Lament of a Gettysburg Widow: A novel based on the life of Henrietta Shriver

Henrietta Weikert married for love. Well-to-do husband George Shriver, heir to a prosperous farm, brought his money into town to build one of Gettysburg's finer homes for his young family. Abraham Lincoln was about to step into the presidency and the challenge of a country coming apart. His call for Northern troops to do battle with the secessionist South changed the course of the nation's history.Young men mustered into service, eager to fight in a war that was expected to be over within months. George joined Cole's Cavalry to fight for the Northern cause, putting on hold his plans to open a tavern in the cellar of his new house.George and his comrades were assigned elsewhere when the most famous battle of the Civil War came to the streets of Gettysburg. With her husband gone, Hettie made the fateful choice to flee with her daughters to the safety of her parents' farm three miles away. That decision changed her life in ways that she and George could not foresee when they said goodbye at the end of the only Christmas they would share together in their handsome home on Baltimore Street.Hettie's story of love and loss is the story of all women who bear the heavy burden of men's wars.