When Family History Doesn’t Work Out as Expected

When I began to write my historical novel Brookhaven, my jumping off point was a family story. My father often told me about my great-grandfather, Samuel Young, and his Civil War experience.  

The story was this: Samuel was 13 when the war began in April of 1861. He was too young to enlist, so he signed up as a messenger boy. He had been in that position for a good deal of the war. When the war ended with the surrender of General Lee’s Army at Appomattox Courthouse to General Grant and the surrender of General Johnston’s army to General Sherman at Greensboro, Samuel found himself in the East, with no way to get home except by foot.

 

The story went on, 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest. 

Photograph: My paternal great-grandparents, Samuel Franklin Young and Octavia Montgomery Young.

Some Wednesday Readings

 

Is the End of Reading Here? – Zach Franzen at Story Warren.

 

Education and Marxism – Jerry Newcombe at Real Clear Politics.

Revisiting Longfellow with a Memory from Zimbabwe

I employed the poetry of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) as a kind of refrain in my novel Brookhaven. A main character is well known in his family for his lifelong love of Longfellow’s poetry and his ability to recite it from memory.  

What I didn’t realize or remember was just how long I’d been reading Longfellow’s poetry myself. That is, until a recent comment on a post at Tweetspeak Poetry popped up.

 

The comment first arrived as an email. It’s a standard notification that Tweetspeak writers get when someone comments on a post they’ve written. I read it and looked at the date of the post – Oct. 3, 2017, almost nine years ago. Had I actually resumed reading Longfellow that long ago?

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.

Some Wednesday Readings

 

The Neglected Genius of Hilaire Belloc – Joseph Pearce at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Tools of the Trade – Kelly Belmonte on writing.

 

What-ifs and he Price of Beauty – Elliott Drago at Front Porch Republic.

 

Writer Reads: Jan Carson’s Few and Far Between – Andrew Roycroft at New Grub Street.

 

Why you must know your book’s genre – Nathan Bransford.

 

The Beautiful Ordinary – Kelly Keller at Story Warren on Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry.

A Trailer for "Brookhaven"

I was surprised today - the nice, wonderful kind of surprise. TS Poetry Press, the publisher of my historical novel "Brookhaven," created a trailer for the novel. It is (no bias here, of course) spot on. It describes the novel perfectly and communicates the "feel" that I intended with the novel. You can see it here:

I Am Haunted by the Civil War

I grew up in the Deep South of the 1950s and 1960s. Social change wasn’t only in the air; it was in the streets and, more importantly, in the city buses, the dime store lunch counter, and the public schools. The Civil War had ended a century before, but it seemed like it was still being fought in the civil rights battles that competed for newspaper space with the growing war in Vietnam. 

The school board of Jefferson Parish in suburban New Orleans, anticipating the racial integration of schools, had segregated the high school student populations by gender – boys went to one school, girls to another. The first year of integration saw riots, fights, and protests, the more violent ones at the boys’ high school but including the girls’ school to a lesser degree. Federal marshals became an in-school presence.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Some Thursday Readings

 

“The Graduate Leaving College,” poem by George Moses Horton – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

“The Old Swimmin’ Hole,” poem by James Whitcomb Riley – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

The Hawthorn – poem by David Whyte.

 

“On the Vanity of Earthly Greatness,” poem by Arthur Guiterman – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

Five Ways to Research Your Family History

The writing of my historical novel Brookhaven took about 150 years. 

I must have seen something like this before, but I can’t recall a specific example. Many novels include an acknowledgement page, cutting the people who helped or inspired the author. My historical novel Brookhaven has an author’s note explaining some of the novel’s background. But it also has something you don’t usually see in a novel – a nine-page bibliography.

 

I included more as a reminder to myself of where the novel come from. 

