There were worse things than being sent home, she supposed. Much worse things. Stop feeling sorry for yourself.
Fish practically kicked her out of the wagon at the edge of town and sent her off to the Feenys’. She was only halfway there when Libbie rode up. Hopping down, she walked the rest of the way, with her beautiful chestnut gelding prancing beside them.
Littleton had dressed for the day. Nearly every home along the parade route was flying the Stars and Stripes. Before long, the townspeople began to filter out of their homes and line the parade route. Red, white, and blue bunting festooned the newspaper office and several other businesses. Maggie had noticed flowers on every soldier’s grave in the churchyard.
The sound of drums in the distance was met by the cheers of the crowd. Here came the colors, the golden harp glistening against the solid green silk, the Stars and Stripes rippling in the wind. Fifes played, and then the sound of marching. First, the colonel and his staff. Then the men. Captain Quinn and John Coulter riding side by side. Was it her imagination, or had Captain Quinn nodded as he rode past? John had definitely winked at her. Saints above, she did love him. Let him ask me again. Just once more, Father. I’ll say yes with my whole heart.
The regiment marched past, and somewhere in the midst of her broken heart Maggie let the pride shine through. She was proud of every one of them. Even Philem O’Malley had taken a turn for the better, she thought. President Lincoln should be here. It would have been worth the trip all the way from Washington to see such loyal men, willing to give their very lives for things that truly mattered.
The troops moved along, and Bridget and Libbie each grabbed one of Maggie’s hands and dragged her across the street and into the park. “We have to get closer,” they insisted. “We don’t want to miss a word.”
The colonel spoke and the mayor of Littleton spoke. The new sheriff—a Union man. Captain Quinn said a few words, as did each of the company captains. It was all fine and flowery, but the crowd was becoming restive and Maggie wanted time with John before he left. The dignitaries rambled, and finally it seemed that everyone who could possibly have anything to say had said it. But then the colonel waved for everyone to be quiet “for just a moment longer—if you please, ladies and gentlemen. We have a bit of business to conduct.”
The crowd quieted. The colonel reached behind him and draped what looked like a blue blanket over one arm.
“There is a tradition,” he said, “that I am told began in Napoleon’s army. Now, while we who fight for freedom have no desire to follow the example of an emperor, Americans have always been known for taking the best of everything and purposing it for the cause of liberty. And so we wish to do this day.” He paused. “If you would be so kind, Miss Maggie Malone, would you make your way to the podium?”
Maggie frowned. She glanced over at Libbie.
Libbie gave her a little nudge. “You heard him. Go on.”
Bridget clasped her hands together and giggled.
Fish appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, bowed, and offered his arm. The crowd parted as they made their way to the podium.
“Ah, here she is.” The colonel nodded. He looked across the crowd, and then he spoke to Maggie. “We took a vote, Miss Malone. It was unanimous.” He held up the blue blanket—which was not a blanket at all, but her blue wool cape, adorned with gold buttons and red braid. “The Irish Brigade begs the honor of serving alongside you, Miss Malone. Will you accept the title of Daughter of the Regiment? Will you march with us?”
Cheering began. The boys hooted and stomped and hurrahed.
Maggie couldn’t speak. She could only nod. The colonel draped the cape over her shoulders. She looked down at the three rows of gilt buttons, the red braid. Fish had teased her about it so many times, and here it was. The finest moment of her life.
Except that it wasn’t, for John Coulter was approaching the stage, and while the boys continued to holler and hoot, he was getting down on one knee and asking her to marry him.
The colonel leaned in. “As I understand it, Miss Malone, Daughters of the Regiment are generally married to an officer. Lieutenant Coulter offered to satisfy that requirement. He actually said he’d been trying to satisfy it for some time now, but that he couldn’t get you to accept.”
“I accept,” Maggie said. But John couldn’t hear her. In fact, she hadn’t really heard the proposal. And so she leaned down. “Did you want to ask me something?”
He took her hand at the same time that he nuzzled her ear. “Will you marry me?”
“When?”
That surprised him. “Today?”
She would.
And she did.
AFTERWORD
As the Daughter of her Regiment, Mary Margaret Malone Coulter served her boys faithfully. She was with them when they operated against William Quantrill and his Missouri Guerillas, with them in Tennessee, and with them during the siege of Vicksburg. When Colonel and Mrs. John Coulter were mustered out in December 1864, they returned to Littleton, where they raised prize-winning Belgians (with the help of Paddy Devlin), Irish wolfhounds, and tall children.
Libbie Blair and Jack Malone corresponded for three years and were married in 1864. After the war, Major and Mrs. Jack Malone remained in the Littleton area and enjoyed a long and happy married life as partners in a horse-breeding venture that produced some of the finest saddle horses in America. Like the Coulters, the Malones also raised children: six of their own, four siblings who’d been orphaned by the war, and an unknown number of not exactly orphaned but desperately needy children. At their sixtieth wedding anniversary, nearly one hundred of those in attendance claimed familial ties.
