Author and Novelist Glynn Young
The paperback edition of Brookhaven just arrived. I downloaded the Kindle version last Thursday, but it is something else to hold the physical book in my hands. Behind it are a few of the books (but only a few) I used for research.
Brookhaven has made its historical novel debut. Publication happened faster than I anticipated; I thought maybe by sometime in late January. It was a surprise to receive a message from the publisher last Thursday with the link to Amazon Kindle, followed by the paperback on Friday.
Like all stories, Brookhaven has its seeds, some going back more than 60 years. Some of those seeds are movies.
The children in our family are spread widely apart; my older brother is eight years older, and my younger brother is 10 years younger. For a decade, I was the little kid in the family. And because my father wasn’t a fan of movies, and my mother was a Hollywood director’s dream of a fan, I became my mother’s movie partner. We saw the Disney movies, of course, but we also saw a lot of others, including some that weren’t exactly the best viewing for a child.
The late 1950s and 1960 were a banner time for the movie forays by my mother and me. On one day, she took me to the Saenger Theatre in downtown New Orleans to see Last Voyage, starring Robert Stack and Dorothy Malone. It was an early version of The Poseidon Adventure, with a doomed luxury liner. My mother had a crush on Robert Stack, which I didn’t know at the time.
I cried from the tension in the movie so much that my embarrassed mother had a novel way to make it all better – we walked across Canal Street to the Joy Theatre to see Some Like It Hot. It was funny and certainly without the tension of Last Voyage. But whether it was appropriate for an 8-year-old is another matter. (She did buy me popcorn and a soda at both movies.)
A third movie we saw that year was The Horse Soldiers, a Civil War film with John Wayne and William Holden (my mother has a crush on Holden, too). That movie was a great one for a kid – a troop of Union soldiers riding through Confederate territory and creating havoc (although having Yankees as the heroes was almost over the top in 1959 New Orleans).
Decades later, I was reading a story about Greirson’s Raid in 1863, when I realized I had seen the movie. I didn’t know in 1959 that the movie was based upon a historical event. What was more was that a bunch of Young family ancestors lived in Brookhaven, Mississippi, at the time of the raid.
That was one inspiration for Brookhaven. A second had been my paternal grandmother, whom I dearly loved and with whom I spent a week every summer in Shreveport from the time I was 8 to when I turned 14. The visits stopped for reasons of her health, but she would live for another 16 years.
She was a storyteller. My grandfather had died when I was nine months old, so she filled my information gaps about him. She kept his workshop intact and let me explore it each time I camp; what I remember most is lots of dust, old carpentry equipment, and a considerable number of empty bottles that my teetotaling grandmother refused to answer questions about.
One thing one grandmother would talk about was the Civil War, except she referred to it by its proper name, she would say, “the War of Northern Aggression.” She bought into the Lost Cause completely. She was proud of her father-in-law, Samuel Young, who was a Civil War veteran. She said very little about her own family, so I suspect they didn’t fight in the war.
Samuel had died in 1920 when he was 74. His wife Octavia had died at 44 in 1888 (when Samuel was 43), and Samuel had never remarried, unusual for the time.
For decades, those stories and the memories of those stories lay dormant, until an article about Grierson’s Raid began to bring them to the surface, fusing them with other stories. Little did I know that hearing my grandmother talk about “those Yankees” would help inspire a novel so many years later.
Related:
Grierson’s Read and “The Horse Soldiers.”
When Research for Your Historical Novel Changes Your Understanding.
“The Real Horse Soldiers” by Timothy Smith.
A note from T.S. Poetry Press on the release of Brookhaven (including the author’s note).
It’s always a milestone in a life when a new book is published. Brookhaven, a historical novel about the Civil War and what happened after, has made its appearance in the world.
It’s not a novel about battles and military strategy. Instead, it’s about the people who were involved, some directly and some indirectly (and virtually every American alive at the time was affected).
This is the summary:
“In 1915, young reporter Elizabeth Putnam of the New York World is assigned a story on the Gray Wisp. New information has come to light about this Confederate spy in the Civil War, a figure of legend, myth, and wildly competing claims. What no knows is the man’s identity. The reporter follows leads which eventually bring her to the small Mississippi town of Brookhaven. He agrees to tell his story, a tale of North and South, loss in wartime, narrow escapes from death in battles, family survival, the poetry of Longfellow, and love. And Elizabeth soon finds her own story has forever become part of the Gray Wisp’s.”
Brookhaven is essentially two stories – that of Sam McClure, who enlisted young and finds himself enrolled as a spy, and that of Elizabeth Putnam, a young reporter trying to make her way and her name in what was a very male world of journalism.
The book includes a character list (my wife insisted I include one) and a bibliography (I read more books and did more research than I can remember).
I’ll write more about the inspiration for the book (a movie I saw in 1959 and a family story that turned out to be more legend than fact. For now, it’s feelings of relief, satisfaction, and no-small amount of joy I’m experiencing. And if you want more information, just ask.
Brookhaven is available here on Amazon in both print and Kindle versions.
Related:
A note from T.S. Poetry Press on the release of Brookhaven (including the author’s note).
“Christmas Oranges,” a short story – Cultivating Oaks Press.
Family memories passed down through the generations can create fascinating stories.
Eighteen-year-old Travis Tipton and his Indiana unit find themselves lost in the mountains of eastern Tennessee. It’s late 1863; the men are cold and they’re increasingly tired of the war. They’ve become separated from the main body of Union General Burnside’s army and need to find their way back. Travis has just gone off guard duty when the Confederates attack. The few Union soldiers are killed; Travis himself is shot directly in the heart and tumbles into the nearby stream.
