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.

You could say I have been researching this novel since I received The American Heritage Picture History of the Civil War for my 8th birthday. Over the past five years, I have read many books, explored and photographed the battlefield many times, talked to experts at the Gettysburg Research Center and Library, read Civil War letters at the Centerville Historical Museum, and loaded and fired a period Springfield rifle with two Gettysburg battlefield guides. Backed by this research and striving for historical accuracy throughout, Savage Armed incorporates many of the iconic true characters and vignettes that make the Battle of Gettysburg one of the most dramatic stories in American history.

A graduate of U.C. Berkeley, Peace Corps Volunteer, English teacher for forty years, I have always been a writer. I have self-published two novels with AuthorHouse.com: Saharan Boy and Morocco in March; and two with Kindle Direct: A Thousand Lives and Dimensions; all four are available on Amazon.com. For more about Dimensions, please visit the website right http://dimensionasnovel.blogspot.com/. In addition, Apocalypse, a stage parody of YA dystopian and post-apocalyptic novels, was published traditionally by the Dramatic Publishing Company of Woodstock, Illinois.

(All Photos - by Richard Bellamy - taken at Gettysburg National Military Park.)