She led the group over to the Civil War display and started talking about Tennessee’s secession, the Army of Tennessee, General John Bell Hood, and the Federal occupation of Nashville for most of the war. After the thirty seconds it took the students to look at the displays of uniforms, battle flags, ordinance, and weaponry, their attention waned. Time to pull out the big gun.
“How many of you have ancestors who fought in the Civil War?” Zarah smiled and glanced around at the students. The three mothers with them looked at each other questioningly, then encouraged the children to raise their hands. Zarah doubted whether they actually knew or just assumed—but such an assumption for a family whose roots went back more than 150 years in this country was a safe assumption to make.
“Three major battles took place right here in Middle Tennessee. Does anyone know what those battles are called?”
One of the smaller children’s hands went up.
Zarah inclined her head toward him and motioned at him with an open hand. “What’s your name?”
“Benjamin.”
“Hi, Benjamin. What’s the name of a Civil War battle that happened in Middle Tennessee?”
Benjamin tapped his small forefinger against his pursed lips as if pondering the question. Then his eyes lit up and his face brightened into an
aha
expression. “The battle of Murfreesboro!”
One of the older boys, obviously Benjamin’s older brother, guffawed. “You’re such a dufus. There is no such thing.”
Even as the older boy’s mother grabbed him by the shoulder to silence him, Zarah smiled at the crestfallen Benjamin. “Actually, Benjamin is correct; there was a battle of Murfreesboro, only that isn’t the name it’s commonly called anymore.” She studied the young boy’s face, and he seemed to be following along with where she was going. “Do you know the other name of the battle, Benjamin?”
Benjamin nodded his crew-cut little head. “The battle of Stones River.”
In this little boy, Zarah could see herself at the same age. “Do you know why it has two different names?”
“Because the Southerners named battles after cities, and the Yankees named them after nearby rivers or creeks.” Little Benjamin flashed a conspiratorial grin at Zarah.
“That’s right, Benjamin.” She looked around the group. “Even to this day, some of the most famous battlefields are known by one name given to them by the North and another name given to them by the South. For example, the Battle of Bull Run is still called the Battle of Manassas by many Southerners. Now, who can name the other two Middle Tennessee battles?”
She finally managed to coach the kids into coming up with the
battles of Nashville and Franklin. From the multiple eye rolls she received when she started talking about some of the dates of each of the battles and their importance in the outcome of the war, she suspected they had already been on field trips to the Stones River battlefield and some of the historic sites around Franklin where they did more in-depth lessons about the battles. But now, the big gun was primed and she was ready to take aim.
Zarah moved over to the enlarged copy of a sepia photo of a handsome young man in a Confederate uniform standing beside an equally beautiful, seated young woman in a hoop-skirted gown, her thick, fair braids arranged in a very Germanic coronet atop her head.
She always felt like Vanna White whenever she used her open hand to draw people’s attention to the photo. “This is Zander and Madeleine Breitinger, my ancestors. As with many people from that era, they were not born in this country but had been brought here by their families when they were very young. Zander’s family, the Breitingers, and Madeleine’s aunt and uncle, who took her in when she was orphaned as a baby, all settled just north of Nashville—in what is now known as Germantown. Back then, it was mostly still farmland. When Zander was a young teenager, both of his parents died of typhoid, and Madeleine’s aunt and uncle took him in.
“This is Zander and Madeleine’s wedding photo, taken in May 1861—three days before Zander left for the war. From 1861 through early 1864, Madeleine received somewhat regular correspondence from her husband. She, in turn, was able to get most of her weekly letters through to him, including the letter informing him of the birth of their son, Karl Alexander, in the spring of 1862.
“In mid-1864, the frequency of Zander’s letters slowed until they finally stopped coming. Madeleine was convinced her young husband was still alive, though her family and friends tried to get her to accept that he was most likely dead. Every morning found her down at the telegraph office waiting for that day’s casualty reports to be posted. Every day, she returned home without the satisfaction of a letter from
her husband or the confirmation of her worst fear.”