 

A grandmother who referred to the Civil War as the “War of Northern Aggression.” A father who told slightly mangled family stories, including one that sounded like an epic journey. A research paper in high school on what the “plantation system” really looked like. A family Bible with a mystery embedded in the birth and death records. A mountain of reading old and new American history books. An aunt who spent decades researching family history, long before the invention of the internet. Discovering I liked, as in really liked, the poems of Henry Wadsworth Longellow, once the top-selling poet and author in the United States who was dropped into the dustbin of literary criticism. 

Photograph: A page of family records in the Bible, pre-preservation.

Some Thursday Readings

 

This Just In – poem by J.S. Gilbert at Frivolous Quill.

 

Murmurs in the Cathedral – Jeffrey Streeter at English Republic of Letters.

 

Third Annual Poetry Prize for Submissions – First Things Magazine.

 

“A Look at the Heavens,” poem by John Clare – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Poet Laura: Mother in Satin – Donna Hilbrt at Tweetspeak Poetry.

“Brookhaven” and the Battle of Shiloh

For a very long time, no one in my father’s family – father, aunts, uncles, grandmother, or cousins – knew why the family Bible contained a death notice. The name was Jarvis Seale; the only thing the listing had was the date of his death. Who was this person? Why was he considered so important that my great-grandfather, who’d penned every entry in the records, had included him. My father guessed Jarvis might have been a distant cousin, or a close friend. 

It was only in the years I’d been doing reading and research for my historical novel Brookhaven that I discovered the answer, and then it was simply by happenstance. The key was the date of his death.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.

Some Wednesday Readings

 

What Pullman gets wrong about Narnia – Caleb Woodbridge at The Critic Magazine.

 

The Liberalism of George Smiley – Jake Meador at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

Chesterton’s Radical Sanity – Rachel Lu at Law & Liberty.

Seven Tips for Researching Family Heritage

When I was writing my historical novel Brookhaven, I initially relied upon two main sources – the records of births and deaths in the old family Bible, and the charts and genealogical lines in the Family Search web site. 

My ancestors in Mississippi served as the approximate inspiration for the McClure family in the novel. I borrowed many of the first names outright from the family Bible. I borrowed one name wholesale, to remind me of what I almost missed.

 

The Bible records mentioned the death of a Jarvis Seale in 1862. It didn’t mention birth, marriage, or anything else about the man. Some research in Family Search told me who he was – the husband of a great-great aunt. He was the only in-law included in the Bible records. The Family Search information only had the relationship reference and date of death. I still didn’t know what my great-grandfather had included him when others had been left out. Another web site, Find-A-Grave, showed his monument stone in a small-town cemetery in north Texas, which really made no sense.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Photograph: A page of records from the family Bible.

Some Reviews of "Brookhaven"

Reviewers have had kind things to say about my novel Brookhaven. Here are a few of them. 

Outstanding novel about the Civil War

 

“Though this is a novel, the author has included a lot of historical information about the Civil War times that amplifies the horror and destruction of this brutal war and its aftermath. The reader will find inspiration in the determination of the main characters. The book offers something for almost every reader-- historical insights, a bit of romance, family dynamics but, most of all, the book highlights the indomitable human spirit to survive the tragedy and almost unimaginable hardship brought on by the Civil War.”

 

Beautifully written. Impossible to put down.

 

“This wonder of a Civil War novel captivated me from the first page. Set ostensibly in 1915 when the only female reporter for the NEW YORK WORLD is sent south to learn details about a mysterious Confederate spy, author Glynn Young spins a family saga that details the heartache and loss not only of the war specifically but the broken relationships and twisted lives that came out of those devastating years.

“What begins as a mystery to solve quickly evolves into an elderly man’s own story of the nation’s worst war. Set primarily in the town of Brookhaven, Mississippi, and the homes of a family still caught in the grasp of the war's aftermath, the story moves back and forth between 1915 and the 1860s, taking readers on a personal tour of troop movement in the eastern border states, battles of Gettysburg and Wilderness, General Lee’s surrender, and ultimately, a very satisfying finale.

