Better Angels

Fictionalized history is a doorway to insight and understanding. Through this story, readers meet people like themselves, but in different circumstances. Some of those people are still famous, some were famous but now, are all-but-forgotten, and most were like us: vigorous, passionate, creative and brave. But unsung.

We can learn about ourselves from the lives of John A. Logan: best remembered for his role in founding Memorial Day. Mary Ann Bickerdyke, who was the Clara Barton of the West. Together, they participated in nearly every battle fought by U.S Grant in the Western theater of the Civil War. Mathan Stark and Rachel Ball are fictional characters whose college educations and romance were disrupted by the war but whose experiences introduce readers to real people and the events that changed our country.

Based on the lives of Logan, Bickerdyke and the 78th Ohio and 31st Illinois Veteran Volunteer Infantry Regiments, this novel tells the stories of real people, places and events. The battles of Belmont, Fort Donelson, Shiloh and Central Tennessee are described from the point of view of individual participants. Logan's journey from Southern Illinois, to New Mexico, to Congress and his rise as the most effective politician-general in the Civil War leads him to become an outspoken advocate for civil rights. Because the story includes dozens of real people from the time, there is an index of names with brief biographies at the end of the book.