From Thomas’s Journal
Near Hall’s Hill, Virginia
February 24, 1862
I have struggled to put pen to paper since I received word of father’s passing, and even now my hand trembles as I struggle to put my thoughts in order.
The pain in my face has grown unbearable again, despite Dr. Jenkins’s assurances that the healing proceeds well. However, far more troubling than the physical pain is that I continue to see things that cannot be there.
Yesterday while visiting the hospital at Georgetown, I witnessed Sergeant Sullivan stopping in the doorway of the fever ward—the same Sergeant Sullivan whose funeral rites I performed not but a day prior. He regarded me with an expression of such anger. I called out to him, only to have him vanish like morning mist. The orderly who rushed to my side insisted no one had been standing there, that the doorway remained empty save for shadows cast by the afternoon light.
Are these visions I have been seeing signs of divine revelation, or merely the fractured perceptions of a mind overwhelmed by suffering? I have searched Scripture for guidance, turning to the prophets who witnessed spirits and angels, yet I find no comfort in their examples. My visions feel not of God. There was an evil in them. I cannot say how I know this, but there was no goodness in what I saw.
I confess here what I dare not speak aloud to any living soul—there are moments when I question whether continuing this mortal life serves any purpose. The pain never fully subsides; it merely ebbs like a tide before crashing anew against the shores of my endurance. I understand why some wounded men choose to step into eternity rather than endure another dawn of suffering.
God forgive me these thoughts. Grant me strength to resist such darkness.
The whispers have begun as well, though these I suspect are real rather than phantoms of my fevered mind. I catch fragments of conversation that cease when I approach—the chaplain’s affliction, his strange behaviors, his fitness for duty. The men still show me respect, but I sense their uncertainty, their questions about whether my wounds have left me capable of providing the spiritual guidance they require.
God called me to tend His flock in their darkest hours. If I retreat from that calling now, what manner of servant does that make me? What worth remains in a minister who abandons the suffering because their pain proves too heavy to witness? What would Eleanor think of me?
She is the light steering me away from sinking into despair as I journey through these dangerous waters of thought. I must hold on for her.
Tomorrow I will try again to fulfill my duties with competence and grace. Tonight I can only endure.
May God grant me wisdom to discern truth from fever-dream, and strength to continue when all strength seems exhausted.
The boundary between waking and sleeping grows ever thinner.
Entry concludes with several lines scratched out, illegible
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to be continued…
© 2025 E.M. di V. - writing as Morgan A. Drake & Joe Gillis. All rights reserved.