The author has his main protagonist side with the Union in this story, but it is very obvious the author prefers the Confederacy. While a nice entertaining story, you need to remember it was written in 1903, and, as such, its outlook is very pro-"Lost Cause Mythology."
Take for example this sentence on page 192, "Slaves were sleek, well-fed, well-housed, loved and trusted, rightly inferior and happy..."
The author is not speaking of all southern slaves, just those in the Kentucky Bluegrass region. For some reason, he thinks this area is an Eden. Even more upsetting than the above sentence about the slaves, are four or five pages extolling the wonders of the Bluegrass area, which the author maintains is supposedly surrounded by mountains which provide barriers protecting it from non-Saxon peoples who are diverted around the Bluegrass area on their way West. How wonderful that the Bluegrass was settled only by true, bravehearted Saxons instead of those other peoples (scum?).
The author even has his protagonist feel just as "betrayed" as the South, when Lincoln "frees all the slaves on New Year's Day 1863." Of course, this didn't happen, as Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation only freed those slaves still in areas controlled by the Confederacy. By this time, large areas of Kentucky were controlled by the Union again, so the slaves in those areas were not freed.
Having said all that, if you enjoy a good fictional Civil War story with a somewhat happy ending, You'll enjoy this book. As for me, I think the protagonist ended up with the wrong 'gurl'.
Take for example this sentence on page 192, "Slaves were sleek, well-fed, well-housed, loved and trusted, rightly inferior and happy..."
The author is not speaking of all southern slaves, just those in the Kentucky Bluegrass region. For some reason, he thinks this area is an Eden. Even more upsetting than the above sentence about the slaves, are four or five pages extolling the wonders of the Bluegrass area, which the author maintains is supposedly surrounded by mountains which provide barriers protecting it from non-Saxon peoples who are diverted around the Bluegrass area on their way West. How wonderful that the Bluegrass was settled only by true, bravehearted Saxons instead of those other peoples (scum?).
The author even has his protagonist feel just as "betrayed" as the South, when Lincoln "frees all the slaves on New Year's Day 1863." Of course, this didn't happen, as Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation only freed those slaves still in areas controlled by the Confederacy. By this time, large areas of Kentucky were controlled by the Union again, so the slaves in those areas were not freed.
Having said all that, if you enjoy a good fictional Civil War story with a somewhat happy ending, You'll enjoy this book. As for me, I think the protagonist ended up with the wrong 'gurl'.
