The Lost General Author:Elswyth Thane Mary Carmichael was in love with the General. — He had been a young general, full of fight, and he had perished obscurely in a raid outside Charleston in 1782, after the War for American Independence had practically ended. — The history books said there was no trace of the little roadside church in which he died, no record of the place where his b... more »ody was laid to rest. But Mary wa a scholar and teacher, and she knew history books could be wrong.
So she took a sentimental Easter journey -- all the way from her quiet college town in Massachusetts to South Carolina, where her heroic General had fought and died.
There she met Ridgeway Creston, a gifted Southern aristocrat whose life seemed mysteriously bereft of meaning and direction. She was drawn to Ridge, and he to her, and the love that took root in the shade of Fleetwood, the dilapidated Creston family mansion, flowered in their letters after her return to New England.
But while Ridge was still trying to reclaim himself and his fortunes, Mary met Alec Mason of the U. S. Army, just back from overseas. Alec was handsome, headlong, and solvent. And he was also young, for a general.
Thus Mary's innocent quest led her into startling events and decisions which altered her whole life. Two men -- one so much a lost soul, the other so much the living image of her lost General -- had to make their decisions, too. And a story which begins in a deceptively casual manner soon becomes a dramatic and engrossing tale which moves from New England to the South and back again, with scenes set in Boston and Washington, along the way. « less