“As I read, the book and its characters felt very real. Not my ancestors, certainly, but people I learned to cheer for and care about as the ways of war and the world had their effect. That turned out to be not too surprising, as the author wrote an end-of-the-book note that BROOKHAVEN was inspired by tales he heard from his own family as he was growing up.

Finally, marvel of marvels for people like me who always “want to know more” after I’ve finished a historical novel, author Young provides readers with a comprehensive bibliography at the end of the book that ranges from general Civil War books, to books about the war in Mississippi, to letters and memoirs that offer personal insights into those years.”

 

Beautifully told, fascinating in historical detail

 

Glynn Young has crafted a beautiful, engrossing story that shines with historical details. I've always loved historical fiction and Brookhaven does not disappoint. The many twists and turns in the story made this one a page-turner for me. The author's note at the end of the book relates how the book was inspired by an old family story, which I found to be so interesting. I could tell by the way the author handled the characters with such integrity that this story holds a special place in his heart. This book kept me company over the holidays and through a winter snowstorm. It was a very good companion.

Cultivating, Winter 2026: Renewing Gratitude

The winter issue of Cultivating Oaks Press is live, and the theme is renewing gratitude. This issue includes some wonderful essays, articles, and stories by Rob Jones, Annie Nardone, Sheila Underwood Vamplin, Adam Nettesheim, Christina Brown, Lara d'Entremont, Kelly Keller, Maribeth Barber, and many more. I have a short story, "Grateful for the War." 

Some Monday Readings

 

C.S. Lewis Returns to Earth – Joseph Pearce at The Imaginative Conservative. 

 

Dispatch No. 4: Jayber Crow – Amelia Friedline at Dispatches to Jack.

 

Don’t Quit Your Day Job – Terry Whalin at The Writing Life.

Funeral, 1895: A Brookhaven Poem

She nestles there, suffering,

folded into herself,

until she is not. Helpless,

I watch her, disappearing

a little each day, and then

in the deafening silence

I can hear someone 

screaming in the light.

 

Our daughters, so much

like her, guide me through

the motions – arrangements,

the pastor, the funeral home,

the service, the burial, words

read to the sound of dirt

striking wood, the single rose

someone left soon covered.

 

The rose is white

in the afternoon light.

 

At the house, after, the smell

of coffee and iced cakes, 

church ladies hovering 

in long skirts and starched

white collared blouses, 

pouring into cups and 

cutting slices as muted sounds

of voices pass around me.

Our daughters anchor me 

in line, one on each side,

smiling to the people

in soft, nodding gratitude.

Through the windows I see

the afternoon light.

 

People leave. Our daughters

insist I rest, laying me

in our bed, the place where

she left me. The door closes; I

hear their steps on the stairs.

I don’t sleep; I turn on my side

and reach to touch what

is now emptiness suffused 

with light.

 

It is morning, early, dark still.

I make my way to the kitchen

and then the street, its houses 

posing as tombstones. 

I walk in the dark to the woods,

our woods, the place we

remembered as the afterword

of war. I walk miles perhaps, but

by time the light opens, 

I am buried deep in the green 

and the smell of dense pine,

embracing the solitude 

of separation.

 

We were bonded forever

by the road after the war,

the road we traveled

together, two children 

grown too old too soon,

traveling as one in the light.

No one knew us like

we knew each other.

No one ever could,

except the light.

 

Years later, when I was old,

I would hear that grief

is a thing with feathers. 

I knew that was wrong.

I would know grief, yes,

but only as a thing with tethers,

tethers bathed in light.

 

Photograph by Dewang Gupta via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Wednesday Readings

 

The Origin Story of Simply Murder: The Battle of Fredericksburg – Chris Mackowski at Emerging Civil War.

 

Why Lenin Won – Gaul Saul Morson at Law & Liberty.

Forgetting All the Illustrations I Studied for a Non-Illustrated Book

My historical novel Brookhaven has no illustrations. I spent an estimated third of my research time hunting for them. 

