Of Blood and Brothers: Book Two

by E. Michael Helms

To say this is the second in a series is a little bit of a stretch.  It is, however, the second half of a single novel.  Helms frequently refers back to events from his first book with no exposition of those events.  A reader not having read the first book would not pick up on these queues nor understand their inferences.  Consequently, “Of Blood and Brothers: Book Two” is merely a continuation of the original story and not a stand-alone book.

That aside I thoroughly enjoyed catching up with the stories of the Malburn brothers.  Daniel, fighting on for the Confederates and Elijah fighting with the Union Army during the Civil War, their reunion and the fiery aftermath of the early stages of reconstruction in the South.

The war is not the only thing dividing the Malburn brothers.  The love of a woman also pits Daniel and Elijah against each other in a love triangle.  We already know that Elijah is the brother who won Annabelle “Annie” Gainer’s hand in marriage, now we find out how that happened and what the fallout from that event was.  Needless to say the Malburn’s reunion at the war’s conclusion does not bring forth only tears of joy but tears of anguish as well.

Calvin Hogue, the newspaper reporter who brings the saga of the Malburn brothers to the readers of his uncle’s newspaper, is noticeably absent during most of this book.  His interactions with the brothers and other members of the extended Malburn family were part of the driving narrative of the first book in this series.  In this second installment he only appears in the beginning of the book, to restart the story, and at the end of the book, asking what became of the rest of the family.

Taken together, the two parts of “Of Blood and Brothers” is a great retelling of the Civil War, from both sides (though Eli is not a willing volunteer for the Union Army) and shows the horrors of battle and its aftermath, as well as life in the Northern Confederate Prison Camps.  In an interesting twist to the Civil War Fiction genre, Helms demonstrates that the conditions in Northern Prison Camps was just as bad as those in the South, such as Andersonville and Libby, which are overly portrayed in Civil War fiction.

Helms’ writes in a smooth, easily read style, and the story of the Malburn brothers is a compelling page turner.  I just wish it had been published as one book instead of being split into two, as each is weaker without its other half.

ISBN 978-1938467509, Koehler Books, © 2014, Paperback, 274 pages, $17.95.  To purchase click HERE.

The Ones They Left Behind

By Antonio Elmaleh

Harriman Hickenlooper, a veteran of the 6th Iowa Infantry, came back from what some would call “The War of the Rebellion” and what others later would call the “War Between the States” with an unkept promise, a score to settle and a debt to repay.  His parents who had taken out a mortgage on the family farm had both died during the war; his brother Alonzo would also die in the war in Harriman’s arms.  It has been two years since Harriman had returned home.  The Appanoose County farmer was heavily in debt, behind on the mortgage payments and struggling to keep up the family farm all on his own.

Walter Ridley, formerly the Colonel of the 6th Iowa Infantry and now after the war was on the board of directors of the “Farmer’s and Merchant’s Bank,” Centerville, Iowa’s only bank, which held the note on the Hickenlooper farm.  In a move to avoid the embarrassment to bank foreclosing on one of Appanoose County’s war veterans, Ridley, bought the loan from the bank.

At a meeting of Centerville’s veterans, Harriman proposes a bet between he and Colonel Ridley; that Harriman could walk from Atlanta to Savannah, following the path taken by the 6th Iowa during William T. Sherman’s March to the Sea, unarmed, while carrying a United States flag, and return to Centerville unharmed by January 1, 1868 (giving Harriman 44 to complete the fete) with tangible proof of his journey.  If he makes it back by New Year’s Day he will get his farm free and clear, if he doesn’t Ridley will get the farm.

Seventeen year old Rufus Dewes, a young man wanting desperately to become a newspaper reporter, instantly senses Harriman’s journey would make a great story, and convinces Harriman to let him tag along on the journey.  Rufus periodically sends back dispatches to Jack Connolly, editor of Centerville’s newspaper, The Loyal Citizen, in which they are published.  The articles are quickly picked up by other newspapers across the country, and Harriman’s journey becomes a nationwide sensation as people clamor for details and wonder whether or not he will make it back in time, or even make it back at all.

