Cast of Characters

In order of appearance:

Whelp, a seven-year-old homeless vagabond, finds himself in Gettysburg in the middle of a battle.

The stone man, a Maryland farmer, first appears at Devil’s Den and searches the battlefield for the Union cavalryman who killed his wife.

Devil’s Den:

Jerem James, 8th Illinois Cavalry, fights in the cavalry holding action and the last stand at Seminary Ridge on the first day of the battle; he joins the two-day fight over possession of the Bliss farm buildings.

Seminary Ridge and the Lutheran Seminary College:

The site of the Bliss Farm:

A typical bank barn and a plaque commemorating the 12th New Jersey's fight at the Bliss Farm:

Billy Brot, 6th Wisconsin, joins the war to escape farm life and his domineering German father, but after killing a Confederate at the railroad cut fight, he deserts and resolves never to kill again.

The site of the unfinished railroad cut:

Henry Flemwick, 20th North Carolina, is mortally wounded in Iverson’s Charge on the first day. As he lies dying, he is tormented by memories of his involvement in a fugitive slave incident at an Underground Railroad station in a stone house.

Edward Flemwick, a plantation owner, Henry's father, exemplifies the Southerner devoted to the cause of white supremacy.

Ham, a fugitive slave, seeks freedom in the North.

Tillie, a fugitive slave, seeks freedom from sexual abuse.

Noah Brown, a freeman and Underground Railroad conductor, tries to protect Ham and Tillie.

Joe Tobb, 61st New York, a Pennsylvania constable before the war, finds himself forced to uphold the Fugitive Slave Law in the apprehension of Ham and Tillie; during the battle, he acts as an aide to Grayson Langton (below).

Zeke Gorsuch, 26th North Carolina, a one-time slave catcher, feels he will soon find death and damnation on the battlefield. In the way of redemption, he watches over Davy Boy (below), an inexperienced soldier boy.

Neb Gorsuch, 26th North Carolina, watches over his reckless brother, Zeke.

Davy Boy, 26th North Carolina, a fledgling soldier, just wants to go home to his Sally.

The colonel’s boy, 26th North Carolina, acts as a colonel's servant, but "he" may just be the colonel’s wife dressed as a man.

As Confederate brigades advance across the open ground from Seminary Ridge to Cemetery Ridge in the grand charge on July 3, Zeke watches out for Davy Boy and the colonel's boy:

Amos Hanford, 5th Louisiana, a traveling hardware salesman before the war, makes friends with Jerem James after they observe the incident at the stone house. Amos fights as a skirmisher in the streets of Gettysburg, and he joins the futile charge on East Cemetery Hill on the evening of July 2:

Dorothea Broadwell, a lady of Gettysburg, comforts a young Union officer as he dies in her arms. During the battle, she shelters Whelp and Varmint (below).

The town of Gettysburg from Culp’s Hill:

Varmint, a ten-year-old Confederate camp follower and forager, throws rocks at windows during the Union retreat through the town. During the street fighting, he enlists the assistance of Whelp to loot the dead.

Tommy Colefield, 1st Minnesota, Billy Brot’s cousin, struggles with the definition of courage and wonders if he will come out of the battle alive.

Grayson Langton, Special Correspondent for Harper’s Weekly attached to the 61st New York, decides to go into battle at the Wheatfield. Before the war, he is assigned by Harper's Weekly to write an article about an inventor, Cyrus Smith (below), whose nephew, Parker Waite, becomes his friend.

Parker Waite, 1st Texas, participates in the fighting at the triangular pen near Devil’s Den (below). Friends before the war, he and Grayson fall in love with Rhea Orx and plan to save her from her abusive husband, Abel.

Cyrus Smith, Parker Waite's uncle, inventor before the war, artillery observer attached to the 9th Massachusetts Light Artillery, is wounded at Captain Bigelow's last stand at the Trostle farm and is left abandoned for days.

Moll, a degraded Five Points woman, saves Cyrus from street thugs before the war.

Abel Orx, 48th Virginia, a farmer and religious zealot, purchases Rhea Orx from a pig farmer.

