The Mockingbird's Ballad

Joseph Wheeler, late of the Confederate States of America's military had, under the CSA flag, been in over 500 armed skirmishes. He had lead troops, commanded, in 127 full-scale battles. Eighteen faithful horses had died in battle during the last four years of warfare. Thirty-six staff officers riding by his side had been killed in battle and he had survived three wounds. Courage was not absent from the character of Joseph Wheeler. His personal valor had been proven countless times. But alone with this young woman and fulfilling the task that brought him here to this place in this time was harder than anything he'd undertaken as a seventeen-year-old cadet or horse soldier.

"Miss Daniella, I'm not an elegant fellow. My prospects are now known. As I told you in June, the position in New Orleans has great potential. Honestly, success has not been a pattern considering our efforts for the Confederacy. But I feel assured of one thing, . . .no two things. I love you deeply and the delight of my life would be to have you as my wife." He paused, realizing that the fear had lifted and that he had done what he came to do. Waiting and feeling embarrassed, he smiled and took Daniella's hand as she looked into his dark blue eyes. Drawing the plain gold ring from his vest pocket he said, "I sure hope it will fit, it was my mother's." He turned her hand over and placed the ring in it. He looked into the deep brown eyes of his beloved and sought a sign, a recognition that his passion was shared. It was.

"Joseph Wheeler, I'm most pleased." She paused and took up a marital manner. "Yes, Sir. I'll marry you, my general." She radiated joy, smiling at the ring as she put it on her finger and than at her fiancé.

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A dreariness, not related to the gloomy winter season, was evident over Caladonia Plantation on February 7, 1866. Inclimate weather was the background for a wedding. Daniella and Joe's wedding came that day, a month after a funeral. The bride's wedding gown was trimmed in black. Richard Jones Sherrod, Daniella's little boy, 5 years and 10 months, had been buried January 7, 1866. Two wounded souls were pledged in matrimony; a young vanquished horse soldier and a young grieving mother. A widow, Daniella had endured the deaths of her two children, little Ella Sherrod in 1861 and now her little boy.

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In the fall of 1865 in Cincinnati sitting across from the Universalist church on a park bench on a bright late December afternoon that was warm for the season, Solon Stevenson took out a brand new journal, turned a few written on pages and wrote, "December 6, 1865, Cincinnati, O.