Along the their journey Harriman and Rufus are joined by a former slave named Jed, emancipated in name only, until the timely arrival of the Northerners, and Lucinda McWhorter, a young Georgia woman left destitute by the misfortunes of war.  Will the quartet make it alive to Savannah?  And if they do will Harriman make it back to Centerville in time to save his farm?  And who are “The Ones They Left Behind?”  You will have to read the book to find out for yourself.

Iowa and family connections added to my experience of reading this book.  Being a native of south-central Iowa, I was greatly surprised to pick up Mr. Elmaleh’s book, and realize it was partially set in Centerville, a real town in Iowa, and county seat of Appanoose County.  My great Grandmother, Mary Alice Byrd Luce, is buried in Jerome, a small town just a few miles west of Centerville, so I am familiar with the area.  Centerville and the 6th Iowa Infantry are the only real things in this book; the bank, the newspaper, the townspeople, and the members of the 6th Iowa Infantry are all fictional creations of the author.  My father’s uncle, Lowell Miller, a medic during the Korean War, was killed in action and died in his brother’s arms, which reflected the story of Harriman and Alonzo, and gave to me an extra sense of poignancy to the story.  And further my great great grandfather’s name was Alonzo Luce, and three of his brothers served in the Union Army during the Civil War, all of them, however were in different units and did not serve together.

Mr. Elmaleh states he based his novel on a newspaper article about a real Civil War Veteran who retraced Sherman’s route from Atlanta to Savannah, but he does not reveal any details of the actual historical event.  “The Ones They Left Behind” is well written and engaging.  It is a quickly read page turner that I found myself unable to put down.

ISBN 978-0990640622, 21 Cent Imprints Llc, © 2014, Hardcover, 260 pages, $19.95.  To purchase click HERE.

Hell Or Richmond

Hell or Richmond

By Ralph Peters 

In a series of battles between May 4 & June 24, 1864 the Army of the Potomac directed by Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant and commanded by Major General George G. Meade clashed with the Army of Northern Virginia, commanded by General Robert E. Lee, in what would later become known as The Overland Campaign.  The ferocity and near daily combat during those two months shocked the divided and warring nation. The combined casualties of both armies totaled over 88,000 men killed, wounded, captured or missing.  It was the last year of the war, a baptism of fire that lasted four long years, the beginning of its cataclysmic end, that would forge a new, united nation from its warring factions.

Best-selling author, Ralph Peters, uses the backdrop of The Overland Campaign for his novel, “Hell or Richmond.”  From the battles at The Wilderness, and Spotsylvania Court House to The Battle of Cold Harbor Peters graphically covers much of The Overland Campaign.

Officers such as Ulysses S Grant, General-in-Chief of the United States Army; Major General George G. Meade, commander of the Army of the Potomac; and Francis Channing Barlow, the Union’s Harvard-valedictorian “boy general,” as well as Confederate General Robert E. Lee, Major General John Brown Gordon, and William C. Oates, Colonel of the 15th Alabama Infantry take their places in Mr. Peters’ narrative beside the enlisted men of both armies.

Historical fiction fills the gaps where its counterpart, nonfiction, cannot go.  Peters’ narrative breathes life into his the men of our historical past, and viscerally reveals the life of a civil war soldier before, during and after a battle; the hunger, the dirt and grime, the smell, the blood and gore.  Where more often than not historical fiction authors fail, Peters excels and does not hold back with his bloody and gory descriptions of wounds received by 18th century projectiles.  His dialogue is sometimes salty and profane, but nevertheless rings true of combat veterans.

Ralph Peters’ “Hell or Richmond” masterfully combines descriptive narrative and coarse dialogue which doesn’t sound as if had been vetted for a prime-time television viewing audience, and successfully transports his 21st century readers to the unpleasantness of the summer of 1864 Virginia.

