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country.
    He marched forward on the narrow pathway that wove through the houses and gardens in Amana. He had to get away from the others, to a place where he could clear his mind.
    Ahead was the stone residence where they met each night for prayer. Beside it was a grove of plum trees, lined in neat rows in a procession out to the cornfield. In the midst of the quiet trees was a wooden bench, and he sat down on it, resting his chin in his hands.
    There was no fighting in their community. No battles among their people. Amana and the surrounding villages were about as close as one could come to experiencing a bit of heaven on this earth. The community members worshipped God together. Ate together. Encouraged and consoled one another.
    Would God have him leave this peaceful world and the people who had loved him since he was born to go out to a place where people hated one another? Where a man wounded and sometimes killed his brother?
    He pulled the envelope from his pocket and opened it. The letter was brief, but it was exactly what Colonel O’Neill had said. The government was mustering him to fight for the state of Iowa, for their union. And they wanted him to report for duty on Monday.
    He flicked his fingernail against the paper. He hadn’t started this war, but something continued to stir inside him, something that urged him to fight.
    Since he was a boy, he’d been the one to fight for the underdog. He’d even fought for Amalie when they were in school, stopping the boys who teased her when she excelled above all of them in their studies. He’d never tried to fight for his own good, only for the good of those around him, but he’d suffered the consequences for the fight that swelled within him, suffered under the switch of their schoolmaster and his father’s paddle.
    His father often said that Friedrich reminded him of Otto Vinzenz, Friedrich’s grandfather. His grandfather had fought against Napoleon Bonaparte’s army fifty years ago and was one of many who defeated the tyrant in the Battle of Waterloo. A war hero. His father rarely talked about Otto Vinzenz, but Friedrich used to pepper his mother with questions about him when he was a child.
    When his parents joined the Community of True Inspiration and moved to the United States, God had placed a new government over them, and now the same government that had provided freedom for them from oppression in German called him to duty to fight against the oppression of slaves.
    Their leader, Christian Metz, spoke often of the war and sometimes about slavery. He didn’t think slavery was right, but he and the other elders believed that this evil would one day be eliminated by God, like other evils in their society.
    Friedrich shook his head. What if God ordained this war to eliminate slavery? He wouldn’t join the infantry if he lived in the Confederacy, but the Union was fighting for freedom. How could he turn his back on men like Joseph who had been sold and beaten because of their skin color?
    Matthias sat down beside him. “You never leave food on your plate, Friedrich.”
    “I wasn’t hungry.”
    Matthias leaned back, crossing one leg over the other. “I never thought I’d hear those words come out of your mouth.”
    Friedrich didn’t respond.
    “Is it Amalie?” Matthias asked.
    “Partly.”
    “Have you changed your mind?”
    He shook his head. “Neither my mind nor my heart have changed.”
    “She’ll make a good wife for you.”
    “You don’t even like Amalie.”
    “That’s not true,” Matthias protested.
    “You said she’s too impertinent for me.”
    “When she was sixteen!”
    Friedrich managed a smile. “So you’ve changed your opinion.”
    “People change over the years—”
    “It doesn’t matter anyway,” Friedrich interrupted. “Amalie isn’t the problem.”
    “So there is a problem—”
    Two sisters walked by them, and Friedrich waited to speak. More than a thousand Inspirationists had arrived from New York now, which