Rhea Orx, Abel’s purchased wife, seeks passion and possible rescue from Grayson Langton.

Andrew Pease , 2nd Massachusetts, Grayson’s Harvard colleague, fails to win the love of the beautiful May Pennyroyal.

May Pennyroyal, a young beauty living on Cape Cod in Barnstable, Massachusetts, prefers the rakish Caleb Crowell (below) to the bookish Andrew Pease.

Cape Cod Bay:

Caleb Crowell, 2nd Massachusetts, wins the heart of May Pennyroyal but incurs the vengeful enmity of his boyhood friend, Andrew.

The site of the costly charge of the 2nd Massachusetts on the morning of July 3:

Sally, a poor farm woman who shelters Billy Brot, faithfully awaits the return of her young husband.

Ma, Sally’s crotchety old mother, does not judge Billy for his act of desertion.

Clara Barton's Missing Soldiers Office

In 1996, inspectors looking through the third story of the building at 437 7th Street, Washington, D.C., came upon an attic holding a bounty of historical artifacts that identified the floor as Clara Barton’s Missing Soldiers Office where, from 1865 to 1868, Barton and assistants worked cataloguing the names of soldiers missing in the Civil War.

In Savage Armed, Dorothea Broadwell and her friend Mary Morton, whose husband dies in Dorothea’s arms, work for Clara Barton after the war cataloguing missing soldiers and attempting to locate their remains.

Walking up the meticulously preserved third story stairway transports you back in time to the 1860s.

About the Book

My passion for the Battle of Gettysburg, one of the most dramatic stories in American history, drove me to write Savage Armed (180,000 words), an epic historical novel.

View the teaser trailer here.

Racial tensions plaguing the U.S. today, as well as bitterness caused by the Civil War, impelled me to make slavery a central thread throughout the novel. Presented from different points of view, a fugitive slave incident, based on the Christiana Riot of 1851, links multiple characters.

Eschewing the deeds of the famous generals, Savage Armed focuses entirely on rank-and-file soldiers and what it was like, physically and psychologically, for them to fight there. It focuses on the action, covering the battle’s iconic phases, as well as many lesser known episodes, with the suspense of a thriller.

As I wrote, Dorothea Broadwell, based on the battle diary of Gettysburg resident Sarah Broadhead, emerged as the central character. She witnesses the Union retreat through the town, the grand bombardment, and Pickett’s famous charge. She befriends two homeless boys: Whelp, son of a Five Points prostitute, and Varmint, a Confederate camp follower and forager, based on an unidentified boy who threw rocks at windows while dodging bullets during the street fighting. After the battle, she provides aid to the soldiers and assists in an amputation.

Linked by the past, characters struggle with inner demons while fighting their opponents on the field. An illustrator for Harper’s Weekly searches under fire for a masterpiece. A young deserter resolves never to kill again. A dying slave owner’s son examines a life tainted by slavery. A jilted Cape Cod school teacher plans to kill his rival in the heat of battle. A former slave catcher looks for salvation. A young Texan regrets his failure to save an abused farm wife. A young Minnesotan, renowned for his bravery during an Indian raid, questions his courage in battle. Abandoned on the field for days, a wounded Yankee engineer remembers an illicit passion. A reluctant Union cavalryman becomes a merciless killing machine.

The stone man, dying metaphorically from the disease of war, acts as a chorus commenting on the folly of war. Suggested by this character, the title derives from “Mending Wall,” by Robert Frost: “I see him there / Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top / In each hand, an old stone-savage armed.”

In many ways a cross between a Dickens novel and The Thin Red Line, by James Jones, or Black Hawk Down, by Mark Bowden, Savage Armed will, of course, appeal to Civil War and military history buffs. My novel will also build readership from anyone interested the Civil War’s effect upon racial and political division today; Gettysburg National Military Park visitors and anyone who wants to know what it was like to fight in the battle; my former history and A.P. English students; and readers looking for a female protagonist who gains new strengths and uses them to help others. With its multiple intertwined characters and storylines, this is a perfect novel for a TV/Netflix mini-series.