Zarah paused a moment, partially for effect and partially to gauge her audience’s interest in the story. From the expressions on every face, all of them were eager for her to continue.
“In that cold, rainy late-November of 1864, the war came almost to Madeleine’s doorstep. When Madeleine heard of the fighting in Franklin, she left two-year-old Karl with her aunt, packed all the medical supplies she could find into her saddlebags, and rode south toward Franklin to try to find Zander. But when her uncle figured out what she had done, he went after her, finding her just before she stumbled upon one of the fiercest pockets of fighting of the battle. Their route home had been cut off, so her uncle took her to a nearby farm where they rode out the Battle of Franklin in the root cellar, listening as bullets and cannonballs from both sides peppered and pounded the house above them.”
After so many years of telling this story, Zarah should have been able to do it without any emotion; but her throat tightened, and her eyes started stinging. She swallowed and was about to take a deep breath when she remembered it would make her cough. Instead, she pressed her short nails into the palms of her hands and continued.
“When the fighting stopped, Madeleine was frantic to get out to the battlefield and try to find Zander, but her uncle would not let her leave the house until he knew it was safe. The few paltry medical supplies she had brought with her were needed in the Confederate field hospital, as were her nursing skills. What she saw in that field hospital in the aftermath of the Battle of Franklin made her believe for the first time that Zander was most likely dead.”
An audible sniffle came from near the back of the group where three young teenage girls stood huddled together.
“Madeleine, her uncle, and the friends they had taken shelter with worked nonstop, through the night and the next day, tending the wounded and comforting the dying soldiers from both sides. Before then, Madeleine’s prayer had been that she would find her husband
alive. After that experience, she prayed only that his death had been swift and painless and that he had not suffered the way these men were suffering. Having worked more than a full day with no rest and little food, Madeleine collapsed from exhaustion and grief. Ensuring their way home was clear, Madeleine’s uncle brought her back to Nashville, where two weeks later they once again found themselves in the heart of the fighting. Madeleine, her aunt and uncle, and baby Karl sought refuge in the underground icehouse and watched as their home burned to the ground. The fighting had been so intense all day that they never knew which side had torched the house.
“With nothing left and no hope that Zander would ever return, Madeleine agreed to travel back to Germany with her aunt and uncle.”
“But what about Zander?” burst out one of the teenage girls. “Why didn’t she wait for Zander to come home?”
“He better not be dead!” piped up Benjamin’s older brother.
“He’s going to go find her, right?” Little Benjamin looked quite concerned over the fate of people who died long ago.
“Shush,” one of the mothers said sharply. “Let her finish the story.”
Zarah tried to keep from smiling too much at the reaction she always got at this point in the story. “Madeleine returned with her family to Bavaria, but she left her heart behind in Tennessee. After the war, she no longer laughed, and she no longer danced. She barely spoke at all. She would, however, spend hours writing in her journal—writing long, grieving love letters to her dead husband. After several years, when she seemed over the worst of her grief, her family encouraged her to remarry—if not for her sake then for the sake of her child, now eight years old. Though she agreed to let men court her, not one suitor could make her forget her love for Zander.”
Zarah reached under the display stand she stood beside and pulled out another reproduction of a sepia photo, this one of a young man by himself in a fine suit with a thick shock of blond hair like his parents’.
“This is Karl Alexander Breitinger at eighteen. It was time for him to attend university, and he decided he wanted to return to the land of his birth, America. Madeleine, who had never forgotten her adopted homeland, sent him off with her blessing and with the original of this photograph”—she motioned to the portrait of Zander and Madeleine behind her—”in his pocket.”
She returned the picture of Karl to its shelf. “Having heard the stories of his family’s life in Nashville, Karl made his way to Middle Tennessee to find out if anything remained of the farm they’d left behind. With a map drawn by his great-uncle, Karl made his way to where the farm had been. Expecting to find a pile of burned-out rubble obscured by more than fifteen years of overgrowth, he was shocked to find a large white farmhouse looking exactly the way his mother and great-uncle and aunt had always described their home. Because his great-uncle still owned the property, Karl felt no hesitation in knocking on the front door to find out who had built this house and was living on the land he would one day inherit.”
