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About Letter for Gene (Unabridged)

The war was ending for Captain Eugene Stewart. He and the rest of the 85th Illinois would soon be mustered out and he’d return home to Peoria. After he entered his tent, he found a thick envelope from his mother sitting on his cot. When he unfolded the pages, another envelope fell to the ground. He picked it up and noticed the heavy hand that had written the address. It hadn’t been sent to him with the army but was forwarded by his mother. After reading his mother’s letter, he stared at the sealed envelope and thought about tossing it into the fire rather than reading it. It had been written by his father. The same man who had abandoned his family more than ten years ago leaving an eleven-year-old Gene as the man of the house. He spent a few minutes in contemplation before opening the letter and was stunned when he read that his hated father had the audacity to ask for his help. And to give him that help, he had to travel hundreds of miles to Colorado. Most men might have not bothered to even consider granting such a request, but Gene wasn’t most men. The man who had deserted his family was still his father.