The novel is set in two different time periods – the Civil War and immediately after, and then 50 years later, in 1915. From the beginning of the first draft, I quickly learned that I had to see both periods. I had to see what people wore, what they ate, how they traveled, what their homes were like, what their streets and communities were like, and more. 

 

From early on, I had to spend far more time looking than reading, and vastly more time looking than writing. Thos 50 years were some of the momentous in American history – rapid industrialization during the war and after, wagons and carriages giving way to automobiles, the advent of flight, the rapid spread of newspapers supported by wire services like Associated Press, rapid changes in the position of women in society, and mechanized agriculture becoming the rule rather than the exception.

To continue reading, please see my post today at the ACFW Blog.

Illustration: Men's golfing clothes in 1915.

"Brookhaven" and the Pearl River Lumber Company

A reader of Brookhaven sent n email, asking if I modeled the McClure Lumber Company in the novel on the Pearl River Lumber Company. A great-grandfather had worked there, the reader said, and she wondered. 

That I had to research the Pearl River Lumber Company to respond to her should answer the question. Or, more briefly, no. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.

Photograph: Operations at the Pearl River Lumber Company about 1900.

Some Wednesday Readings

 

From Whitefield to Kirk: Revivals That Saved Nations – John Carpenter at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

We’ve Been Reading Dracula Wrong – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

 

Prime, a monastic hour – Brian Miller at Notes from an East Tennessee Farmer.

Poet Sidney Lanier and the Lost Cause

As I began to write the manuscript that became my historical novel Brookhaven, I knew I would use a 19^th century poet as a kind of infusion into the story. three poets in particularly were closely associated with the Civil War – Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, and Sidney Lanier. A fourth – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow – was a possibility. 

Whitman is the poet today we connect to the war, but he wasn’t by the people who lived the war. Herman Melville was considered by the North to be THE poet of war during the time it raged, but he would be problematic for my novel, because it was largely set in the South. In the South, Sidney Lanier only became “the Civil War poet” years after the war, and particularly after his death in 1881, and his poems were less about the war and more about the postwar period. But to use Lanier’s poems was tempting.

 

In the end, I went for Longfellow, and for several reasons. He was hugely popular before the war. His oldest son enlisted and was seriously wounded. His wife died from a tragic accident during the war. And while he had been an ardent abolitionist, Longfellow was among the few who were horrified at the human devastation wrought by the war, so much so that he regretted the role he had played in advancing radical abolition. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Photograph: Poet Sidney Lanier about 1870.

Some Thursday Readings

 

Do you love me? – poem by Sarah Crowley Chestnt at Rabbit Room Poetry.

 

“The Combe,” poem by Edward Thomas – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Poet Laura: The Verdant Respite of Portugal + New Poet Laura Introduction – Sandra Fox Murphy at Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

Three One-Liners from Three Poets – James Sale at The Epoch Times.

“The Summer of ’63: Gettysburg” by Chris Mackowski and Dan Welch

My historical novel Brookhaven is set during the Civil War’s final two years and immediately after, and then in 1915, 50 years later. The moment that sets the story into motion happens in late April of 1863 – Grierson’s Raid, in which a troop of some 1700 Union cavalry made their way through Mississippi from the Tennessee border to (eventually) Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The soldiers came to Brookhaven, most notably burning the train station and tearing up railroad track.  

The raid had a specific point: divert attention from Gen. Grant’s army preparing to cross the river from Louisiana and end the siege of Vicksburg, the last Confederate position on the river. The fall of Vicksburg would been the Union controlled the entire length of the river and would split the Confederacy in two. 

 

The Vicksburg campaign was covered in a collection of articles edited by Chris Mackowski and Dan Welch, part of a series called “Summer of ’63.” Their Vicksburg & Tullahoma covered the events and milestones of that campaign, including a raid on Mississippi’s capital of Jackson, which eventually led to a Union victory.

 

Now Mackowski and Welch have done it again, this time turning to another major Union victory in 1863 – the Battle of Gettysburg.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.

Some Wednesday Readings

 

Bud on the Tracks – Andrew Roycroft at New Grub Street.