ISBN 978-0765330482, Forge Books, © 2013, Hardcover, 544 pages, Maps, $25.99.  To purchase this book click HERE.

A Blaze of Glory: A Novel of the Battle of Shiloh

A Blaze of Glory: A Novel of the Battle of Shiloh

By Jeff Shaara

After authoring novels on the American Revolution, the Mexican War, World War I, and World War II, Jeff Shaara has found his way back to the conflict that launched his literary career, the American Civil War.  After penning a prequel and a sequel to his father, Michael Sharra’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, “The Killer Angels,” Mr. Shaara now begins a new Civil War trilogy with “A Blaze of Glory: A Novel of the Battle of Shiloh.”

Shaara in “A Blaze of Glory” maintains the tried-and-true format of his and his father’s previous novels: using multiple characters and points of view, to give his reader a more-or-less balanced narrative of the Battle of Shiloh.  Major General Ulysses S. Grant, Brigadier General William Tecumseh Sherman, Brigadier General Benjamin Prentiss and Private Fritz Bauer of the 16th Wisconsin Infantry are the primary characters on the side of the Union.  Their Confederate counterparts are General Albert Sidney Johnston, Tennessee Governor Isham Harris and Lieutenant James Seeley of Nathan Bedford Forrest’s Confederate Cavalry.

“A Blaze of Glory” begins in late February of 1862 with the building up the Confederate forces at Corinth, Mississippi, where the Mobile & Ohio Railroad intersects with the Memphis and Charleston Railroad; and that of the Union forces some twenty-two miles to the northeast at Pittsburg Landing, on the Tennessee River.  Ulysses S. Grant, commander of the Army of Tennessee has been assigned to hold there until joined by Don Carlos Buell’s Army of the Ohio.  Once the two Federal Armies have united only then are they to launch an attack on the vital Confederate hub at Corinth.  Aware of the impending danger of two Federal armies bearing down upon his forces, Johnston determines to launch his Army of Mississippi a surprise attack and defeat Grant’s army at Pittsburg Landing  before Buell’s joins with it.

Thus with all of his chess pieces set into place Mr. Shaara’s narrative, switching between the Union and Confederate armies, gradually picks up steam as the Confederate army, slowed by weather delays and muddy roads, nears the Union camps at Pittsburg Landing.  For those educated on the battle and its controversies, Mr. Shaara covers familiar ground: the surprise, or lack thereof, of the Confederate attack, the positioning of the camps (specifically those of the new, little trained regiments), the changing battle plans of the Confederate Army and who authored them, the death of Albert Sidney Johnston and the ascension of P. G. T. Beauregard as his successor, the “Hornet’s Nest,” Beauregard’s decision to withdraw the Confederate troops out of range of the Union guns on the evening of the first day of the battle and Lew Wallace’s late arrival onto the battlefield.

Mr. Shaara places particular credit to Prentiss’ delaying action at the “Hornet’s Nest” for the eventual success of the Union army on the second day of the battle, giving Grant enough time to form a stronger line, reinforced by the timely arrival of Buell’s army at the river landing.  I suspect this was done for dramatic purposes, as modern scholarship currently places more importance on Sherman’s fighting at the crossroads near Shiloh Church.

The book’s thirty-seven chapters are spread almost equally between the two opposing armies; 19 chapters for the Union and 18 chapters for their Confederate opposition.  Albert Sidney Johnston is the most featured character in the novel with 10 chapters, followed by Sherman and Bauer both with 8, Seeley at 5, Harris with 3, Grant, commander of the Union forces, strangely with only 2 and Prentiss with 1.

The novel is thoroughly researched, Mr. Shaara states in that he uses only original sources from people who were there.  It is well written and easy and enjoyable read.  Whether you are an advanced student of the Civil War or a casual reader of novels you will be entertained, and might just learn a little something along the way.

