An adequate but not an outstanding story of the Civil War, with some background value, in the story of Mary who was 14 before the war, and grew to young womanhood, learning- through the hard years, that some Union men were decent. Love, the acceptance of her first literary work, the period of reconstruction following the war-all find Mary facing issues squarely. A sprinkling of famous names adds some sense of those years in Georgia, and the fact that this is a true story of a real girl will make it appealing to girls who prefer the ""when you were very young"" angle. In format the book looks distinctly younger than its text would indicate.