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    A Soldier's Widow: Widow Mail Order Brides, #1
    A Soldier's Widow: Widow Mail Order Brides, #1
    A Soldier's Widow: Widow Mail Order Brides, #1
    Ebook151 pages1 hour

    A Soldier's Widow: Widow Mail Order Brides, #1

    By Susan Leigh Carlton

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    About this ebook

    This is a serial of over 28,500 words. The story will be concluded in part two to be released by September 2015.

    This is the story of Miriam Ponder of Yorkville, South Carolina. Miriam became a widow on November 24, 1863, when her husband, Hiram was killed during the Battle of Missionary Ridge. His name never appeared on the casualty lists and she was unaware of his death until a few months after the end of the war.

    It is also the story of Tom Cannon, who was shot during the same battle. Tom was a member of the Union forces attacking the Confederate Army on Missionary Ridge. He was wounded, but survived.

    The story tells of the loneliness of each of them, and the steps they take to end their loneliness.

    Please note, some of the grammar is the common vernacular of the day and people talked this way.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSusan Leigh Carlton
    Release dateAug 1, 2015
    ISBN9781516388059
    A Soldier's Widow: Widow Mail Order Brides, #1
    Author

    Susan Leigh Carlton

    Susan Leigh Carlton lives just outside of Tomball, Texas, a suburb twenty-six miles northwest of Houston. She began writing and publishing on Amazon in August of 2012. Susan observed the eighty-first anniversary of her birth on April 17th. She says, “I quit having birthdays, because they are depressing.” Susan and her husband celebrated their forty-ninth wedding anniversary on April 16th, the day before her birthday.

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    • 3/5
      The author has an interesting premise, but pacing is very poor. There was a lot more story than she wrote. Also, this ends in the middle of a sentence. There was no reason for that.

    Book preview

    A Soldier's Widow - Susan Leigh Carlton

    A Soldier’s Widow

    The Soldier’s Widow is a Mail Order Bride

    Susan Leigh Carlton

    Susan Leigh Carlton

    Copyright © 2015 by Susan Leigh Carlton.

    All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed Attention: Permissions Coordinator, at the address below.

    Susan Leigh Carlton

    Tomball, TX

    www.susanleighcarlton.com

    Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

    The Soldier’s Widow/Susan Leigh Carlton .—1st Ed.

    Table of Contents

    A Soldier’s Widow

    Description

    Prologue

    Miriam Ponder

    Tom Cannon

    Gold Fever

    Gold and Cattle

    Miriam’s Dilemma

    Help Me Lord

    I Mailed It

    Claim Jumper

    A Decision

    Looking for Help

    Meeting a Neighbor

    Miriam’s Letter

    A Housekeeper

    A Real Ranch

    A Late Response

    His Name is Tom

    The Letter

    She Agreed to Come

    This is Helena

    The Town Folk and the Ranch

    I Love It

    The Next Step

    The Talk

    Advice

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR

    Description

    This is a serial of over 28,500 words. The story will be concluded in part two to be released by September 2015.

    This is the story of Miriam Ponder of Yorkville, South Carolina. Miriam became a widow on November 24, 1863, when her husband, Hiram was killed during the Battle of Missionary Ridge. His name never appeared on the casualty lists and she was unaware of his death until a few months after the end of the war.

    It is also the story of Tom Cannon, who was shot during the same battle. Tom was a member of the Union forces attacking the Confederate Army on Missionary Ridge. He was wounded, but survived.

    The story tells of the loneliness of each of them, and the steps they take to end their loneliness.

    Please note, some of the grammar is the common vernacular of the day and people talked this way.

    Prologue

    Missionary Ridge is a small meandering creek in northwest Georgia. A battle was fought between soldiers of the Union Army and those from the Confederate States of America on November 23rd and 24th, 1863.

    After their disastrous defeat at the Battle of Chickamauga in September, the 40,000 men of the Union Army of the Cumberland under Maj. Gen. William Rosecrans retreated to Chattanooga. Confederate General Braxton Bragg's Army of Tennessee besieged the city, threatening to starve the Union forces into surrender. Bragg's troops established themselves on Missionary Ridge and Lookout Mountain, both of which had excellent views of the city, and the Tennessee River flowing through the city, as well as the Union supply lines.

    The Union armies involved several notable generals in the persons of Generals U.S. Grant, William T. Sherman, and Philip Sheridan.

    The Confederate Army was commanded by Generals Bragg, Longstreet, Wheeler, and Breckenridge.