Throughout the group, reaction was mixed. A few faces—including those of two mothers and young Benjamin—wore knowing grins. Others wore looks of concerned consternation, feeling something of what Karl Breitinger must have felt upon seeing the house.
Zarah relaxed her expression into neutral, so not to give away the ending, and continued. “Karl knocked on the door and waited to see who would answer. He was about to knock again when the door opened to reveal a young woman. Karl introduced himself as the owner of the land and asked to speak with the master of the house. The young woman invited him in. As soon as he entered, the strange feeling that had started upon seeing the house from the outside grew as he realized the interior was just as his mother had described it. The young woman took him into the study in the back of the house, where an older man in a wheelchair sat at the desk. As soon as the man looked up, Karl knew who he was. After eighteen years, he finally stood face-to-face with his very own father.”
Zarah cleared her throat of the emotion that tried to work its way up out of her chest. The story of a son’s reunion with his father always reminded Zarah of her own broken relationship with her father.
“With the wedding portrait to prove Karl’s identity, the reunion between father and son was joyous. Karl learned his father had been captured by the Northern army at Chickamauga and sent to the Rock Island military prison in Illinois for the remainder of the war. By the time he was released and managed to make his way back to Tennessee, Madeleine had already been back in Germany for several months. However, none of their neighbors knew what had become of them; so when Zander returned, he was misinformed that Madeleine, Karl, and the aunt and uncle had died in the fire. Even though he lost his leg in the war, as a memorial to his beloved wife and the baby son he’d never met, Zander rebuilt the house just the way he remembered it.
“Using some of the money his great-uncle had given him for school tuition, Karl booked passage for himself and his father across the Atlantic to reunite his parents. When they arrived in Bavaria, it was to discover Madeleine bedridden, so ill she couldn’t speak. Her uncle informed them that as soon as Karl left for America, Madeleine had stopped eating and seemed to lose the will to live. All that long night, Zander sat by her side holding her hand and talking to her almost without pause. Just before dawn, Madeleine stirred, opened her eyes, and spoke Zander’s name.
“Seeing her beloved, the one she had pined for, Madeleine rallied. Though she never returned to full health, with Zander always at her side, the last five years of Madeleine’s life were the happiest she’d ever known.”
Most of the females in the group sniffled audibly, which Zarah always took as a sign she’d done her job well. The story did not really teach children anything specific and about the battles of Franklin and Nashville; but she’d received so many letters and e-mails from visitors, telling her how much they had enjoyed the story of Zander and Madeleine, and how they’d chosen to research their ancestors’
involvement in the Civil War to see if they could have a story like that to tell. It was usually the only thing out of the hour-long tour that most of them remembered.
After passing around the box of tissues she kept hidden on the shelf beside Karl’s picture for this very moment, she continued the tour—though many pairs of eyes continued to drift back to the portrait of Zander and Madeleine Breitinger.
Throughout the rest of the tour and as she bade farewell to the students who now looked upon her fondly rather than with skeptical trepidation, a strange sense of disquietude shrouded her like an icy blanket. Always before when she’d related the story of Zander and Madeleine, she’d walked away with a sense of melancholy over the happy reunion of Zander and Karl, putting the rift between her and her father into Technicolor relief. Today, however, though she still felt a touch of sadness at her broken relationship with her father, it was the reunion between Zander and Madeleine that struck her the hardest. Her great-great-great-grandfather and grandmother had been exactly the same ages when they married as she and Bobby had been when their relationship had gone up in flames.
The difference was that Zander had actually loved Madeleine and married her, not walked off and left her on her own to face a father who’d always hated her and the consequence of his discovering their secret relationship: being kicked out of the house to face making her own way in the world with no parental support.