White Doves at Morning: A Novel

The rare winner of two Edgar Awards for best crime fiction of the year, James Lee Burke is the author of 21 previous novels including Jolie Blon's Bounce, Bitterroot, Purple Cane Road, In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead, and Black Cherry Blues, and a collection of short stories. He lives with his wife in Missoula, Mont., and New Iberia, La.
Burke is best known for his novels (11 installments) about Dave Robicheaux, a psychologically scarred homicide investigator for the New Iberia, La., sheriff's department. A recovering alcoholic, this moody and broody Cajun cop battles his own demons while apprehending evildoers.
The Dave Robicheaux series and the newer Billy Bob Holland series have garnered glowing accolades for James Lee Burke: "the poet of the mystery novel," "the Graham Greene of the bayou," "Eudora Welty crossed with Conan Doyle, William Faulkner crossed with Elmore Leonard," and "the Faulkner of crime fiction."

Burke's latest novel is a departure from the crime genre. Set during "the greatest epoch in American history," the Civil War, White Doves at Morning is a historical novel that depicts the first day of the bloody battle of Shiloh, at Pittsburg Landing near Savannah, Tenn.

With sweeping brushstrokes, Burke paints vivid pictures of the firestorm near Shiloh church ("the place of peace"); the peach orchard, where peach blossoms, cut by minie balls, fell like snow; the desperation at Bloody Pond; and the furious charges along a sunken road, at a hot spot known as the Hornet's Nest.
The author also brilliantly delineates the arrogance of power, pride, and prejudice on the home front in places such as New Iberia and New Orleans, La. In Chap. 10, Burke writes, "Willie wondered why those who wrote about war concentrated on battles and seldom studied the edges of grand events and the detritus that wars created."
The battle of Shiloh looms large in this story, but the author's main concern is to describe the effects of the Civil War on "the peculiar institution" of slavery, and the flotsam and jetsam created in the war's wake.
In one were asked to cite a quotation for the frontispiece of this book, it would be from the Pentateuch: "The sins of the fathers are visited upon their children unto the third and fourth generations" (Exodus 20:5).
As usual, Burke creates colorful characters and superb dialogue. By employing all the five senses (seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, and smelling), he paints a graphic tableau of time and place.
Some of the main characters are: Willie Burke, who enlists in the 18th Louisiana from duty rather than conviction in the correctness of the cause; Ira Jamison, owner of Angola Plantation and the largest slave owner in the state; the archvillain Rufus Atkins, Jamison's white trash henchman; the beautiful slave girl Flower Jamison, Ira Jamison's illegitimate daughter whom Willie Burke teaches to read; Abigail Dowling, a Yankee abolitionist from Mass., who risks her life freeing slaves via the Underground Railroad; and Carrie LaRose, owner of New Iberia's only bordello.
There is a cameo appearance by "that devil" Nathan Bedford Forrest, slave trader in Memphis, scourge of Union troops, and, in the Reconstruction Era, night rider in the Ku Klux Klan.
The conclusion of the novel seems abrupt: an Epilogue attempts to tie the loose ends together. I shall not reveal the name of the following tragic figure, but his fate is a good example of the poet's words: "The mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small."
Here is the passage from the Epilogue: "After a while his business associates were bothered by an odor the nostrums and perfumes he poured inside his gloves could not disguise. The lesions on his hands spread to his neck and face, until all his skin from his shirt collar to his hairline were covered with bulbous nodules. His disfigurement was such that he had to wear a hood over his head in public. His businesses failed and his lands were seized for payment of his debts. When ordered confined to a leper colony by the court, he fled the state to Florida, where he died in an insane asylum."
Although White Doves at Morning is atypical of Burke's usual work, the quality of his writing maintains its same high standard and engaging style. James Lee Burke is one of the best authors on the contemporary scene.

Roy E. Perry of Nolensville is an amateur philosopher, Civil War buff, classical music lover, chess enthusiast, and aficionado of fine literature. By trade he is an advertising copywriter at a Nashville Publishing House.
NOTE: The title of this book is taken from a doleful song sung during the Civil War, and, specifically, on the eve of the battle of Shiloh: "White doves come at morning / Where my soldier sleeps in the ground. / I place my ring in his coffin, / The trees o'er his grave have all turned brown."

