Heather Graham - Some Wore Blue & Some Wore Gray

Some Wore Blue & SomeWore Gray

Heather Graham

SmashwordsEdition

Copyright 2013 HeatherGraham

The Why of This LittleBooklet

I have always loved New Orleans. Fromthe first time I went with my dad when I was a child, I was in lovewith the architecture, the music, the artand the cemeteries. Iveused the city as the setting for many books.

To that end, in 2005 I was in the citywith my children and my nephew filming a book trailer in LafayetteCemetery in the Garden District one weekend. It was fun andwonderfulthey were all dressed up as ghosts from different eras inthe citys history for a book about a ghost tour guide called GhostWalk. We went home, and that same week Katrina came and struckMiami. We watched as it moved across the Gulf with growing dread.At a 1 status the storm ripped up the city of Miami. Watching itstrengthen, we feared for our fellows in the Florida Panhandle andthe rest of the Gulf States.

Katrina herself didnt destroy thecitythose in Biloxi and other cities were battered more fiercely.But when the levees broke and the city of New Orleans began toflood, my family feared that we might have taken some of our lastpictures of a place so unique in history, a place unlike any otherplace in our country.

The damage was, of course, devastating.The human life lost was more than tragic.

But Americans who love their homes willalways pick up the pieces.

To that end, I returned tothe city as quickly as possible, and it was seeing friends therethat got me going on Writers for New Orleans. At the time of thisvisit, I had a child living with me whowith hundreds of othershadbeen sent out of Louisiana in order to be able to continue school.But what I heard from her parents, along with my carriage-drivingand tourist-working friends was that while they were incrediblygrateful to the American people, who were helping (not so muchcity, parish, state or federal government, but the American people), what theyneeded to do was work. They needed people to come back to the city.So, the year of the stormsKatrina, Rita, and WilmaWriters for NewOrleans was born. What kind of writer? Ahhhhany! Maybe peopledidnt want to writebut perhaps they read. Perhaps they were justbeing dragged along. To that end, we planned a conference thatwould incorporate writers, readersand those who just wanted to seeNew Orleans. So that meant we had parties.

A few years ago, at one of my Writersfor New Orleans conference, my friendswriters F. Paul Wilson,Kathy Love, and Erin McCarthyhosted a party for Writers on BourbonStreet. We try to theme each year and our theme that year was theCivil War. (Or the War of Northern Aggression; yes, Im still aliveas I write this and thats how it was taught to me in school inFlorida!) Our people love costumes and so we had a costume partyand a contest called Know your Civil War Characters. We had quitea few in our group specifically dressed as people from Civil Wartimes. For example, we dressed up Paulwho is from New JerseyasRobert E. Lee. My son Jason, from Florida, was dressed up as Grant.I was Varina Davis... son Shayne was Custer while son Derek wasthe great Southern cavalryman Jeb Stuart. Everyone was given abooklet to read and allowed to ask questions of those we hadcostumed specially as characters. They then made their guesses andprizes were given out.

This year is the150 th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg and the Siege ofVicksburg. Vicksburg surrendered on July 3 rd . Gettysburg ended on the4 th .Both were pivotal moments, and, perhaps, the fact that bothoccurred on such a date meant something since the outcome of thewar had everything to do with the breaking or making of our greatnation.

Years ago, I wrote three books insomething called the Cameron SeriesOne Wore Blue, One Wore Gray,and And One Rode West. (The first books were Sweet Savage Eden, APirates Pleasure, and Love Not a Rebelthe settling of thecountry, the age of pirates, and the AmericanRevolution.)

These three books were near and dear tomy heart. For years my family had traveled up and down the eastcoast to see relatives in the North. With five children, we oftenwound up going to museums and cemeteries and shrines, learningabout the great divide that had nearly torn us apart as a country.Witnessing a reenactment and learning about real families tornasunder, I wanted to write fiction that explained everyones way ofthinkingand to show the good, the bad, and the ugly of those wholived and died in such traumatic times.

This year, Bantam is rereleasing Blue,Gray, and West. They were written long ago, and yet they remain, tome, close and important and a very real part of my ownlife.

This list of important players in thewar is far from completeand also contains some of my personalfeelings. It should grow and will grow.

But those in these pages weredifferent, with different goals and passions and beliefs. Think oftoday, as we are so often torn apart. We are still mostly, trulygood peoplewith different thoughts and opinions on how thingsshould be done, and often equally passionate with those thoughtsand opinions.

North and Southgood menfought and good men died. Please share your opinions with metell me if youthink Im wrong and tell me who you believe should be added. Thiswill continue as a free work in progress!

P.S.These days, Im still intohistory, just now in the form of ghosts. Contemporary storiesbutfilled with history. If you like, please check out my Krewe ofHunter series and Cafferty and Quinn books. All have segments ofthe past. I love historybut Im not an historian. And I dont mindbeing corrected if Ive gotten something wrong, though I warn you,if I think Im right, I will argue my case!

SOME WORE BLUE

Clara Barton

The Angel of theBattlefield

I have an almost complete disregard ofprecedent, and a faith in the possibility of something better. Itirritates me to be told how things have always been done. I defythe tyranny of precedent. I go for anything new that might improvethe past. - Clara Barton

Truly strong and innovative, ClaraBarton was an amazing woman. To this day, anyone in a periloussituation in the United States may be grateful to her for the factthat the United States has the Red Cross, and many a person livingtoday with antecedents who fought in the Civil War might be herefor her good gracesshe was certainly responsible for saving manylives on the battlefield.

Clara Barton was born Clarissa HarloweBarton in Oxford, Massachusetts, on Christmas Day, 1821. She wasthe fifth child of a loving, patriotic, and dedicated family; herparents helped found the first Universalist Church in Oxford. Shewas taught from the time she was a child that a Christians dutywas to help others in distress. She was also nurtured to beindependent, and she would remain so all of her life. When she waseleven, her brother had an accident, and she would help nurse himfor the next three years. At the time, she would hear tales abouther great-aunt, who had worked as a midwife and, in times whendoctors and surgeons were few and far between in outlying areas,acted almost as a doctor herself, helping those with illnesses andinjuries.

As a young woman, she taught first, andthen worked in the U.S. Patent Office, and her pay was equal tothat which a man might have received. But at the time, there weremany people who did not think that women should work in positionsof importance, and if they did, they certainly shouldnt receivethe same titles and pay as a man. Her position became that of acopyist, and when Buchannan came in as president, her job wascompletely eliminated.