 

America 250 and the Civil War – David Hamon at Emerging Civil War.

Mercy Scollay’s Quest for Custody of Joseph Warren’s Children – Janet Uhlar at Journal of the American Revolution.

Blood Eagle – Myth or Fact? – Annie Whitehead at Casting Light upon the Shadow.

Francisco de Saavedra de Sagronis: A Spainard’s Pivotal Role in the Yorktown Triumph – Richard Werther at Journal of the American Revolution.

Our First Revolution – Michael Barone at Coolidge Review.

Two Reviews of "Brookhaven"

One day, I'll figure out how Amazon works. Here are two reviews of Brookhaven, both dated December of 2024 (the month it was published), but which didn't show up until the last week. Still, I thank both reviewers for their kind comments.

From Dec. 26, 2024:

 Immensely Satisfying

A quick admission, I usually have to be drug kicking and screaming to read new novels. So, when this book was placed into my hands, I’m now glad my tantrum was brief and that I settled in to both read and enjoy Brookhaven. The novel is lovely, sad, joyful, redemptive, and all around a thoroughly satisfying example of entertaining storytelling. Without giving away the plot, the author artfully weaves in the awful complexity of the Civil War, along with its immediate aftermath, into the lives of the generations that came after, and all with a most satisfying conclusion.

And from Dec. 31, 2024:

 "Brookhaven" kept me up late wondering what would happen next!

“Brookhaven” is a retrospective novel set amidst the grim realities of the American Civil (and often not-so-civil) War and its aftermath. While Young’s descriptions of the war feel so authentic and in the moment, it is his love story—one of romantic love and, even more, love of a place and its people—that drew me in. Young’s writing is clear and concise, and he weaves together a complicated tale that is engaging, endearing, and enlightening. I don't have a lot of time to read, but the book managed to keep me up late at night wondering what would happen next. I expect it will do the same for many other readers.

Stephen Foster: How Song Opened a Door on History

You can’t research and write a novel about the Civil War, or anything else set in the mid-19^th century, without quickly running into the songs people sang. As I researched what would eventually become my novel Brookhaven, I came across war songs, anthems, sung by the Irish who came to America and enlisted, hymns, songs by the home folk, and more.  

I went looking for a book about music in the Civil War, and I found ta small volume published by the Library of America in 2010, Stephen Foster & Co.: Lyrics of America’s First Great Popular Songs. It’s a small, eye-opening gem. I discovered that songs I learned in elementary school had been around for more than a century.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweestepak Poetry.

Some Tuesday Readings

 

English Poet John Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’ and 3 Great One-Liners – James Sales at The Epoch Times.

 

What happens in the space of absence – Padraig O Tuama at Poetry Unbound.

 

John Deane’s Poetry of Praise – Cyril O’Regan at Church Life Journal.

 

Reading Rilke with the Catherine Project – Jordana Rosenman at Front Porch Republic.

 

Tu Me Manques – poem by Michelle Ortega at Every Day Poems.

 

“The Waste Land (Part 1: The Burial of the Dead),” poem by T.S. Eliot – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

How a Book Inspired a Character

I was struggling while I was writing the manuscript of what would become Brookhaven. I was up to my eyeballs in research; I had the overall story arc in my head. I knew it would be 1915, and the character of Sam McClure would be explaining his life during the Civil War. 

I had one problem.

 

What would he be telling the story in the first place? Why would he be recounting both what he had previously told his family and what he hadn’t told them? I knew that in the 1890-1920 period, memoirs of the Civil War were a major genre of autobiography, but this wasn’t a case of Sam writing his story or dictating his story for it to be published as a memoir. The whole idea was him to tell the story not as it happened or chronologically, but how different events of the war shaped the rest of his life.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.

Photograph: Lucile Morris Upton about 1915. She would be about six years younger than the character of Elizabeth Putnam in Brookhaven.