Seamus Malone romanced Bridget Feeny through the mail until she agreed to marry him, in November 1862. The couple were married in December and welcomed their first child nine months later and their second exactly nine months after Seamus’s second furlough. He endured the endless jokes by the men of Company D with good grace, and after the war, Captain and Mrs. Seamus Malone lived happily ever after on the Malone family farm.
Malachi and Annabelle Blair stayed on at Wildwood Grove, with Malachi as head caretaker and gardener and Annabelle reigning over a kitchen staff that produced some of the best food in the state. Along with Dix and Sally Little, the Blairs were founding members of Littleton’s African Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1875, the church welcomed Reverend Noah Devlin as head pastor. Reverend Devlin celebrated his golden anniversary at the Littleton AME Church in 1900—with an impressive number of local Irish in attendance.
Rumors regarding buried treasure at the plantation Miss Blair inherited from her brother were never substantiated, although no one was ever able to determine the exact source of the wealth that enabled the newly married Mrs. Malone to renovate her brick mansion and donate it to the Littleton Memorial Society as a home for destitute soldiers. For as long as they lived, no member of the Irish Brigade, the Wildwood Guard, or the Ellerbe Militia who came to the Grove seeking help was turned away.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Dear Reader,
This book is a result of highway signs intended to lure travelers driving across Missouri on Interstate 70 to visit the site of the Battle of Lexington and a Confederate cemetery. Confederates in Missouri? A plantation worked by slaves less than fifty miles from Kansas City? Congratulations, Missouri Department of Tourism. You got me. I visited. I read. I researched.
The State of Missouri holds a unique place in Civil War history. Its citizenry represented passionate abolitionists such as Elijah Lovejoy of St. Louis and equally passionate slaveholders whose plantations dotted the countryside of what was then called Little Dixie. For a brief time in 1861, Missouri actually had two state governments, each one equally determined to see that citizens followed its laws and upheld its beliefs.
At some point during my research journey, I “met” a woman named Kady Brownell. She introduced me to the topic of Civil War Daughters of the Regiment. I read about Irish Biddy (Bridget Divers of th
e 1st Michigan) and many others. I visited the Oliver C. Anderson house in Lexington, Missouri, and wandered the Confederate Cemetery at Higginsville, Missouri. I read. And read. And read. Slowly, an idea for a book formed, and when Christina Boys of FaithWords agreed that it was a story worth telling, I began to write.
The subject was immense—overwhelming, in many ways. My life as a novelist grew directly out of a passionate interest in history and the lives of the individual women who lived through momentous events. It’s not an exaggeration to say that, for me, when it comes to my writing life, the history comes first. Each one of my twenty-plus novels has been inspired by actual events and real women. There is historic precedent for every aspect of every story. That being said, I’m not teaching history. My primary job as a novelist is to entertain, and even though I embrace that purpose, there is still sometimes a kind of “creative dissonance,” wherein the historian and the storyteller are forced to resolve conflict.
The conflict between Whitson, the historian, and Stephanie Grace, the storyteller, has never been a greater challenge for me than it has been as I worked on the book you hold in your hands. Scholars dedicate their lives to interpreting and understanding the myriad aspects of the Civil War in America. Thousands of contemporary reenactors dedicate themselves to authenticity. And here I am, seeking to add my voice to the mix. I do so with humility and with appreciation for the immensity of the task I’ve taken on.
This book is more “fiction” than any of my other novels to this point. Why? Because, out of profound respect for the people who actually lived those turbulent years of war (the heroes and heroines who fought and those who served in countless other ways), I decided that the most respectful thing I could do was to acknowledge my inability to adequately replicate real battles and real brigades in their proper political and geographical context.
As far as my research has shown, there were no official “daughters” attached to Missouri regiments during the American Civil War, but the Daughters of the Regiment mentioned in the dedication were very real. You can read about them in Elizabeth D. Leonard’s fascinating and scholarly work All the Daring of the Soldier and see the uniform that inspired Maggie’s cape pictured on the cover of this book by visiting the Smithsonian Institution’s website. The Irish Brigade that fights the Battle of Wildwood Grove is my own creation (inspired by Missouri’s Irish Seventh). I invented the Battle of Wildwood Grove (inspired by the Battle of Lexington). This is how I work. I seek out historic precedent, strive for as much accuracy in historical detail as possible, and then I tell the best story I know how to tell.
There is a well-known epitaph that reads, “She hath done what she could.” The phrase could easily be applied to this book. I have done the best I can to create a story that pays tribute to the friendships won and lost, the wartime love stories, and the profound changes that the Civil War wrought in society.
I set out to sing the praises of the Daughters of the Regiment. And now, it’s up to you to decide if I succeeded.
Stephanie Grace Whitson
March 2014
[email protected]
www.stephaniewhitson.com
The Daughter of the Regiment
Who with the soldiers was stanch danger-sharer,—
Marched in the ranks through the shriek of the shell?
Who was their comrade, their brave color-bearer?
Who but the resolute Kady Brownell!
Over the marshland and over the highland,
Where’er the columns wound, meadow or dell,
Fared she, this daughter of little Rhode Island,—
She, the intrepid one, Kady Brownell!