“A Blaze of Glory” is the first in a new Civil War trilogy, authored by Jeff Shaara, covering events in the war’s western theater.  The second volume of the series, “A Chain of Thunder: A Novel of the Siege of Vicksburg,” will be released May 21, 2013.  The third volume in the trilogy will focus on Sherman’s March to the Sea and the Carolina Campaign.

ISBN 978-0345527356, Ballantine Books, © 20012, Hardcover, 464 pages, Maps, $28.00.  To purchase this book click HERE.

Review: Manassas: Book 1 of “The Civil War Battle Series”

Manassas: Book 1 of “The Civil War Battle Series”

By James Reasoner

“Manassas,” the first book of James Reasoner’s ten volume, “The Civil War Battle Series,” introduces the Brannon family of Culpepper County, Virginia.  The patriarch of the family, John Brannon, an Irish immigrant with a penchant for reading Shakespeare, died in 1851 leaving his wife Abigail to raise their family of six children: William Shakespeare, MacBeth Richard (“Mac”), Titus Andronicus, Coriolanus Troilus (“Cory”), Henry and Cordelia.

The novel begins in January, during the “Secession Winter” of 1861.  Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States the previous November. As the states of the South begin to secede from the Union and form a new country the Brannon family anxiously await Virginia’s decision to remain in the United States or to leave the Union and join her sister states in the Confederacy.

Will, the eldest child of the Brannon clan, and the central character in Mr. Reasoner’s novel, is the Sheriff of Culpepper County.  Will suspects the Fogarty brothers for a series of robberies and murders in the county, including the murder of his deputy Luther Strawn.  When Will corners Joe Fogarty in the general store and is forced to shot and kill him for resisting arrest, a feud erupts between the Brannons and the remaining Fogarty brothers.

When the Brannon’s barn is burned to the ground their neighbors gather on the Brannon farm for a barn raising during which Henry Brannon is shot through the shoulder by a hidden gunman.  Abigail, a Christian woman strong in her beliefs, blames Will for the violence that has been brought to bear on the family and disowns him, banishing him from the farm.

Abraham Lincoln’s call for 75,000 troops to be raised after the surrender of Fort Sumter results in Virginia’s secession from the Union, and in an attempt to focus the attention of the George and Ransom Fogarty away from the rest of the family Will enlists in the 33rd Virginia Infantry to fight with the Confederate Army.  The Fogarty’s also enlist, seeing their opportunity to kill Will during a battle and avoid the suspicion of murder.  Together they march to battle the Yankee army, and each other, on the fields of Bull Run, near Manassas, Virginia.

Reasoner’s novel is a simple tale told simply.  Its linear narrative is mainly a plot driven vehicle with little character development, but all in all, still an enjoyable read.  Anyone looking for an in depth treatment of the First Battle of Manassas (or Bull Run, as the Union Army would later refer to it) should look elsewhere, as the battle does not begin until page 316 of this 336 page book.

ISBN 978-1581820089, Cumberland House Publishing, © 1999, Hardcover, 336 pages, $22.95.  To purchase click HERE.

Hiram’s Honor by Max R. Terman

Hiram’s Honor: Reliving Private Terman's Civil War

By Max R. Terman

It is the dream of most genealogists to travel backwards in time and interview their ancestors.  I suspect Civil War reenactors share a like dream of traveling through time to experience the life of a Civil War soldier as it really happened.  In his novel, “Hiram’s Honor,” Dr. Terman, a retired zoology professor, relives the horrors of the Civil War through the eyes of his great uncle, Hiram Terman, a private in Company F of the 82nd Ohio Infantry.

Based on ten years of research Dr. Terman assumes the personage of his great uncle, and uses a first person narrative to tell Hiram’s story.  From Hiram’s enlistment, and battlefield experiences, to his capture by the Confederate Army during the first day of Gettysburg, and imprisonment in such notorious Confederate Prison Camps as Belle Isle and Andersonville, Dr. Terman has unearthed the bones of Hiram’s military service and clothed them with his years of research to build a fully fleshed out narrative of what Hiram Terman’s Civil War experiences may have been.