After reading two Dave Robicheaux mysteries by James Lee Burke, I was anxious to read a novel by this author. White Doves at Morning is actually a historical fiction based on the lives of Burke's great-grandfather and great-great-uncle.

White Doves is set in New Iberia at the outbreak of the Civil War. New Iberia is in the Louisiana Bayou-the same locale as his Robicheaux series. The tart-tongued Willie Burke is the son of an Irish woman who runs a boarding house. Robert Perry is the son of rich plantation owners. Yet these two lads are fast friends and they find themselves pulled into the Civil War. Their roads take them down separate paths during the war. Perry (by virtue of his birth) is an officer and gets shipped up to Virginia. Willie starts out as a private and begins his enlistment at the Battle of Shiloh. I found the parts that involve the war to be the most engrossing in White Doves. Despite not really believing in the principles of the war, Willie distinguishes himself and eventually becomes an officer as well. But unfortunately, I think that Burke lost some of his momentum after the war ended. What happens afterward is too contrived and too rushed. And things just worked out a little too nicely (something that certainly wouldn't have happened during the long and ugly period of Reconstruction).

Burke also deals with many issues back home in New Iberia. The beautiful Abigail Dowling, is an abolitionist from Massachusetts. Both Perry and Willie are in love with her, although they have a hard time reconciling her politics to their actions (unknown to them, she is actually part of the Underground Railroad). Willie has taken a liking to an intelligent slave girl, Flower Jamison, and teaches her how to read and write. Flower is the daughter of a plantation owner, Ira Jamison, who is ruthless and refuses to recognize Flower as his daughter. There are more than enough villains in White Doves, and Burke describes many of them as "white trash." Some of them will get their just rewards, while others will form the beginnings of the Ku Klux Klan.

White Doves at Morning is a decent book, and Burke's characters are engaging and his writing is always first rate. His descriptions of Louisiana are a work of art. But I just think that he got bogged down with the plot somewhere along the line. Knowing what a good writer he is, I was expecting a stronger effort from him.

The arrival on bookshelves of anything written by James Lee Burke is a reason for celebration in my household-- as well it should be, for the man is arguably the finest living craftsman of eloquent prose in America today. At my own book signings, my oft-repeated line is that I'd read a phone book written by James Lee Burke.
But I have to confess, I hesitated before taking home a copy of WHITE DOVES IN THE MORNING, Burke's most recent release. After all, it features neither Dave Robicheaux nor Billy Bob Holland; it is not a reprinting of what I consider Burke's Golden Age of fiction, the stuff he wrote in the 1960s (which still staggers, with its literary mastery) before disappearing for almost two decades.
WHITE DOVES is, rather, a Civil War novel-- not surprising, in a way, to any reader of Burke's other fiction. His fascination with both combat in general and the Civil War in particular is evident in much of his writing. Nonetheless, for the reader eagerly awaiting the next return of Streak or Billy Bob, the thought of instead plunging into a... historical novel? ...might give pause to even the most ardent James Lee Burke fan.
It shouldn't. Within a half-dozen pages, it is evident that the master is in rare form here. Burke's lyrical, evocative prose quickly sweeps the reader into a story that is impossible to put down.
It helps that much of the setting is familiar ground: Burke's beloved Louisiana bayou country, specifically the New Iberia of 1861 - 65. The smells and sounds of what will, in a century or so, be Dave Robicheaux country, will be immediately recognized by any Burke aficionado-- a timeless land of live oaks, hanging air vines and mosquitoes buzzing in the marshland shadows.
It also helps that many of the character names we've become accustomed to in the Robicheaux chronicles are also present-- this time, as living characters who flesh out the fables and anecdotes and events that later will be passed down to Dave Robicheaux and from him, to we readers. We meet the Negro freeman and slave owner Jubal Labiche, whose skin color will make no difference to the soon-to-be-invading Yankees. We meet brothel owner Carrie LaRose and her brother, the brawling, pirate-minded Jean-Jacques LaRose, both shrewd Cajun entrepreneurs who deal in contraband and live by their own rough code of ethics. We meet Ira Jamison, whose sprawling Angola Plantation will later become Angola State Penitentiary.
And while we do, we realize that we already know their descendants, themselves familiar from the Burke/Robicheaux series: the twin Labiche daughters of another generation, one of whom will be executed for the murder of her molester; the LaRose descendant, elected Louisiana governor only to die in a last effort to save his doomed wife in a pyre that was the LaRose mansion; even the Angola Prison which is so often plays a key dark role in Burke's Robicheaux tales.
It is a masterful device, this intermingling of our recollections from other novels and other storylines, that in less capable hands could have failed miserably. But Burke handles it with ease, even to the point of centering the story on his own ancestor, one Willie Burke.
If there is any flaw in WHITE DOVES IN THE MORNING, it is the distinctly too-abrupt conclusion with which Burke has provided us as an epilogue. Here, in a departure from the seductive rhythms, eloquence and rich characterization which Burke uses elsewhere so well, the author merely ticks off, one by one, a digest of the ultimate fates of the characters. It is a decidedly less-than-satisfactory conclusion for the reader; worse, it does a disservice to the characters in this novel. Burke's skill has turned them into living people about whom we now care, and whom he appears now to casually discard.
And it is in this sole failing that WHITE DOVES IN THE MORNING gives every James Lee Burke fan a reason for optimism.
We want more than Burke's closing has left us-- far more than the brief, tantalizing, much too incomplete information on the balance of these characters, these lives. We want the author to take us back: back to antebellum New Iberia, back to these characters, back to this compelling chronicle of a time and a place that he has drawn so well.
I don't know if WHITE DOVES IN THE MORNING was intended as the first in a new, ongoing series; given the amazing talent that is James Lee Burke, I can only hope so.
Earl Merkel

