MARY FLORENCE

A breathless story of Civil War days in Gettysburg details the doings of eleven year old Mary Florence Mills and her family. Though the threat of Jeb Stuart's raids is counteracted by Grant's victory, the pall of war hangs heavily on Gettysburg in 1862 and 1863. However, the gunsmoke and the blood are in the distance and, though she and her mother and her sister spend time bemoaning them, Mary Florence goes through a rather pleasant daily routine. She gets into mischief with her cousin, guards a rebel refugee in the barn, sees her sister married to a minister, etc., and in the end is glanced at by Lincoln after the Gettysburg address. Proper.