While the mad rout at Manassas was surging,
When those around her fled wildly, or fell,
And the bold Beauregard onward was urging,
Who so undaunted as Kady Brownell!
When gallant Burnside made dash upon Newberne,
Sailing the Neuse ’gainst the sweep of the swell,
Watching the flag on the heaven’s broad blue burn,
Who higher hearted than Kady Brownell!
In the deep slough of the springtide debarking,
Toiling o’er leagues that are weary to tell,
Time with the sturdiest soldiery marking,
Forward, straight forward, strode Kady Brownell.
Reaching the lines where the army was forming,
Forming to charge on those ramparts of hell,
When from the wood came her regiment swarming,
What did she see there—this Kady Brownell?
—Clinton Scollard
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
• What made you want to read Daughter of the Regiment? To which character did you relate most? What was it about that character that spoke to you?
• Both Maggie and Libbie are guilty of making assumptions about others based on externals. Both women are also victims of the same tendency in others. Have you ever experienced similar situations? How can healing occur when relationships have been broken by false assumptions? If you were either woman’s confidante, how would you counsel her? What Scripture would you use?
• Both Maggie and Libbie have to deal with deep disappointment and fear. What is similar about their reactions? What is different? Why do you think the differences exist?
• Discuss Libbie’s relationship with Ora Lee and Annabelle. How did each woman benefit from knowing the others? How do you think their relationship will change in the years after the book ends?
• What would you say was the most difficult decision Maggie had to make over the course of the story? What about Libbie? If you were in their shoes, do you think you would have decided differently? Why or why not?
• Did you already know about the Daughters of the Regiment who served during the Civil War before reading this book? If so, did you learn anything new? What did you admire most about their service as portrayed in the novel? What would have been the most difficult part of being a Daughter?
• Based on your family heritage (e.g., where your ancestors lived in 1861), what “side” of the Civil War would you have been on? Would you have experienced some of the same neighbor vs. neighbor tensions depicted in the book? Would different members of your family have been loyal to opposing sides? How would you have coped? How would you have served?
• Who was your favorite minor character (and yes, the dogs could be considered minor characters)? Why?
• Do you agree with how the author presented the future in the Afterword? If not, what would you change? How?
• You are the casting director for the film version of Daughter of the Regiment. Who would you cast to play Maggie Malone? Libbie Blair? What about John Coulter? Other characters?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
STEPHANIE GRACE WHITSON is the bestselling author of over twenty inspirational novels and two works of nonfiction. A lifelong learner, she received a master of arts degree in history in 2012 and has a passionate interest in pioneer women’s history. When she isn’t writing, speaking, or trying to keep up with her five grown children and perfect grandchildren, Stephanie enjoys long-distance rides aboard her Honda Magna motorcycle named Kitty. Her church and the International Quilt Study Center and Museum in Lincoln, Nebraska, take up the rest of her free time. Visit her website at www.stephaniewhitson.com.
ALSO BY STEPHANIE GRACE WHITSON
A Captain for Laura Rose
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Praise for Stephanie Grace Whitson
A CAPTAIN FOR LAURA ROSE
“An entertaining historical tale of faith, action, and romance.”
—Publishers Weekly
“This stand-alone novel has all the makings of a great romance: love, intrigue, mystery, and unforgettable characters. Whitson’s historical details on female riverboat captains are incredible.”
—RT Book Reviews
“A Captain for Laura Rose is a novel rich with exciting detai
ls of riverboat life during the nineteenth century, and the well-drawn characters will steal your heart. Don’t miss this exceptional read.”
—Judith Miller, award-winning author of the Home to Amana series
“As usual, Stephanie Grace Whitson skillfully weaves unforgettable characters with an unforgettable time in history. Step aboard the Laura Rose. You will definitely enjoy the ride!”
—Nancy Moser, bestselling author of The Journey of Josephine and Mozart’s Sister
“Whitson has a wonderful knack of storytelling… I highly recommend A Captain for Laura Rose. It is wonderfully crafted and thoughtfully written.”
—RadiantLit.com
ALSO BY
STEPHANIE GRACE WHITSON
A Captain for Laura Rose
Laura Rose White’s late father taught her everything he knew about piloting a Missouri River steamboat and even named their boat after her. Still, it seems that Laura will forever be a “cub pilot” to her brother Joe, because in 1867, a female riverboat captain is unheard of. That is, until tragedy strikes and Laura must make the two-month journey from St. Louis to Fort Benton and back in order to save her family’s legacy, her home, and the only life she’s ever known.
The only way for her to overcome the nearly insurmountable odds is with the help of her brother’s disreputable friend Finn MacKnight, a skilled pilot with a terrible reputation. Laura loathes having to accept MacKnight as her copilot, especially when she learns she must also provide passage for his two sisters. Straitlaced Fiona has a fear of water, and unpredictable Adele seems much too comfortable with the idea of life in the rough and tumble environment of the untamed river and the men who ply it. Though they are thrown together by necessity, this historic journey may lead Laura and the MacKnights to far more than they ever expected.
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