They said I’d never get married. In four years, twelve men looked at my wheelchair and walked away. But what happened next shocked everyone, including me.

My name is Elellanar Whitmore, and this is the story of how I went from being rejected by society to finding a love so powerful it changed history itself.

Virginia, 1856. I was 22 and considered defective goods. My legs had been useless since I was 8. A horseback riding accident had shattered my spine and trapped me in this mahogany wheelchair my father had commissioned.

But here’s what no one understood. It wasn’t the wheelchair that made me unfit for marriage. It was what it represented. A burden. A woman who couldn’t be with her husband at parties. A person who, presumably, couldn’t have children, couldn’t manage a household, couldn’t fulfill any of the duties expected of a Southern wife.