When he wakes, he discovers he’s still alive, protected by the canteen he’d slung across the chest; the rest of his troop are dead; he’s floating on a log downstream; and the water is freezing. He loses consciousness and later finds himself rescued by a Union-friendly mountain family, who help him recover from frostbite and exposure.
He finds romance, but his adventures are far from over. He eventually leaves the mountain family to find Burnside’s army but soon faces another peril: Confederate bounty hunters.
Travis’s story is told in the short novel The Canteen by Trevor Tipton. The reason the story’s fictitious hero carries the same last name as the author is because the story is based on family history and a Civil War rifle passed down through the decades. There really was a Travis Tipton from Indiana who fought in the Civil War and married a young woman he met during the war. And one of his descendants would write a novel about the war, loosely based on Travis’s history.
It’s a rich story, filled with anecdotes about real events during the war, including the POW camp at Camp Cahaba in Alabama, which plays a role in the story. (Designed to house 100 soldiers, the camp housed up to 3,000 Union prisoners. Not as bad as Andersonville or some of the POW camps for Confederate POWs in New York and Chicago, Cahaba had its own horror stories.)
Tipton the contemporary author taught for 43 years, using his storytelling skills to make the past become interesting and alive. He lives in northern Indiana.
I learned about The Canteen from an unusual web site / podcast / YouTube channel called American Civil War & UK History (link below). I, too, have a Civil War story passed down through the generations that eventually became a manuscript, and will soon become a published novel.
Related:
Trevor Tipton talks about The Canteen with American Civil War & UK History.
George Washington’s Thanksgiving Day Proclamation, Oct. 3, 1789
By the President of the United States of America, a Proclamation.
Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor—and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me “to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.”
Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be—That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks—for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation—for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his Providence which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war—for the great degree of tranquillity, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed—for the peaceable and rational manner, in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted—for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed; and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.
And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions—to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually—to render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed—to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shewn kindness unto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord—To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the encrease of science among them and us—and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.
Given under my hand at the City of New-York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.
Go: Washington
Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Day Proclamation, Oct. 3, 1863
Washington DC, October 3, 1863
By the President of the United States of America.
A Proclamation.
The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God.
In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.
Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.
No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.
It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the Eighty-eighth.
By the President: Abraham Lincoln
William H. Seward, Secretary of State
Top photograph by Virginia Simionato via Unsplash. Used with permission.
The half-century after the end of the Civil War saw an outpouring of memoirs by veterans on both sides. Some were written by war heroes, like Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman (and were bestsellers as well). For time, it must have seemed like every general and officer in the war was writing an account. A joke made the rounds that so many people had witnessed Robert E. Lee’s signing of the surrender to Grant at Appomattox that both armies had crowded into the room.
For a time, those who had been privates – enlisted and drafted – penned their remembrances as well. These accounts, and I’ve read a considerable number number for my soon-to-be-published historical novel Brookhaven, are not so much concerned with strategy and battle outcomes as they are with day-to-day survival, getting enough food, mud (lots of mud, especially when you have to walk through it), in short, what everyman experienced. You find none of the romance of war in these accounts; what you do find is gritty commentary about the war and the hope to make it home one day.
Henry Bahnson was a private in a North Carolina company. He was a much older man, and a physician, when he wrote his account of the last days of the war. He narrowed his story to the period from April 2 to April 9, 1865 – the final week for Robert E. Lee’s army. He was there, and he very nearly died several times that week.
His story, “The Last Days of the War,” was published as an article in The North Caorlina Booklet, a periodical of “great events in North Carolina history” akin to what we know as historical or academic history journals today. It’s been digitized and made available through North Carolina Digital Collections. The article was originally published in 1903.
His account begins with the final siege of Petersburg, some 20 miles south of Richmond and a critical rail junction for keeping the Confederate capital and Lee’s army supplied. He describes the fighting – how it began (interrupting a planned holiday), the intensity of the battle, the deaths of friends, one literally shot between the eyes right next to him. He evaded death several times, gradually making his way to the body of Lee’s army, which was in full flight westward.
The situation was more complex than “Lee’s army fleeing westward from Grant” might imply. Skirmishes and small battles erupted along the way. At one point, Bahnson and the bare handful of men with him captured 102 Union troops and their officers. Not long after, he himself was taken prisoner. He spent his final days in the way in a prisoner camp, with no food; Grant’s supply trains had been destroyed or left behind as the army raced after Lee. The Union soldiers got what food was left; Confederate prisoners were reduced to chewing roots, tree bark, and buds, sucking the inside of their haversacks, and drinking water “by the gallon to lessen the aching void of hunger.”
He was eventually paroled and freed, making his way home to North Carolina. He’d lost 38 pounds in three weeks, and his father didn’t recognize him. The comforts of home and family, including a warm bath, forever dispelled “the glamour and illusions of the pomp and pride, and circumstances of glorious war.”
Bahnson’s experiences run counter to the myths of romance and “the Lost Cause” that came to be so connected to the South for generations. This was war at ground level, focused on what soldiers constantly contended with – hunger, mud, cold, and the regular threat of injury or death.
Related:
A Gory Account without Glory: Futility and Humility in the Last Days of the Lee’s Army.
An award-winning speechwriter and communications professional, Glynn Young is the author of three novels and the non-fiction book Poetry at Work.
