The early autumn morning was chilly, but the sun rose warm and orange over the low eastern hills of the small New Hampshire town. Pvt. Elliott Libby, the town’s schoolmaster, stood on his front porch, lost in thought. The front door behind him opened and his wife, Hanna, and their small son, Telemachus, came out. 

They all remained silent for a few moments, and then, Elliott grabbed his son, lifted and hugged him. Turning to Hanna, he pulled her to himself, kissed and tightly held her as long as he could. Then, it was time to go to begin his long journey: initially to join his comrades-in-arms in the 14th New Hampshire Volunteer Infantry, to go and fight to restore the Union following the secession of eleven southern states. Some neighbor men were already on the road calling to Elliott to come with them. He grabbed his small satchel and his rifle, turned back to look at his family, stepped off the porch and was about to reach the road, when Hanna called after him.

She came running, tears in her eyes, little Telemachus trotting behind her. She held out a small fold of orange cloth, a bandana, that she had made out of a bit of extra fabric from which she had made a blouse. She had already packed a few white handkerchiefs for him in his satchel, but this one was special. She loved the color, it reminded her of sunsets and orange Pippin apples, like the ones in their orchard from which she made Elliott’s favorite pies. She placed the new bandana around his neck and lovingly tied it. She said it would have to stand in for her while they were apart, close and warm around him. With that, he quickly turned and following the calls from the other men, he opened the gate and moved off, leaving his world behind.

The war went on and on, a few letters reached Hanna, even fewer reached Elliott. His regiment went to Washington to defend the national capital. There, they mustered with other brigades, and eventually went on to New Orleans and from there, back to Virginia for Sheridan's Shenandoah campaign, and finally to Georgia in January 1865 as a Union occupying force. Those who remained were finally mustered out in July of 1865. Elliott was mustered out by a sniper’s bullet a few months earlier, near Savannah. He never lived to see his daughter, Penelope, born exactly nine months after he left Hanna and Telemachus behind.

A cold rain came down, as daylight fell. The remains of now Capt. Elliott Libby lay by the road. In his hand was a wad of orange cloth. When the orderlies came to retrieve his body, the cloth fell to the ground. There it lay, almost indistinguishable from the red ochre-colored mud of Georgia, to be forgotten or perhaps to be found and repurposed by someone as a cloth to clean a rifle or polish a pair of boots; or maybe just to lie there and become one with the earth, the blending of Hanna’s love and Elliott’s sweat and blood, left behind on a road far from home.