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.

Writing the Novel - A Journal: Where I Am and How I Got There

(See post below to view a cast of characters. Find links to teaser trailers in the sidebar.)

November 2018

I found a listing of a few publishing companies that accept unsolicited submissions without an agent. Like the old days when I used to send out whole manuscripts in a box directly to publishers - not agents. I am working on a synopsis for a submission - along with 50 pages - to one of the publishers.

I edited a 43-page excerpt from the novel as a stand-alone story - entitled "A Lady of Gettysburg" - and submitted it to - fittingly - The Gettysburg (College) Review. This process led to some beneficial changes in the complete manuscript.

After all the books and notebooks and practice maps - I am now able to draw a map of the battlefields from memory.

October 2018

I am now continuing to send submissions to agents. I need a connection. I guess I am a nobody in the publishing world. It seems to be all about who you know. I had a referral to an agent – the first one to whom I submitted – but he didn’t want it. “I’m sorry, but SAVAGE ARMED is not a fit for me at this time.” It’s a book, not an article of clothing!

Summer 2018

Continued the break from sending out queries as I did a final edit of the manuscript by reading the whole thing out loud.

June 11 – 13, 2018

I went to Gettysburg again! Sunrise and sunset. Final hikes to points of vantage to imagine what the soldiers saw when they were there. Culp’s Hill and Benner’s Hill and the cavalry battlefield.

At the David Wills house, I viewed an impressive, detailed panorama of what the town looked like in 1863.

February to June 2018

Wrote a query letter and sent submissions of letter and chapters to 80 literary agents. Many rejections. “Not for me!” How rude! “I’ll pass on this project but I wish you luck with another agent.” Many non-responses. Many of these agents are much younger than I am - just out of college; they could have been a senior in my A.P. English class about five or six years ago!

Meanwhile, I was still rewriting and editing.

After 75 submissions, I took a break from the agent search. I worked through the whole novel, adding a new character who acts as a chorus throughout the story. I changed the title.

The title comes from Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall.”

I see him there,
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.

Summer 2017 – January 2018

Writing and writing. Rewriting and editing. Up to 10 drafts? The manuscript reached 913 pages. More reading.


June 12 – 15, 2017

Back to Gettysburg via D.C.. Lots of hot hiking touring the battlefield. Up early for the sunrises. Evening strolls and sunsets in the tall damp grass with fireflies and ticks. Made some discoveries of hidden markers down by Plum Run. Hooked up with Chris Rebmann who, along with another guide, took me to a shooting range where they set me up loading and firing a Springfield rifle multiple times! This experience, more than anything, took me back in time. It showed me how cumbersome it is to load and fire a muzzle loader – and suggested how difficult it must have been to load and fire during a battle.

Took the tour at the Lutheran Seminary building and went up to the cupola where the tour guide gave a most informative, articulate narrative of the action on July 1, 1863. Watch the video: Click here.

2016 – 2017 School Year

I wrote about three drafts of my novel. Exciting how it expanded and transformed.

June 14, 2016

After flying to D.C., I drove to Gettysburg and stayed at the Tillie Pierce House. Matilda (Tillie) Pierce Alleman was a fifteen-year-old Gettysburg girl who wrote a diary of her experiences during the battle and its aftermath. The layout of the old house inspires the layout of Dorothea’s house in the novel.

Took a guided tour with John Fuss, Licensed Gettysburg Guide. After the tour, I asked John if he knew anyone with a Springfield rifle I could fire. He connected me with someone who might be willing to arrange that.

2015 – 2016 School Year

Wrote the first draft of the entire novel. At school, a colleague of mine who teaches A.P. American history would stop me in the hall and ask where I was in the manuscript. “The retreat through the town on the first day.” “Devil’s Den.” “The Wheatfield.” “Pickett’s Charge.”

2014 – 2015 School Year

During the school year, teaching a full load of English and history classes, I developed an outline for a Gettysburg novel and began writing the flashback episodes that would tie a number of characters together.

2015

Read book after book about the battle; ultimately filled five notebooks with handwritten research notes; continued developing the plot and writing the flashback scenes that connect some of the many characters.

Summer 2014

Inspired by the park guides I had overheard at the battlefield, I decided to study to be an Official Gettysburg Guide. Began taking notes and memorizing details about the battle. Then I realized that I didn’t want to do all this research just to be a guide. What I really wanted to do was write a novel covering the entire battle from the points of view of multiple characters, connected by past incidents, who participate in different phases of the battle. In this way I could present a comprehensive picture of the battle.

June 5, 2014

Drove from Cape Cod to Gettysburg. Viewed the renovated Cyclorama of Pickett’s Charge. Went to the museum – the best one I’ve seen about the entire Civil War.

June 6

An epic hike around the battlefield along Cemetery Ridge and Seminary Ridge. At the site of the Bliss Farm, I stopped to watch a hawk eating its prey.

June 7

Breakfast picnic on Warfield Ridge – where Longstreet’s massive assault on the Union left flank began on July 2, 1863. Drove along Cemetery Ridge.

June – June 2013

I read more non-fiction about the Civil War, filling in my knowledge of the whole war – books covering the Overland Campaign and Sherman’s March.

June 16

During a visit to D.C., my nephew and I drove up to the Gettysburg National Military Park. This was my fourth visit there. It was the first time I saw the new Visitor’s Center with its bookstore and amazing museum.

January – June 2013

I set out to read a number of one-volume non-fiction accounts of the battle. I started with the excellent Gettysburg, by Stephen Sears. Now I was hooked. One after the other, I read three more single-volume books about the battle.

January 2013

I read the novel Cain at Gettysburg, by Ralph Peters, published to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the battle. This piqued a resurgence in my interest in the Civil War and the Battle of Gettysburg, topics I have pursued throughout my life and taught in 8th grade American history.

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

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.