The photograph of Ashton used to frighten me as a child, a young man of startling good looks with eyes of such a pale hue that the St. Louis photographer had to touch them up.
I used to turn away, reminded of his untimely death, and the fact that he had suffered nightmares about being shot in the head just before he was killed. He told several people that he could survive anything but that.
Now I see the photograph and think of his short life, and how he touched so many people with his spirit. There are scores of condolence notes following the awful telegram from the Confederate States of America. Some were sent under flag of truce, others smuggled from up North through Havana. Most are from fellow Confederates, then questioning, as did Ashton, a war that could lead to such a loss.
The photograph of Ashton sits above my desk at this very moment. He has the Branch eyes, deep-set and slightly downturned. My grandmother had those eyes, as does my own mother, and from photographs it is clear that Eddie and Lizzie and Eliza and Aunt Eppes had them, too. So do I, as does my five-year-old son.
I was worried about this book, concerned that somehow, wherever he is, Ashton might be upset to find himself promoted to the rank of general. Painfully honest, his letters are free of the usual soldierly bragging. The last thing I wanted to do was embarrass him.
Yet I also believe, from the beauty of his letters, that he might have become a writer, and he was always telling his little brothers (in reality, there were three) to study so that "perhaps you might one day be kind enough to appoint me to your staff." To have him end up as a writer and a college professor was not an unlikely stretch.
This afternoon, as the sun fades and the cheerful shouts of children playing outside fill the room, I see his expressive face in the sepia-toned photograph. My own is reflected on the computer screen. And Ashton, just a few inches away, seems to have a small smile crinkling the corners of his Branch eyes.
Judith O'Brien, Ashton's Bride
(Series: # )
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