May is especially meaningful to military families. On Memorial Day each year, we pause and honor those who gave their all for our freedom.

It’s also the time when we honor an all-too-often-overlooked group. Though they don’t wear the uniform, they support those who do. And while they don’t serve on the frontlines, they keep the home fires burning and ensure our warriors have a home to return to.

May is Military Spouse Appreciation Month. They are all too often an unsung part of heroic tales.

Their legacy stretches back to our republic’s founding. Martha Washington endured the brutal winter of 1776-77 alongside her husband, George, at Valley Forge, giving him vital support and encouragement during a crucial and bleak phase of the American Revolution.

That same conflict gave us Molly Pitcher, the wife of a Patriot artilleryman who manned a cannon when he fell in battle. (That was a nickname; historians believe she was actually Mary Ludwig Hays, or possibly two others. Whatever her true identity, her heroism still inspires us today.)

There are millions more, names lost through the mist of time, who suffered through intense struggles of their own. They were largely wives, since wars were fought only by men until recent times. In their own way, the hardships they endured were as tormenting as the battlefield.

My new book, “Witness To War: The Story of the Civil War Told By Those Who Lived It” (Stackpole Books 2026), consists of excerpts from more than 500 previously unpublished letters. Three of them poignantly convey what wives went through. (Although the following trio was all Northerners, Southern spouses experienced the same sensations below the Mason-Dixon.)

First, there was the agony of waiting for word after a major battle had been fought.

Consider Martha Russell’s experience. Just 17 and with a 6-month-old daughter, she worked as a housekeeper while her husband, Charles, was serving in the 20^th Connecticut Infantry. As she wrote a friend, the anxiety as she awaited word from him after his first battle was overwhelming.

“Seems to me I shall go crazy for the 20th regiment was in the battle (Chancellorsville). I have not known nor done anything for the last week. I cannot work. It makes me just about sick. I forget what I am doing half of the time. Made up my beds yesterday morning without putting on any sheets, and that is just about the way I work. I cannot bear to think of the thing, but still, I am afraid what news I shall have. It is two weeks since I have heard from him—two weeks this morning since they marched off. Such times I never seen in my life as the last week has been…

“O! Augusta, Henry has come in and brought me a letter. It is from my dear Charlie! He has been in the battle, but came out all safe and sound. I cannot be thankful enough to think Charlie is safe. I wish the rest were.”

Then there was the heartbreak caused by prolonged absence. In Cashtown, Pennsylvania, 27-year-old Sarah Hafer, mother of three, tried to balance raising her young family with missing her husband in the 158th Pennsylvania Infantry.       

“I heard that you were 30 miles from New Bern, North Carolina, and were surrounded by Rebels and that you would have to fight your way out or starve. You know how I would feel at hearing such news.

"I would like to see your camp, but I would much rather see you coming home. I always think that you will get home again, and you shall not go back again if it takes all we have to keep

you at home, for if I had all the world, I could not have any pleasure now. It is 11 o’clock, and the children are up yet. I want to finish this letter before I go to bed. I would just as soon write, for I have to study [think] about you half the night when I am in bed.”     

Finally, there were the military spouses who became war widows, for whom the pain never totally ended. Among them was Genevieve Runyon, who tearfully watched the 26^th Iowa Infantry arrive home without her husband.

“I feel like a wanderer looking for someone that I’ll never see again. It feels foolish to be ever complaining,

but I cannot help it. I could write forever on the subject. How I felt when his regiment returned without him, I cannot describe. I felt then that I had lost him forever on this earth.

“Now that the cruel war is over, and I look back and see the many lonely homes, I wonder what it all meant.”

Three spouses, three situations, three outcomes with one shared thread: supporting a husband who was supporting his country. That legacy of sacrifice carries today.

To you, the military spouses of 2026, we salute and thank you for your own quiet sacrifice.   

Have comments, questions or suggestions you’d like to share with Mark? Message him at jmp.press@gmail.com.