The creator of David Robiceaux and Billy Bob Holland returns to historical fiction in a work set in Civil War-era Louisiana.
James Lee Burke has reached that stage where his name has become synonymous with his most successful literary creation --- David Robiceaux. Burke's Robiceaux novels have now spawned imitators and fans eagerly await the next installment in the series. In some instances, these fans become bitterly disappointed when a work bearing Burke's name on the spine does not contain a Robiceaux story therein. The series is so engrossing and well done that it is easy to forget that Burke's earliest writing dealt with other, occasionally historical, plots. In WHITE DOVES AT MORNING, he returns to that genre.
WHITE DOVES AT MORNING is a stand-alone novel, thus giving Burke freedom with his characters that he does not entirely have with the Robiceaux books or the Billy Bob Holland novels. One reads WHITE DOVES AT MORNING with no expectations other than that there will be a well-told, engrossing story. Burke has taken this freedom and run with it and, in the process, has created what might well be his finest work to date.
WHITE DOVES AT MORNING is set primarily in rural Louisiana during the Civil War and early Reconstruction. The primary characters are, as we are told, on the inside front cover, ancestors of Burke, though it is not immediately clear how much of the tale told within is family lore and how much is torn from the whole cloth of Burke's imagination. There is in all probability a healthy mix of both. Despite the change in subject matter, Burke continues the theme that runs through the Robiceaux novels --- that the rich are evil and can only transcend their circumstance with a healthy dose of guilt. This worldview, alas, is wearing rapidly thin --- there is no inherent evil in wealth, any more than there is a particular inherent nobility in poverty --- and Burke's incessant dwelling on the premise almost distracts from the beauty of his writing. Similarly, his presentation of the cause of the Civil War --- that it was fought over the issue of slavery --- is worse than simplistic; it is simply incorrect. The magnitude and beauty of Burke's writing, however, is such that one can easily suspend disbelief when encountering these issues and appreciate the beauty of this work.
The beauty and contrast within WHITE DOVES AT MORNING lie primarily in its characters. Robert Perry and Willie Burke, despite their disparities of background and opinion, join the Confederate Army while not sacrificing their principles, as well as their commitment to Abigail Dowling, a Massachusetts abolitionist who had come to Louisiana several years previously to aid in the battle against yellow fever. Burke also forms a friendship, unlikely for that time and place, with Flower Jamison, a beautiful young slave who is owned by Ira Jamison, owner of Angola Plantation and, though he refuses to admit it, Flower's father. Burke secretly teaches Flower how to read and write, an act that places both of them in danger. Flower becomes the catalyst from which much of WHITE DOVES AT MORNING proceeds. She finds herself the object of desire of Rufus Adkins, the overseer of her father's plantation and a source of unspeakable evil. Adkins and Burke, cast together in combat during the Civil War, are uneasy comrades. They wear the same uniform, but are by no means on the same side.
It is this conflict, woven throughout WHITE DOVES AT MORNING, that is the ultimate manifestation of Burke's ability to present through implication the complexity of relationships against a backdrop of social and moral difficulty. There are also passages here which bring to mind some of the best work of Cormac McCarthy, particularly when the author describes the horror of battle and its physical and emotional aftermath. The end of the war, however, does not herald the end of the terror. Burke, Flower, and Dowling find themselves caught between the conquering army of the North and the dreaded night riders --- the Ku Klux Klan and the Knights of the White Camellia of which Adkins, ever the lowest common denominator opportunist, is a member.
WHITE DOVES AT MORNING ultimately demonstrates the rippling effect that an act of bravery and simple kindness --- in this instance, Burke's instruction to Flower in reading and writing --- can have upon people over time. Fans of Robiceaux who eschew this work simply because their favorite Cajun detective is not its prominent feature will only cheat themselves. At the same time, those who are unfamiliar with Burke's work will find WHITE DOVES AT MORNING far more than an introduction to a new author. This work, in time, will perhaps become the most highly regarded of all of Burke's efforts.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

