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Diane Haeger - My Dearest Cecelia: A Novel of the Southern Belle Who Stole General Shermans Heart

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Book:
My Dearest Cecelia: A Novel of the Southern Belle Who Stole General Shermans Heart
Author:
Diane Haeger
Publisher:
St. Martins Publishing Group
Genre:
Books / Prose
Year:
2004
Rating:
4 / 5
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As she enters the Commencement Ball at West Point Military Academy on a spring evening in 1837, in her pink gown with white silk roses and ropes of pearls, Cecelia Stovall looks-and feels-like the perfect, innocent Southern belle. Little does she know that at that dance she will meet the man who will change her life-and the lives of all her fellow Southerners-forever. Cecelia falls instantly in love with the dashing young Northern cadet, William Tecumseh Sherman, and they embark on a fiery, secret rendezvous despite their broad cultural differences and the expectation that they will marry others. Their love remains poignantly aflame and survives the worst obstacles over years of separation and longing. And then the long-threatened Civil War starts, and both Cecelia and William assume prominent positions on opposite sides of their countrys deepest and fiercest rift, as William becomes the very same General Sherman who will be feared and hated throughout the South.
Legend has it that Shermans love for Cecelia was the reason he spared her hometown of Augusta during his infamous march to the sea, in which his troops cut a swath through nearly every other town in Georgia and burned Atlanta to the ground. Now Diane Haeger, the author of the acclaimed The Secret Wife of King George IV, has re-created this lost romance in a sweeping and lyrical novel that will be treasured by the history enthusiast-and hopeless romantic-in everyone. A multilayered historical saga spanning a quarter-century, Diane Haegers My Dearest Cecelia is an epic novel of star-crossed lovers Cecelia Stovall and General William T. Sherman-a romance for the history books.

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Table of Contents

I am especially indebted to several people who helped make this book a reality. First and foremost, to C. L. Bragg, M.D., author of Distinction in Every Service, for so graciously sharing his knowledge of the Civil War, as well as that of the Stovall family; to Dr. Steve Grove, West Point Military Academy Historian; to the staff at the Augusta Library; to the staff of the Historic Charleston Foundations Aiken-Rhett House; always to my merciless editor, Marlene Fried, for so carefully reading every word; to Diana Moody, a special thank you for first putting the notion of a story about General Sherman into my head; and to Kelly Costello, for continuing to support me and for having read all of my books so enthusiastically. Finally and most especially, to the memory of my grandmother Eva Corbett Hanke, whose own father, Partrick Corbett, fought with General Shermans Wisconsin Militia. Across the years, they tied me to this particular story in a special way which I could not have imagined back when my research began.

The Secret Wife of King George IV

MAY 1837, WEST POINT, NEW YORK

Cecelia Stovall sighed. She was distracted and yet dazzling in a new shell pink gown trimmed with flounces, white silk roses, and ropes of pearls. The wide bell skirt, in the Southern style, with layers of petticoats beneath, rustled and swayed, making a grand impression as she strolled with her three brothers along the brick pathway from the West Point barracks toward the Commencement Ball. But her mind was elsewhere. The words that had been shouted so angrily at her brother Bolling back home in Augusta, only a few days before, still played across her mind. They were pressing her to acknowledge them and their meaning: How could you do it to Anne, Father? Bolling had asked. Much less with a slave? Stay out of this! their fathers voice had boomed. Youre just a boy who hasnt a clue what I have with yo stepmother, or what it is to have the needs and pressures of a man!

Her mind and heart were made so unbearably heavy by those words, and by the questions the scene had aroused. So, too, her fathers response to her eavesdropping: Very well, young lady! You want to involve yourself in my affairs as well, then so you shall! Youll go to West Point along with them and be out of my sight until you learn to mind your place!

Cecelia and her other two brothers had spoken little about it on the rough, noisy train as it clattered and clacked its way out of Atlanta or on the dusty,rattling carriage ride from Albany. Clearly it was something bad. But she feared knowing precisely what. Old Joe and his daughter Cretia had been a part of their lives for as long as she could remember. Though slaves, to Cecelia, they were a part of her family.

