Part of Elm Creek Quilts, book 17
First published 2011
In 1862, the men of Water's Ford, Pennsylvania march off to fight for Lincoln's cause, leaving their wives to manage alone. Constance Wright watches her husband Abel, a former slave turned Union sharpshooter, depart with unwavering conviction about the war's purpose. Sisters-in-law Dorothea Nelson and Charlotte Granger bid farewell to their husbands: Thomas the schoolmaster carries Dorothea's handmade quilt into battle, while Dr. Jonathan Granger heads to a field hospital with his medical supplies and a promise to write first to Gerda Bergstrom, his unrequited love. Charlotte, pregnant with their second child, must swallow her jealousy. The women of the quilting circle band together, supporting each other through loneliness and uncertainty. They create an innovative business strategy to sustain their community while the war rages. Their plan will reshape Water's Ford in ways none of them anticipate, changes that reach far beyond the battlefield casualties they dread.
Genres: american-civil-war, american-fiction, historical-fiction, 19th-century
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, war
Setting: Pennsylvania, Water's Ford
Period: 1862
352 pages · Hardcover · Dutton