"White Doves at Morning" (2002) is a standalone historical novel by James Lee Burke, critically-acclaimed and highly-popular author of the Dave Robicheaux series of Southern mystery novels, noir police procedurals set, at least initially, in what is more or less his home turf, about which we've recently been hearing so much, America's Gulf Coast, more particularly New Orleans and New Iberia, Louisiana.

Like the Robicheaux novels, "White Doves" is set largely in the Gulf Coast, entirely in the South, during the American Civil War and the ensuing period, known as "Reconstruction," though there was precious little reconstruction getting done. At the center of the novel are, apparently, two of Burke's own ancestors, Robert Perry, from a slave-owning, wealthy family, and Willie Burke, from a family of Irish immigrants, both apparently decent and conscientious men, who, even so, join the Confederate Army. Both men rather fancy Abigail Dowling, a beautiful Massachusetts abolitionist who has taken up residence in New Iberia, the better to fight slavery. Burke has taught to read and write- against all local law and custom-- Flower Jamison, beautiful mulatto daughter of a slave and Irv Jamison, the ruthless owner of the immense Angola Plantation. Which Jamison will convert to the notorious Angola prisoner after war's end. (We'll be introduced to many rich and arrogant men in Burke's work).

As ever, Burke's descriptions of the country where he was born, and has set his most successful novels, are outstanding. His description of the Civil War, a horrendously long and bloody event, and its effects upon man, beast, and countryside are also outstanding, particularly the famous battles of Shiloh and the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. I'd say he knew quite a lot about that war, must have researched it further, and successful absorbed his research findings. His depiction of his female protagonists is, I'd say, less successful: Burke may sympathize with women and their problems, but that doesn't mean he understands them, either one.

Louisiana is more or less home country for Burke, who was born in Houston, Texas, in 1936, and grew up on the Texas-Louisiana gulf coast. He attended Southwestern Louisiana Institute; later received B. A. and M. A. degrees from the University of Missouri in 1958 and 1960 respectively. Over the years he worked as a landman for Sinclair Oil Company, a pipeliner, land surveyor, newspaper reporter, college English professor, social worker on Skid Row in Los Angeles, clerk for the Louisiana Employment Service, and instructor in the U. S. Job Corps.

Some of Burke's more recent, best-selling novels in the Robicheaux series are Jolie Blon's Bounce,Purple Cane Road (Dave Robicheaux Mysteries), and Cadillac Jukebox (Dave Robicheaux Mysteries). Burke's work has twice been awarded an Edgar for Best Crime Novel of the Year. He has also been a recipient of a Breadloaf and Guggenheim Fellowship and an NEA grant. His early novel The Lost Get-Back Boogie was rejected 111 times over a period of nine years, and upon publication by Louisiana State University press was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. At least eight of his novels have been New York Times bestsellers.

"White Doves," is, to me, a perfectly acceptable, good job of work, but it's neither outstanding, nor particularly memorable. Seems like most, if not all, mystery authors, even the best of them, itch to try their hands at something else, and Burke is as free as anyone to try his hand at different genres. But he has a powerful creation in Robicheaux, one he is not likely to be able to duplicate elsewhere. Certainly not in "White Doves."

