historical fiction | American Civil War
The Story
A Man enamored with the past
Jack Brandigan is a graduate architect, a private pilot, and divorced. He lives in the modern world, but is enamored with the past, particularly the Civil War era. Instead of pursuing a profession he trained for, but finds unfulfilling, he turns to searching out old historical documents and photographs for his own literary projects or for those of other writers.
His quiet and orderly life is disrupted when he begins having vivid dreams unlike any other he had experienced before and that are seared into his mind. Then his best friend, an African American physicist, while working on a research grant for super-conducting materials, stumbles on a discovery that could disrupt the known world. These two events start a series of expeditions across time that changes Jack's life forever. Jack is no hero, yet as he begins this new tortuous phase of his life, he faces life threatening challenges in two worlds that test whatever courage he does possess.
Who might be interested in this story?
There are thousands of American Civil War reenactors. Do they reenact for fun, or do they have a deeper emotional attachment to that period of our history? If some of them would have the chance, would they want to go back in time and relive those turbulent years? On the other hand, what were the personalities of the leading military commanders who directed that conflict. We read much of what they did, but who were they as individuals? One aim of this story is to try to reconstruct the personality of one of the leading generals in the Union camp, especially his reaction when unknowingly confronted by a man of his future.
To develop this saga, although seeming unrelated to the story line, aircraft play a large part. More specifically, private flying, general aviation, less well known and written about than military or commercial aviation.
The story line also deals with photography, early photography.
And of course, there is romance.
Some Background for the Story
Ulysses s. grant
If one lives near Grant's Farm in south St. Louis County, near the city of St. Louis, Missouri, he or she cannot but be impressed with the impact Ulysses S. Grant had on this area. Not only is the park, zoo, and Clydesdale stable site of the Anheuser Busch Brewing company named after the Civil War general, but his early home of Hard Scrabble still exists nearby, as does White Haven, the name given to the home of his in-laws, the Dent family.
Numerous streets, highways, residential subdivisions, and townships carry his name. Although he never returned to live in the area after the end of the Civil War, still, St. Louis looks upon Grant as being a native son.
But, looking closely at the man himself, how could his character and personality be best described? Face to face, what sort of man was he?
There was certainly enough written about him by his contemporaries to define his obvious qualities. General Greenville Dodge did an excellent job of describing him as did Mark Twain. However, according to M. Harrison Strong, a corporal in the 72nd Illinois who carried dispatches in the early part of the war, it was his chief of staff, John Rawlins, who knew him best. According to Strong, he had never seen anyone besides Rawlins ever slap Grant on the back, a sign to him of an intimate and personal friendship. However, John Rawlins wrote no in depth descriptions of that relationship.
Those contemporaries that did try to describe his inner personality, succeeded, perhaps, only superficially. His memoirs have given us additional subtle clues to it. The memoirs of his wife, Julia, released in 1975, traces a wife's description as much as she was willing to share with the public.
Modern cinema productions such as Spielberg's Lincoln, in the short sequence where Grant appeared, probably did some justice in casting him according to common perceptions. However, some accuracy might have been lost by showing him with a bright red beard instead of the nut brown color of his hair described by his contemporaries.
Grant was often called an "enigma," perhaps because he hid much of what he was; that he was uncomfortable opening up to anyone except to his closest friends and family.
One wonders what impressions an interviewer today might be left with if he had the opportunity to sit down and have a personal chat with Grant.
That is one of the topics of this story.
Inspired by Photography
civil war photography
By the beginning of the Civil War, photography was still a rudimentary art. The "daguerreotype" had been successfully developed before the war, but it was a one shot positive process where only one image could be produced. In the decade before the Civil War, a new process was introduced. It was called the "collodion wet plate process." It allowed any number of copies to be produced from a single glass negative. However, the plate had to be wet to remain sensitive enough to record an image.
A gentleman by the name of Roger Fenton, an English barrister turned photographer, was the first to photograph a war. He was commissioned by the British government to photograph the Crimean War, the war made famous by Lord Alfred Tennyson's poem, "The Charge of the Light Brigade."
The limitations of the collodion process made it impossible to record movement, as minutes, not fractions of seconds, were required for exposure times. Therefore, Fenton was not able to photograph action. Most of his photographs of military personnel were staged and sanitized. He took no images of dead or wounded British soldiers. That was not part of his contract with the British government. Besides the limitations of the camera equipment and photographic emulsions, the photographer also had to ply his trade by having a horse and wagon. That was his dark room on wheels. He could never take a photograph more than a few feet away from his chemical laden wagon or his negative plate would dry and be ruined before he developed it.
Civil War photographers in the next decade inherited those same limitations. Photographers such as Matthew Brady and others were limited to staged scenes or the unmoving aftermath of a battle. Brady and his on and off again associate Alexander Gardner, photographed many scenes of the War depicting mutilated bodies and property destruction that brought the realities of war to citizens living far from where the battles were fought. Still, no action photographs were possible. One photographer did record a very crude image of an exploding cannon shell, or at least the debris thrown up by the shell, in a photograph made toward the end of the war at Fort Sumter. That was about the extent of action photography.
It wasn't until about 1872 that dry photographic emulsions were developed that allowed the photographer to prepare glass negative plates beforehand and then develop them later. Besides being more portable, the new emulsions soon became sensitive enough to freeze movement.
A question begs an answer. How would our perception of the Civil War change if we had images of that war that did stop action, such as those produced in the First and Second World Wars?
This also becomes one of the topics of the story.
Excerpts from the Book
Chapter 15 Milliken’s Bend, Louisiana April 11, 1863
“With all due respects to you, Grant, I still think they’re a bunch of conniving hypocrites, bent on a silly proclivity for early news!”