Early on Hiram meets two friends, Seth who wears his religion on his sleeve, and Isaiah, an agnostic.  On the religious scale Hiram seems to float somewhere in the middle.  Throughout the novel the debate over religion, and the beneficence of God is a constant theme.

I found the first half of the novel a bit tedious as Hiram and his pards see action at McDowell, Cross Keys, Cedar Mountain, Second Bull Run, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg where the three friends are captured on the first day of the battle as they retreat through the town.  The strength of Dr. Terman’s narrative grows in the second half of the novel, as Hiram and his friends are sent first to Belle Isle, an island prison camp in the middle of the James River, and then to the living hell of Andersonville.  It was compelling to read how Hiram and his friends learned how to survive, and it instantly reminded me of MacKinlay Kantor’s Pulitzer Prize winning 1956 novel and the 1996 film which it inspired, as well as John Ransom’s Andersonville Diary.  That is high praise indeed!

Published by Tessa Books (I could find almost no information about them on the internet), this book has an amateurish look to it.  The formatting is not what I would expect from a quality publisher; the text is a small, I would guess 9 or 10 point font, leaving very little “white space” on the books pages, and the book contains numerous photographs and maps, and the end of each chapter that would serve the reader better if they were interspersed throughout the text.  But these are very minor complaints.

All in all, despite its few minor flaws, if Dr. Terman, has not managed to make time travel into a reality, he has done something very much like it. 

ISBN 978-0615278124, Tesa Books, © 2009, Paperback, 242 pages, Maps, Photographs, Illustrations, Historical Notes & Acknowledgments. $16.99.  Click HERE to purchase this book.

Savannah, or A Gift For Mr. Lincoln

Savannah, or A Gift For Mr. Lincoln
by John Jakes

When writing reviews I usually try to put them at a length of about 500 words, give or take a few. However, upon contemplating this review of John Jakes' latest work of historical fiction, "Savannah, or a Gift for Mr. Lincoln," I think I would find it difficult to find 250 words to say about it much less 500. I anxiously await the release of any new John Jakes novel. I was slightly disappointed by "Charleston" as not meeting previous John Jakes standards, such as "The Kent Family Chronicles" or his masterwork, the "North and South" trilogy. So imagine my surprise when my slight disappointment with "Charleston" turned into extreme disappointment with "Savannah."

I can really say nothing about the plot of "Savannah" as after having read it, I remember precious little of anything that happened between its covers. I dare any John Jakes reader to say that about any of his other books. But what I do remember of the story centers around 12 year-old Hattie Lester's attempts to save her family's plantation, "Silvergrass," from the soldiers of Union General William T. Sherman, who have arrived just outside of Savannah from their march through Georgia in December of 1864.

Only half of my disappointment in "Savannah" lies at the foot of John Jakes himself. It is too simplistically written. His characters are underdeveloped and there is next to no plot. At best "Savannah" should be called a short story. It does not by any means or stretch of the imagination live up to the John Jakes works of the past, in which the writing is good, the characters fully developed, and the plotlines, though somewhat resemble modern day soap operas, are often interconnected. Indeed, "Savannah" seems to have been written for the young reader of between 10 or 12 years old, and if that is the case then Mr. Jakes can and should be forgiven.

I reserve the other half of my disappointment in "Savannah" to the publisher, Dutton. As sited above, "Savannah" is in reality a short story, and the editors of Dutton have done their best to lengthen it into a full-fledged novel, or at least something that resembles a novel.

First I'll tackle the size of this book. All of my other hard cover John Jakes books measure 9.5" x 6.5" while  Savannah comes in at a wimpy 8.5" x 6" and when placed on a shelf next to her sister John Jakes novels, she appears to be slightly out of place.