Willie Burke, James Lee's ancestor, shares billing in WHITE DOVES AT MORNING with Abigail Dowling, an abolitionist from Massachusetts who had traveled south to minister to Yellow Fever patients. There's also a conflicted plantation owner, Ira Jamison, who can't quite own up to his mulatto daughter Flower. And there are some wonderful villains: Rufus Atkins, an overseer on Jamison's Angola plantation, and Clay Hatcher, his second in command. Todd McClain, a New Iberia hardware store owner and leader of The White League is another miscreant.
There's not much of a plot until about two-thirds of the way through the book. Willie and his friends fight the Battle of Shiloh; Willie loses his best friend Jim; he's captured and sentenced to death, only to be saved by a guerrilla band. Willie pines for Abigail Dowling as does his friend Robert Perry, a plantation owner's son who spends the last two years of the war in an Ohio prison camp.
Things pick up after the war when Carrie LaRose, madamn of New Iberia's house of ill repute, sponsors a school for the newly freed slaves conducted by Abigail and Flower, whom Willie had taught to read prior to the war. Carrie pays for it with her death. Flower begins to carry a gun. Ira, who was wounded during The Battle of Shiloh, converts his plantation into a prison camp, a reference to the modern Angola prison. There's an epilogue at the end that resolves everything. What's refreshing is that some of the bad guys get away with it, as they do in real life.
If you like Owen Parry's Civil War novels, you might want to try this one. Parry and Burke are masters of dialect. Burke's Cajun accent for Carrie LaRose is dead-on perfect, as is Owen Parry's Welsh brogue for Abel Jones. They both also have a penchant for laying on the imagery with a trowel rather than a brush, the problem being that the pace slows and there's always a chance of repetition. The skin tightening over a character's face happened a bit too often in Burke's novel for this reader.

James Lee Burke's "White Doves at Morning" is richly written, peopled with well-drawn characters and beautifully atmospheric.
It is an historical novel set in the Louisiana bayou country during the Civil War and Reconstruction. Fictional characters mingle with true-life figures---abolitionists, slaves, overseers, white trash, secessionists, madams and war profiteers. And. we see the origin of Angola Prison.
The dialogue is magnificent, the moods created extraordinary and the pace is rhythmic.
I found it compelling reading that engaged me from start to finish.
The white trash villains are particularly despicable. The central protagonists, while flawed, are easy to cheer for.
JLB maintains his high standards.

Enjoyed reading this exciting slice of life during the Civil war. Once you are into this book you will not want to put it down. There some graphic descriptions of battles and the emotions involved as only James Lee Burke can provide. But I don't want to reveal too much and take away the adventure is an excellent read.

"White Doves at Morning" ia stunning, hypnotic departure from James Lee Burke's detective series. The characterization is vivid and the decaying upper crust of New Iberia, Louisiana society is depicted in unrestrained passages which will captivate the reader. The main protagonist, Willie Burke is born of impoverished Irish stock, yet enlists in the Confederate to uphold states rights issues, not disguising his unrequited passion for a confirmed abolitionist woman. Flower Jamison is the illegitimate daughter of Ira Jamison, a sadistic businessman, whose gentile demeanor conceals a soul besotten with carnality and an insatiable desire to exploit the unfortunate. Through Willie, Flower becomes literate and allies with Abigail Dowling, whose fiery abolitionism causes her to be a focal point in the Underground Railroad. Against the tragic backdrop of the Civil War, these characters live are inexorably entwined and their individual ordeals are harrowing and their survival miraculous. Mr Burke presents to the reader a deliberate polarization of good and evil and his characters are illustrative of the dividing line between humanity and depravity. "White Doves at Morning " will convey to the reader how an individual emancipation can take place within the soul of each person involved and how present choices will inevitably have repercussions in future courses of action. Mr Burke's prose is lyrical and devoid of any superficial, sugar-coated phrases which would demean this striking epic. "White Doves at Morning" is immensely perceptive in that it offers the reader a panoramic scope of the Civil War and does not apologize for its commentaries on the unpredictability of human nature.

I've enjoyed many of James Lee Burke's Robicheaux novels (and intend to enjoy more of them) so I jumped into the Civil War-era novel "White Doves" eagerly, but was ultimately disappointed.
Burke seems to have lost the tight control of his best work; this book feels overwritten and underplotted, dealing with a small group of angst-ridden characters acting out dramas of oppression and revenge against the backdrop of the war and its aftermath. The pot boils, and boils, and boils some more, but as the pages turned I found myself thinking "Just get on with it and stop the DRAMA, please!"
There are quite a few good moments, but this isn't prime stuff. Maybe the historical genre just isn't Burke's forte.

