AND SLAVERY NO MORE

In Haynes’ historical novel, an embattled Abraham Lincoln wrestles with the decision to issue his still-to-be-finished Emancipation Proclamation.

It’s July of 1862, and Montgomery “Monty” Tolliver, one of the beleaguered president’s most trusted advisers, is sitting in Lincoln’s office. Today, Lincoln wants to hear Monty’s thoughts about how his Proclamation should be structured—should it apply only to the slave states, the border states, or to the whole country? And when should it be rolled out? Both men agree that the announcement should wait until they’ve achieved a Union victory. (“Changed circumstances require new thinking, different strategies,” Monty offers.) Meanwhile, across town, newspaper reporter Robert Geddis has just returned from covering the Union’s defeat in the battle for Richmond. The survivor of tragic family losses, Robert is now achieving success as a battlefield reporter for the Evening Star; his reports are said to be so detailed that Lincoln himself has requested that his articles be placed on his desk every day. In a Virginia medical tent, Robert’s friend from his time in Kansas, Billy Rutledge, is recovering from battlefield injuries. Billy, originally from Mississippi, has been living in Texas under the name Ezekiel Colton and serves as a major in the Fifth Texas Regiment of the Confederacy’s Army of Northern Virginia. The novel’s fourth protagonist is Monty’s adopted 16-year-old son, Josh Tolliver. Although he’s underage, Josh has just enlisted in the Union Army. Haynes’ vibrant Civil War drama is depicted through the experiences of each of these four men as they reckon with the brutality of war and navigate behind-the-scenes political machinations. The narrative includes heavy doses of gritty battlefield action. Descriptions of Lincoln’s frustration with his generals, particularly the overly cautious George McClellan, offer plenty of intriguing, if occasionally belabored, historical tidbits, but the heart of the novel is the personal tribulations of the four protagonists. These characters are vivid and memorable—when Ezekiel grows disillusioned with the war and General Lee’s attack on Maryland, he becomes an unsung hero as Haynes adds a clever fictional twist to a longstanding Civil War mystery.

A poignant, action-packed page-turner.