“Sherman, it disturbs me as much as it does you, but I can’t keep them all out.”
The red-haired general didn’t seem appeased. “When I had command in Kentucky, those jackals called me crazy because I said we would need 200,000 men to stop the Confederates here in the west. Well, we have that many now if they would combine all the commands. So how crazy was I?”
“They were wrong. We all know better now. You saw clearly what they didn’t see,” Grant said.
“Humph, I haven’t read an article where they admitted they were wrong and old Cump Sherman wasn’t crazy after all.”
Grant shifted the cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other. “I’ve had my share of notoriety too, Sherman. I’m the drunkard.”
Charles Dana, newly arrived to the Mississippi theater, sat on the other side of the tent listening to the conversation. He smiled at Grant’s comment.
Sherman shook his head in resignation and said, “Look, Grant, I think you take the accusations personal but don’t show it. For myself, I don’t care what they say. I’m beyond that. I just want to do my duty as a soldier. Not that I wouldn’t enjoy loading the whole lot of those newspaper scoundrels in a boat and sinking it in the middle of the river.”
“Can’t do that,” said Grant smiling, eyes twinkling.
“I know it, but look what happened a few months ago. You set a battery of those rifled cannon across the river from Vicksburg that night. It was such a well-kept secret that very few Union people knew of it. But, by god, the Secesh knew exactly where they were located because they read it in the Memphis papers on the seventh!”
“What do you propose, General Sherman?” asked Dana.
Sherman shifted his attention to the newcomer. “If I were to propose anything, it would be that all persons that don’t have to fight be kept out of the army camps and particularly here at Milliken’s Bend. If we don’t enforce an order restricting access to our camps from these reporters, every movement we plan will be known before we take the first step.”
“That would be difficult, Sherman. We have civilians that are helping to keep us supplied, there are the Sanitation people, and of course the visiting politicians,” Grant said.
“Yes, and I’m convinced the politicians are right next to those damn reporters so far as giving military secrets away,” the redheaded general said, shaking his head. “And that fact probably extends to Lincoln himself.”
“They make the political decisions when it comes to prosecuting the war. They have a right to be here. There’s little I can do if they want to follow this army around down here,” Grant said.
“Well, it’s your show. You haven’t told me all you plan to do if we go south. What you did tell me, I don’t particularly like. I have to be honest about that; these fine gentlemen here know my views. Having had my say about it, I’ll add that whatever it is you decide to do, you know I’ll support you to my last breath. But the fact is, if we can’t keep our planned movements from the Rebels, we’re going to be buried before we start.”
Grant held his hand up to the other general. “I intended this to be an easy evening, Sherman. In the next few days we’re all going to be busy, so leave those concerns for the meeting tomorrow with the division commanders.” Changing the subject, he held up a tin cup to the other five men in the dimly lit tent. “I’m not normally a wine drinker, but I could acquire a taste for this…what do they call it, Dana?”
“It’s called Madeira.”
Each of the men in the room held a cup of wine except for John Rawlins, who instead of joining in, watched
Grant very closely as he sipped from his cup.
“Where did it come from?” Sherman asked.
“Some of the boys were doing some foraging down around Young’s Point, and they came across a wine cellar in the basement of an abandoned plantation house. Imported stuff at that. A private gave three bottles to Rawlins here, and I saved them before he had a chance to dump them out,” General McPherson said.
The others in the group laughed knowingly at Rawlins’s stand on abstinence.
“No telling how many other bottles are circulating around out there,” McPherson continued. “Probably a few other tents are celebrating whatever is to be celebrated when a good wine is shared.” He then added belatedly, “Or any kind of alcohol for that matter.”
“With that concept in the forefront, General Grant,” Dana said, “Do you mind if I propose a toast?”
Grant nodded to go ahead.
“I propose a toast to the fall of Vicksburg, the key to opening the Mississippi from St. Louis to New Orleans.”
“I’ve never known a toast to win a war, Dana, but at this stage of the game I’m willing to give anything a try,” Grant said.
That elicited a chuckle among the group, but they raised their cups anyway to the toast. John Rawlins raised an empty cup.
Jack made a halfhearted gesture in raising his and wondered what in the world he was doing here.
They drank.
“That was quite a dramatic toast, Dana. You sounded more like a politician than a newspaper editor,” Sherman said.
“I’m no longer an editor. Horace Greeley fired me.”
“Thank god for that, Dana, or I’d have to vote for putting you in that boat with the rest of those pencil-pushing scoundrels before we sink it.”
J.R. Albrecht
About the author
J. R. Albrecht, is an architect and a commercial pilot. A resident of Anchorage, Alaska, he and his wife, Patti, divide their time between their home in Alaska and St. Louis, Missouri. He has remained an active pilot over the years. In the past, he has flown to many places in Alaska, Canada, Mexico, and the lower 48, making numerous flying trips to and from Alaska. He and his wife have also resided for shorter periods in New York and Hawaii for his work as an architect. They have two daughters who reside in New York with their husbands.
Although his experiences in life extend from surviving the attack at Pearl Harbor when two years old, experiencing the great Alaska earthquake of 1964, getting hit by a train when crossing a dust blinded railroad crossing in Alaska, losing an engine in his airplane and crashing into a swamp in Newport, Rhode Island, traveling around the Soviet Union while still a communistic state, etc...all without injury, he instead decided to write his first book, in part, about the Civil War.
Interests
More about J.r. Albrecht
Besides flying and writing, his other interests include skiing, underwater photography, the Alaska outdoors, history, particularly religious history, and languages.