Other reviewers have covered the cast and plot, so I'll just add that I think this book is Burke's best, and that say's a lot. His scenes that portray the antagonists are so rich and telling that I marvel at his skill. I would like to think the chaos of the period as well as the characters portray that era accurately, although it is viscerally disturbing to say the least. I hope that J.L.B. writes more books in this vein instead of the money factories that, as is obvious by this work, are a waste of his talent.
Mike Addington

I listed to this book on audio cassette. The narrator, Ed Sala is a master of many voices. His voice alone makes the book worth listening to. And of course, James Lee Burke is a master of words and a master of creating a plot and story line that is intriguing and suspenseful.

A wonderful and power book to listen to that brings many aspects of the Civil War and how it effecter ordinary people.

Other reviewers have covered the cast and plot, so I'll just add that I think this book is Burke's best, and that say's a lot. His scenes that portray the antagonists are so rich and telling that I marvel at his skill. I would like to think the chaos of the period as well as the characters portray that era accurately, although it is viscerally disturbing to say the least. I hope that J.L.B. writes more books in this vein instead of the money factories that, as is obvious by this work, are a waste of his talent.
Mike Addington

I listed to this book on audio cassette. The narrator, Ed Sala is a master of many voices. His voice alone makes the book worth listening to. And of course, James Lee Burke is a master of words and a master of creating a plot and story line that is intriguing and suspenseful.

A wonderful and power book to listen to that brings many aspects of the Civil War and how it effecter ordinary people.

White Doves at Morning shows a complete different way of thinking. Being raised a Yank, you are taught that North is good, South is bad. After I read this book, I started to think if what I was taught was wrong. Maybe the North is just as bad as the South during the war. The book goes into great detail of battles. With the details of seeing you pal blown to pieces, and not having a scratch on you. To read certain parts, you have to have a strong stomach. In the book, Willie Burke has a great adventure escaping death too many times to count. Willie is the kind of man who gets a kick out of makin smart remarks to Union and Confederate Leaders. Ain't nothing like asking the enemy where your division is. Willie brings the humor to the book, and two young ladies bring the drama to town. Miss Abby and her colored friend Flower make the South open their eyes. They both fight together to bring honor back into being a women. White Doves at Morning is about the real struggles of the South during the Civil War.

White Doves at Morning has the stark beauty and vivid imagery of all Burke's novels, but not it's strong plot. The many characters introduced are never fully developed beyond a few central personalities. No one can compare to James Lee Burke when he discribes with similes and all five senses the character's surroundings, in this novel the Cival War, but his similies wear thin in one passage as he strings one after the other and seems to lose his point. The hero of the story, Willie Burke, is in the vein of Billy Bob and Dave, heroes of Burke's two wonderful series, but one doesn't feel any greater empathy for Willie by having known him so well through Burke's other strong, defiant characters. The story ends rather abruptly and does not rap up the lose edges as cleanly as a fan of Burke's would expect. The story is a decent one if the reader does have expectations after having read Burke's other, nearly perfect novels. But a new reader of Burke should consider reading a second novel of his before judging his abilities on just this one.

James Lee Burke Brings the beauty of the South Louisiana town of New Iberia to the reader with extreme accuracy. I live in the area and have family ties to New Iberia. Now thanks to Mr Burke I can envision what the area around Spanish Lake and where Camp Pratt was located as it was during the Civil War period each time I visit. Mr Burke also give an accurate account of the attitude of the people of the area back during that time period. I enjoyed this book very much and would recommend it to all.

"White Doves at Morning," by James Lee Burke, was such a treat to read. I truly enjoyed this book from the first page to the last. The characters are wonderful, the dialogue amazing, and the plot leaves the reader longing for more.
John Savoy
Savoy International
Motion Pictures Inc.

However, I do have a couple of "irritations" as I proceed through the book: #1 The Civil War was simply NOT all about slavery and #2 the term "people of color" continues to crop up--this is a modern, politically correct term (and though I have no objections to it in a modern context) but it has nothing to do with the terminolgy of the period. Every time I saw this term being used, I was jarred out of the time being described and into current terms and political correctness.