Empty Glory
by
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War! The word sent a thrill of excitement through Dan Tredman. He stopped stacking men’s work pants on the shelf, brushed a wave of light brown hair from his forehead, and hurried to the front of the store. His father, Luke, waiting on Mrs.Christenson and her two daughters, filled their grocery basket with bags of dried beans and peas, sacks of flour and sugar, cannisters of baking powder, and salt. Nat Bindley,the town’s fetchit boy, stood breathless just inside the front door, fidgeting like a nervous puppy. "It just came over the wire!" he blurted out. "They’re firing on Fort Sumter!" Luke, a big man almost six feet tall with broad shoulders and a growing paunch covered by a dirty white apron tied at the waist, leaned on the counter and inquired, "Is the fort firing back?" Nat scratched his head, mussing the already unruly straw-colored thatch of hair that stuck up in back like Indian feathers. "I don ’t know," he answered, somewhat abashed. "That wasn ’t on the wire." Dan stood next to Mrs Christenson and asked, "Are they marching on Washington?" Nat scratched his head again, confused."I don’t know," he answered. "That wasn’t on the wire either." He shifted anxiously from one foot to the other. A tiny bundle of energy not quite five feet tall, he had the features of a mouse. Luke Tredman placed both elbows on the counter and leaned closer to the lad. Did the youth have any idea of what war was all about? he wondered. Young boys saw only the glory and honor; they never considered the bloodshed, heartache, and destruction. "Mouse," he began, using a nickname Nat accepted because he knew Mr.Tredman did not mean it derisively. "Where is Fort Sumter?" He tried at every opportunity to impress on the youth the importance of education, for the boy was practically illiterate. Nat shuffled his feet and stared at the floor. His tongue worked inside his cheek thoughtfully as he leaned first on one foot, then the other. "Down South somewhere, I reckon," he replied almost inaudibly. "The Carolinas or Georgia." Mrs.Christenson harrumphed her displeasure at such a nebulous answer while Nat flushed in embarrassment. Her two teenage daughters, Karin and Christie, giggled with amusement, which disconcerted him even more. Dan liked Nat and hated to see him so embarrassed. "You ’re right," he said. "It is down South somewhere."
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About the Book
Empty Glory combines fiction and fact to give the reader a complete picture of the American Civil War. In the fiction part, young Dan Tredman enlists in the Union Army dreaming of honor and glory. He fights in numerous battles, is wounded, sees comrades killed and maimed, wins the Medal of Honor, earns a captaincy, but still grows disillusioned. The factual part presents the conflict, strategies, errors, the reasons the South believed it would win, and how the inventions and innovations during the war revolutionized warfare around the world. It includes new information and views that should interest readers, especially history and Civil War buffs.
About the Author
The author has had poetry, articles and 11 plays published; seven of the latter were produced at theaters in New York and other venues around the country. He has produced/directed a 94-minute film, Termites in the Headboard, from one of his plays and has worked at United Press, Popular Mechanics magazine, and spent 25 years writing advertising with stints at such agencies as J. Walter Thompson, BBDO, Grey Advertising and Young & Rubicam. A Civil War buff all his life, he wrote Empty Glory to bring that era to life for all readers--the soldier's hardships and humor, the country's difficulties and mood, the general's ineptitude and genius, and the horror of battle.