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Ever wish you had a time machine? I wish so every time I write historical fiction. Especially when something I cover hits very close to home.
Soon after I published Beneath the Slashings, which takes place in a lumber camp directly after the Civil War, I was talking to my uncle who shared a bit of family history I had never heard before. Apparently, I have a great, great, great Uncle Peter whose father died when he was 13 years old. As the man of the house, Peter carried a lunch of johnnycake off to a nearby lumber camp each morning to earn a wage for the family. At 13! This same uncle fought in the Civil War a decade or so later. I looked him up. He lived from 1839 till 1914 and served in the 28th Michigan infantry.
While Uncle Peter's story doesn't mesh exactly with the one I wrote, it still gave me chills. Beneath the Slashings (slashings are the limbs and debris left after logging) illustrates the broken state America was in after the Civil War. Many soldiers headed to lumber camps to find employment and begin the process of healing, while the lumber they produced quite literally rebuilt the nation. My uncle lived through that. I so wish I could travel back in time and talk to him!
Beneath the Slashings is the third and final book in a series I wrote specially to humanize the Civil War for middle graders. (Book one, The Candle Star, just so happens to be the prequel to my popular Ella Wood series, the first of which is FREE.) Each book is priced at just 3.99. If you're a teacher, librarian, or homeschooler, I invite you to grab up the free study resources I've created for the series. You can check them out here and sign up to receive them at the bottom of that page.
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