And now her family had a dark secret.

What is there between Father and Cretia? she had asked her younger brother, Bolling, as the train swayed along a length of track through a seemingly endless field spotted with cotton. Bolling was sixteen but very tall, serious, and, she thought, worldly for a boy his age. Of all Pleasants first family of children, it was he who most resembled their dead mother. His skin was smooth, his hair, ebony black and very straight. Like her own, his eyes were dark as coal and largely indecipherable.

You know perfectly well shes one of his slaves, he had said, opening a book and refusing to say more. But there was something more. Of course there was. Her stomach had churned ever since as the unthinkable conclusion had settled heavily upon her.

Cretia was her dearest friend. They had grown through childhood and adolescence together. Shared their lives. All their secrets. Or so she had long believed until a few days ago. Certainly Cretia would have confided something so horrible. Then had come the trip to West Point, along with two of her brothers, and one long, hot train ride after another to spirit them away from the truth. All of that had brought them very far from the South. As it was a long and strenuous journey from Georgia, and plebes were required to remain over summer, her trip was meant to last at least a few weeks.

Now she was going to the Commencement Ball at the military academy where her brother had just completed his first year. And for the first few hours since her arrival, Cecelia had managed to feel a bit of joy at the unexpected adventure. Here, she would be with Marcellus, the eldest Stovall brother, and the one person in all the world who could make sense of things. She had longed to ask him about it from the first moment of their arrival this morning. Thus far, there had been no time. But he would tell her the truth.

Reunited, she was surrounded now by the three of them. Marcellus was tall and dashing in his cadets gray coat, gleaming brass buttons, and starched white trousers trimmed with black silk braid. Bolling and Thomas were dressed in dark coats and shiny gray-striped cravats. They all moved together into the crowded cadets Mess, a room already full of handsome, uniformed young men. For this evening, the Mess had been admirably transformed into arepresentation of a ballroom. Tall, ivory tapers flickered in wall sconces and on tabletops, bathing the open room in a soft, golden glow as the band played the popular tune, Theres Nothing True But Heaven. Already she could see that it was a world away from a Southern summer evening.

Its lovely. She softly smiled, gazing around at the uniformed men and elegant women.

Not so lovely as you, dear sister. Marcellus squeezed her arm. Youve grown up while Ive been away.

So it happens with us all. She smiled up at him, her face shining in the profusion of candlelight.

Glad as I am to see you, Father didnt write to me that youd be joinin the boys.

She exchanged a glance with Bolling then, her dark ringlets bobbing, but he looked quickly away. It seems he decided it at the last minute.

Well, however you got here, Im thrilled. Now, do lets enjoy ourselves! And judgin by the number of eyes upon you just now, the evenin is young!

For the first time, Cecelia, too, saw the way the men regarded her. In this place far from home, she became aware of how the eyes of several cadets found her and then cut away amid soft, suggestive laughter. As children, her sisters had been cruel. Her glossy, raven-dark hair was too black to go with her dark eyes, they had said, especially against her white, white skin. She resembled a crow sitting in cream, they had taunted. Taunted, until she began to grow steadily and gracefully into features that became striking rather than hawkish as they once had been, bold rather than unremarkable, as both her sisters now were. In an oddly victorious moment she wished her two married, and heavily pregnant, sisters could see her nowa free spirit in a new party dress, unencumbered by their fathers rules, smilingand admired.

As they moved more deeply into the already warm and crowded hall, with Marcellus holding tightly to her elbow, Cecelia was introduced to a blinding collection of her brothers classmates. The motions and manners she found tedious, especially with things at home still tugging at the corners of her mind. But it was worth anything in the world to her to be back with the one person she loved best in the world, her Marcellus. The one who would always tell her the truth.

Might I have the pleasure of this dance, Miss Stovall? The voice was deep and unexpectedfull of reassuringly familiar Southern charm. Still clutching her brothers arm, Cecelia looked back before her. The cadet wasolder than Marcellus and admirably handsome in his uniform. He had thick, dark hair, heavy dark brows, and discerning, steely eyes. He extended his hand as if the request had been rhetorical.

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