    On November 24thPrivate Hiram Ponder, a twenty-three year old graduate of Yorkville High school was the guidon bearer for the First South Carolina Volunteers Company, a part of General Saxton’s Brigade. He was at the front of his company in a charge against General Sherman’s forces on Missionary Ridge, a crest overlooking Chattanooga and the vital Tennessee River. They were trying to keep Sherman’s troops from driving Bragg’s forces from Missionary Ridge, a step that would allow them to open a supply route to Chattanooga and rest of the Union forces in the deep South.

    Private Ponder was hit in the chest by several rounds from the new Spencer repeating rifles employed by Union troops. He was dead before he hit the ground. The soldier behind him slowed and picked up the company colors and continued his charge until he too was hit; two of the three hundred-sixty one Confederate soldiers killed that day.

    The Union Army carried the day and General Bragg was routed from Chattanooga.

    ––––––––

    chapter one

    Miriam Ponder

    Yorkville, SC September 1865...

    The war had ended in April; there had been no word from her husband, Hiram in two years. A few returning soldiers had been straggling into town for the past two months but there had been no sign of her husband. She faithfully checked for his name on the lengthening casualty lists posted on the board in front of the Yorkville Enquirer.

    Maybe he was captured, her mother, Belle offered hopefully, or maybe he was wounded and is in a hospital somewhere.

    It’s been over for four months, Miriam said. If he was captured, he would have been released by now. He should be home.

    Lester Chapman came home last week. Bessie told me at church last week; he had walked home, sleeping in barns, and getting food from the folks that had any. He walked all of the way from Pennsylvania.

    I don’t know, Momma, maybe he just didn’t want to come home, and decided to stay wherever he was.

    Now you know Hi would never do something like that.

    I hope not; but where is he?

    He’ll show up one day with that lop sided grin of his and have a perfectly good explanation for everything.

    You’re probably right, but with Papa gone too, what would we do if he doesn’t?

    I don’t know, hon, but the good Lord will provide. Are you coming to church with me or not?

    I don’t feel like going this morning, I’m not sure I believe in anything anymore.

    Miriam Louise Potter, you should be ashamed of yourself.

    Why, Momma? We’re living off the charity of our friends. We can’t go on like this. I expect any day the sheriff is going to show up to collect the taxes, and when we can’t pay them, we’re going to be evicted, and then what? We’ve got no kin, nobody to take us in.

    We’ve got butter and egg money, and I’ll ask around at church and see if anybody wants any sewing done. They always say the darkest hour is the hour before the dawn.

    Well, the sun must be about to come up, because everything looks pitch black to me right now, Miriam said.

    I wish you’d come with me. Everyone will be wondering where you are.

    Just tell them I’m not well, Momma. It will be the truth.

    The pot of pinto beans simmering on the stove made it hot in the house, and Miriam was sitting in the swing on the front porch, fanning herself with a funeral home fan. With some of the soldiers coming home from the war, and no sign of Hiram, she had not been sleeping well. A slight breeze came through the oak trees in front of the house and her eyes drifted closed.

    In a fitful sleep, unanswered questions swirled in her mind. Where are you Hiram? Why haven’t you come home? What’s going to become of Momma and me? What if the bank takes our house?

    Miz Ponder?

    Miz Ponder, the bearded stranger asked again. Are you all right?

    She stumbled to her feet. Wha... Who are you? she asked the man dressed in the raggedy gray uniform; the edges of the sleeves threadbare and the knees of the trousers worn through.

    ’Scuse me, Miz Ponder. I didn’t mean to put a fright into you. I’m Gilley Wisher. I’m from over near Bullock Creek. Is your name Miriam?

    How did you know that?

    Why Hiram talked about you all the time. We wuz in the same company.

    You know Hiram?

    Yessum, we wuz together from the beginning right up to the day he got kilt.

    The swing moved away from her when she reached out with her right hand to steady herself. She fell to the floor of the porch.

    Are you all right? he asked, his brow furrowed in concern.

    I’m all right, she said. Hiram’s dead?

    Yessum. I wuz maybe five steps from him when he went down. We wuz near Chattanooga at a place called Missionary Ridge. I figger he was hit maybe four times in the chest. It was a fearsome fight.

    Are you sure he’s dead? she asked.

    Yessum. The Yankees stopped us, and we come back the way we had went, and I stopped where he fell. I found this here letter in the pocket of his shirt.

    He handed her the sweat stained letter. It was dated August 16, 1863, and had faded so

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