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Measured in Blood

Terrell T. Garren

Self-published

Civil War crime in western North Carolina is the subject of The Secret of War, by Terrell T. Garren. Based on the true-life experience of Delia Russell Youngblood, the great-grandmother of the author, the book "captures what the Civil War was like in the mountains and throughout the south." 
After hearing his great-grandmother's story, Garren spent nearly fifteen years researching this story in particular and the Civil War history of western North Carolina in general. It is the story of Joseph Youngblood and Delia Russell of Hoopers Creek in Henderson County, North Carolina. 
The reader will follow Joseph through his enlistment as a part of Company H, the "Cane Creek Rifles," of the 25th North Carolina Infantry Regiment to the Battle of Malvern Hill, Virginia, and to battle in Sharpsburg, Maryland, where he was captured. Taken to the Union Camp Morton in Indianapolis, Indiana, he finally escapes and make his way down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers into Mississippi. Attempting to make his way back to North Carolina, he is in Dalton, Georgia, in May of 1864 when fourteen Confederate soldiers, including a brother, are executed for "desertion." Ultimately, being recaptured, he goes back to Camp Morton until the end of the war. 
Told with historical accuracy, names, battles, and places in this story are true to fact. Readers will recognize place names in Henderson, Jackson, Haywood, Cherokee, Transylvania, Clay, Macon, and Buncombe Counties in North Carolina. Family names mentioned include Fletcher, Carland, Lewis, Bishop, Bryson, Freeman, Henderson, Fowler, Whitaker, Wheeler, Summey, Russell, Barnwell, Ward, Lanning, Hammond, Garren, Youngblood, and Blake. 
What sets this book apart from many, however, is the story of what happened to the women left behind at home. The story reveals how the lowest criminal element found its way into the Union Army. Many mountain men motivated by greed and an awareness of the demise of Confederate authority signed up with no interest in any cause but their own. Union officers who enter the picture include Generals George Stoneman, Alavan C. Gillem, and William J. Palmer. Palmer enters the story late but emerges as a man of genuine integrity and selfless bravery opposed to and fighting this element in his own army. 
Dr. Newton Smith of Western Carolina University says, "The Secret of War" is that rare historical novel that captures both the romance and the grit and gore of war on the home front without distorting the history. It is about time someone did the story of the Civil War in the southern mountains right." 
Rob Neufeld, writing in the Asheville (NC) Citizen-Times, has said the book "is a must read" and "as a contribution to our understanding of the most disturbing passage in our history, it is indelible." He further writes, "Fiction? It really happened; and, if it hadn't, the author wouldn't be around to tell it....Although Garren has written fiction, he wants you to treat it as history. After all, at the back of his book, he provides an index."

The Secret Of War: A Dramatic History Of Civil War Crime In Western North Carolina

Literature & Fiction

United States

The Reprint

A new book by Civil War author and historian Terrell T. Garren challenges previous historical assumptions regarding Unionism in Western North Carolina. Garren says that readers of his new book "may be surprised to learn that Western North Carolina citizens of that day were as much or more dedicated to the Confederate cause than the people of any other area in the entire South."

Mountain Myth: Unionism in Western North Carolina

History

Americas

The Reprint Company, Publishers

A new book by Civil War author and historian Terrell T. Garren is a compelling story of the Civil War, life as a prisoner of war, and one of the most bizarre of America's Indian wars. Garren, author of the regional best-seller, The Secret of War: A Dramatic History of Civil War Crime in Western North Carolina, and Moutain Myth: Unionism in Western North Carolina, "holds no punches" as he exposes abusive and barbaric acts committed by U.S. Army officers. He says, "This is a story that has long needed to be told." The story follows the lives of two seventeen-year-olds conscripted by Confederate authorities in the last year of the Civil War. The two are sent to Camp Vance in Morganton, North Carolina, as members of the Ninth Battalion, Confederate Junior Reserves. They and the other boys are without weapons or training when the camp is raided by Union soldiers. The two boys are captured and taken to the horrific Union prison at Camp Douglas in Chicago, Illinois. They endure the hardships of prison life until they are at the breaking point. Eventually they join the Union army's Galvanized Regiments to save themselves, and they end up on the western frontier where fate takes them to California. After serving on the plains and joining the regular army the two are assigned to duty as scouts during the Modoc War in northern California and southern Oregon. Always, they find themselves fighting for their very survival.

The Fifth Skull: A Historical Novel of the Civil War and the American West

Contemporary

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Terrell T. Garren. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Terrell T. Garren

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Terrell T. Garren. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Measured in Blood

The Secret Of War: A Dramatic History Of Civil War Crime In Western North Carolina

Mountain Myth: Unionism in Western North Carolina

The Fifth Skull: A Historical Novel of the Civil War and the American West