Secondly, Dutton has succeeded in lengthening "Savannah" to a novel of 288 pages, not only by the reduced size of this book as already stated, but by using a substantial font size and line spacing to give the book lots of "white space," and they also threw in a couple of illustrations for good measure as well.

Thirdly, if my theory of John Jakes writing this novel for a much younger audience is correct, I then fault the marketing department at Dutton for not marketing it as such. Even if this was marketed as a children's book many John Jakes fans, such as myself, would have purchased the book because it was a John Jakes book with the full knowledge that it was written for children and would not have been disappointed at all by it.

And lastly, Dutton further aggravated my disappointment in this book by its inflated cover price of $23.95. I refused to buy it at that price, even though it was a John Jakes book, and waited until it was 50% off to buy it at my local book store, and even then I felt like I had been robbed.

But the question is can I recommend this book. Well that's a tricky question to answer and my recommendation would depend on who was asking me. If you are a die-hard John Jakes fan who froths at the mouth at the mere mention of a new John Jakes book hitting the shelf, then yes, I would recommend it, with the reservation that the book is geared to a younger audience, and as such the characters and plots are much simpler than regular John Jakes fare. If you are 10 to 12 years old with an interest in the Civil War, I would recommend this book for you, as it seems to have been written with younger readers in mind. But if your are an avid reader of historical fiction where fully developed characters struggle to over come adversities of their time, and revel in the detail of such, no I would not recommend this book. And to the casual reader, I offer, "read it. You might like it, but don't blame me if you don't."

Okay so I did have more than 250 words to say about "Savannah." This review came in at 805 words.

Rise To Rebellion

Rise to Rebellion

By Jeff Shaara

If you walked up to the average American standing on the street and asked them on what date The Declaration of Independence was signed the most likely answer you would get is "Everyone knows that, July 4th, 1776." Or try asking him "Which hill was the Battle of Bunker Hill was fought on?" I'll give you a hint... it wasn't on Bunker Hill.

The fact is that many Americans carry around these types of iconic myths regarding the era of the American Revolution. Jeff Shaara's fourth novel, "Rise to Rebellion," the first of two books to cover the period of the American Revolution, dispels many of these myths.

Spanning six and a half years, beginning with the Boston Massacre on March 5th, 1770 and ending with the signing of the Declaration of Independence on August 2nd, 1776, Mr. Shaara follows the lives such noted historical personalities as Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Adams, John and Abigail Adams, George Washington, Thomas Gage, Thomas Hutchinson, John Dickinson, Thomas Paine and John Hancock as they struggle to further their causes, both for and against, the independence of the American colonies from the rule of the British crown.

Once again, using his father, Michael Shaara's, tried and true method of multiple view points we view events such as the Boston Tea Party, The Battles of Lexington & Concord, and the Battle of Bunker Hill through the eyes of the characters who participated in the actual historical events. The genius of the Shaara formula lies not only within the shifting viewpoints but in the balanced approach to the material, not only concentrating on the American point of view, but also that of the British. He also shows the military struggle between the two sides and the political and diplomatic struggles of both sides as well - most notably following Benjamin Franklin as he navigates the stormy political seas of the British Parliament and the royal court of King George III. To balance military, political, diplomatic and social history is a difficult task and yet Shaara has succeeded masterfully at it.

However the one drawback of "Rise to Rebellion," and one that I fear Jeff Shaara will never break free of, is that of the formulaic structure of the book itself. Alas it is the alternating, multiple viewpoint structure that he inherited from his father, Michael Shaara, author of the Pulitzer Prize winning, The Killer Angels. Though it works well to provide a well balanced view of the contrasting sides, it impedes the author from trying a more literary approach to his story telling.

Mr. Shaara's novel is a sweeping, yet balanced, panorama of the people and events which gave birth to the United States of America and is worthy of its place on the bookshelf of American historical fiction