A Bible Verse and a Fictional Scene

For the past few months, our church pastors have been preaching a series on the Gospel as seen in the life of David. We’re nearing the end of the series. The sermons have focused on some of the highlights of David’s life, including his anointing by the prophet Samuel, the confrontation with Goliath, the growing animosity of King Saul, the friendship with Saul’s son Jonathan, David becoming king, and Bathsheba.  

Last Sunday, the sermon centered on the end of the rebellion by David’s son Absalom (2 Samuel 18). The army gathered by Absalom has been defeated and scattered; Absalom himself, trying to escape, is caught by his trademark flowing hair in the branches of a tree. He’s dangling there when found by David’s general, who wastes no time in ignoring David’s earlier command to spare Absolom’s life and putting the young man to the sword. 

 

I’m familiar with the account. I’ve read it many times, my attention caught by the image of Absalom dangling from the tree limb. It is a truism that you can read a book of the Bible, a passage, a chapter, and even a verse scores of times and not see something that will suddenly catch your attention during an additional reading.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.

Photograph by Filip Zrnzevic via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Wednesday Readings

 

Wendell Berry and what it means to love a place – Fr. Michael Rennier at Aleteia. 

 

At Abbey Wood – Spitalfields Life.

 

Is offshore wind really cheaper than gas? – Steve Loftus at The Critic Magazine.

 

Ray Bradbury Unbound – Bradley Birzer.

Three Fictional Encounters in Three Factual Events

In my novel Brookhaven, the teenaged Sam McClure has three fateful encounters with John Haygood. The three happen in successive years, and each of the three involve Civil War military operations. 

I was reminded of this when Emerging Civil War posted articles on two of the three operations a week apart this month.

 

The first encounter happens during Grierson’s Raid, an operation ordered by Ulysses S. Grant to distract the Confederates during his siege of Vicksburg in 1863. Some 1,700 Union cavalrymen rode through Mississippi, starting at the Tennessee border and finishing in Union-occupied Louisiana. They tore up railroad track and caused considerable havoc, but more importantly, they kept the Confederates focused away from Grant transferring his army across the river to besiege Vicksburg from the east.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.

Illustration: Major Benjamin Grierson and his cavalry make a triumphant entry into Union-controlled Baton Rouge at the conclusion of their famous raid through Mississippi in 1863. (Library of Congress)

Some Wednesday Readings

 

Why Governments Cannot Educate – Joseph Woodard at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

How Do You Fix Schools? Teachers Union Says Stop Trump, ICE, and Fascism – Maya Sulkin at The Free Press.

 

C.S. Lewis and Ray Bradbury: Legitimizing Science Fiction – Bradley Birzer,

 

Just War Thery and the American Civil War – Ed Lowe at Emerging Civil War.

 

Green and Blue: Irish Americans in the Union Military, 1861-1865 by Damian Shiels – review at Civil War Books and Authors.

"Mosby's Rangers" by James Joseph Williamson

In my novel Brookhaven, I have the 13-year-old Sam McClure sent to the Confederate army in the East. His father had fought with Robert E. Lee in the Mexican American War, and Lee hoped that the young Sam had learned some of his father’s espionage and survival skills. The young man is assigned to a unit called Colby’s Rangers, and after a few weeks of basic training is sent with others to prepare for Lee’s invasion of the North, which culminated in the Battle of Gettysburg.  

The model for Colby’s Rangers in the novel is an actual unit called Mosby’s Rangers. It was less involved in espionage and more involved in disruptions of federal lines, camps, and supply lines. When General Jeb Stuart “rode around” the Union army of George McClellan in 1862, it was Mosby’s Rangers leading the cavalry.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.

Some Wednesday Readings

 

Humanizing the Humanist: Irving Babbitt – Bradley Birzer.

 

When Culture Comes Full Circle – Michael De Sapio at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Gettysburg’s Test of Courage – Francis Sempa at Modern Age.

 

Unconditional: Frank Blair’s Fight for Missouri – Devan Sommerville at Emerging Civil War.