapping with the rabble. Don’t he have a farm to look after, and his book to write, and a family that needs his protection?”