Thanksgiving and General Lee

It’s Thanksgiving week and our house is full of grown kids, wee grandkids, and happy dogs. Walking space on the floors is iffey, what with the litter of toys, sprawled dogs, crawling Jackson, and two little girls who are only still in sleep. Maybe that’s why I’m writing this at four a.m., hoping I can get’r done before the bedlam begins again. But I wouldn’t trade it.

I spent last weekend at a Civil War reenactment as a book-selling vendor in the mornings and a soldier reenactor in the afternoons. The reenactment was near Hempstead, Texas, just north of Houston, and has occurred annually since 1999 on the site of an 1850’s home called Plantation Liendo, that is now a cattle ranch.

During the real war, the cotton plantation first became a Confederate army training camp which transitioned to being a prisoner of war camp for Yankee soldiers captured during the battles in Louisiana and Galveston. During reconstruction, the ill-fated General Custer lived there for a while during his stint as Texas’s military overseer. We didn’t like Goldilocks any more than the Sioux did, but they handled him better.

This past weekend the old home became a stand-in for the McLean farmhouse in Appomattox, Virginia. That’s where General Lee finally met General Grant to surrender the shattered remnant of his army. The photo below was taken in the parlor of the house at Plantation Liendo during the one-time-only reenactment of the surrender. 

Those eight local Texas reenactors in the photo took great effort to portray the men who were present, including Lee and Grant. Meanwhile, a few hundred of us stood outside on the lawn in blue and gray, respectfully waiting for our turn to replicate the final stacking of arms by the proud Confederate veterans.

I think Keith Mitchell, the photographer, did a terrific job in capturing the solemn mood of the day. Even if the real event happened in April, 1865, not November, our recreated Texas surrender seems a proper conclusion to the four-year series of events that have commemorated the Civil War’s 150th anniversary.  

On to book writing, I’ve switched from calling the final Captain McBee novel “McBee 3” to what I think today will be the title: Defiant Honor. The  story will not include the surrender at Appomattox, but will reach into 1865 to bundle together loose plot strands that have unwound in three books set over the four years of Captain McBee’s service as a Confederate officer.

In that regard, I’m knee-deep in carrying McBee and Levi through the Battle of the Wilderness, the bloody fight in May 1864 that was truly the beginning of the end for the South. Historically, the Texas Brigade played a key role at the Wilderness, their last-minute arrival giving me the chance to include General Lee as a character who makes a vital cameo appearance in a critical juncture.

Robert E. Lee is one of the historical figures who smart authors handle with great care. If any one American has personified the admirable qualities of leadership while under great strain for a long time, it’s General Lee.

To many people, Lee still IS the South, even 150 years later. So much so, I suspect that how I present Lee as a character, even if just on a couple of pages, will go a long way in shaping readers’ judgments of my writing ability and whether they will recommend my books to others.

After all, a Civil War novelist who doesn’t get General Lee right, just ain’t no writer a’tall. So I’m sweating the details this time, because that old man is everybody’s grandpa down here where sweet tea is liquid gold.

Come Thursday, I'm going to eat lots of turkey, cheese grits (with bacon crumbs), and pecan pie. Then I'll try to stay awake to watch the Cowboys try to win a football game. Hope you can do likewise. 

On Friday, I'll be out in front of our local Wal-Mart for an hour or two standing by the Salvation Army Red Kettle wearing a red apron and ringing a little handbell while thanking people for dropping a few bills or coins into the pot. Hope you'll do that too when you're out during the holidays. Dollars go further than dimes, but every bit helps someone else.