The Second Husband: A Historical Fiction

Daniel Patterson becomes a civilian prisoner when captured by Confederate Commander John Mosby and held hostage at Libby Prison in Richmond, Virginia as a future exchange. Within two months, a life-threatening illness strikes Daniel, yet he recovers only to be sent to Salisbury Prison in North Carolina.

A thunderous, stormy night in autumn of 1862 enables Daniel to escape out a prison window and over a ten-foot fence. He walks at night, four-hundred miles north to Union lines and returns home to his wife in New Hampshire. Undernourished. Carrying the burden of trauma and the wonder of reaching freedom, alone but not alone.

A changed man, Daniel finds a changed wife. In his absence, Mary met Doctor Phineas Quimby, a metaphysician who treated her spinal and emotional challenges, with significant success through mind-cure.

The next ten years of their marriage, Daniel reestablishes himself as an expert dentist.

Mary studies and teaches the healing effects of mind-power, partnering with a younger man. After twenty years of marriage to Daniel, Mary files for a divorce. But an invisible thread of forgiveness keeps Daniel and Mary Baker Eddy connected for another twenty years as she founds a church with a large following.