He and Eli were grown men, human beings, with lives that didn’t deserve to be wasted on someone else’s whim. I thought I understood how they must feel. I had also lost control over my life, my future. I was forced to submit to a war I neither believed in nor wanted, powerless to act while others decided my fate. Charles could go to war, fight for control, take action to win back the freedom he felt was being stolen from him. But the war could rob me of my wedding day, my husband, my tranquil future in Richmond, Virginia—and like Eli and Josiah, I could do nothing about it. We could only stand
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