Yankee in Atlanta Read online

  Praise for Yankee in Atlanta

  Witness ordinary people doing extraordinary things through the anguish and hardship of the Civil War. Jocelyn Green develops the conflict, pulling on our emotions and gripping our minds with the effects war has on soldiers and those left behind. This haunting, heart-thumping drama, and its message of faith, hope, and love, will impact you forever.

  —NORA ST. LAURENT, CEO of The Book Club Network (TBCN) and Book Fun Magazine

  Green has written a rare Civil War novel that hits no false historical notes. In a cruel and violent time that divided loyalties, families, and hearts, Green’s heroines’ enduring courage, compassion, and mercy show the wellspring from which a renewed nation could emerge from the fires of war.

  —MARC WORTMAN, PhD, author, The Bonfire: The Siege and Burning of Atlanta

  Powerful historical fiction at its stunning best. Yankee in Atlanta crests the heights of excellence with a heroic tale of love and war so brutally honest and achingly beautiful, it will rent your heart and heal your soul.

  —JULIE LESSMAN, award-winning author of The Daughters of Boston and Heart of San Francisco series

  Rarely have I read a novel that so envelops you into the excitement and intrigue of 1864 Atlanta. With passion, courage, and accuracy, Yankee in Atlanta hits the mark. A must-read for all historians and romantics alike!

  —AMY REED, Curator of Exhibits and Educational Programming, Marietta Museum of History, Marietta, Georgia

  Once again, Jocelyn Green weaves together the intensity of war with the impact on human lives. In Yankee in Atlanta, we see two women on opposite sides of the battle lines, each experiencing the deprivations of wartime, each reeling from historical events, and each struggling personally. This is Civil War fiction at its best.

  —SARAH SUNDIN, award-winning author of On Distant Shores

  Richly researched and characterized, multifaceted and emotional, Yankee in Atlanta is an outstanding period piece. If you want to experience the depth and breadth of the Civil War, Jocelyn’s Green’s latest novel should not be missed!

  —LAURA FRANTZ, Christy Award finalist and author of Love’s Reckoning

  Well-researched, Green’s novel incorporates women’s lives on the home front, and how military decisions impact families, forcing women and men to make heartbreaking decisions. The historical record comes alive with compelling and believable characters and a narrative that reveals real-life dramas in Civil War Georgia.

  —CHRISTINE JACOBSON CARTER, PhD, lecturer at Georgia State University and author of The Diary of Dolly Lunt Burge, 1848–1879 and Southern Single Blessedness: Unmarried Women in the Urban South, 1800–1865

  Yankee in Atlanta is insightful. Green’s characters are as complicated as the various battles that divide them; however, they are guided by the hope that the very conflict that separates them will someday lead to their happy reunion.

  —TREVOR BEEMON, Atlanta History Center, Atlanta, Georgia

  Jocelyn Green’s stories portray unconventional experiences rarely addressed in modern historical fiction: Northern sympathizers caught behind Confederate lines. The characters spring to life and remain entwined in the readers’ heart long after finishing the book. Yankee in Atlanta is engrossing, wrenching, and uplifting, and I recommend it highly.

  —J. M. HOCHSTETLER, author of the American Patriot Series and Northkill Amish Series

  Captivating from the beginning. Yankee in Atlanta contains rich detail, a cast of characters that steal your heart (and sleep), and a smooth-flowing story that readers have come to love in Jocelyn Green’s novels. A relevant message from a long-ago era breathes life into barren places within the spirit. It powerfully displays the resounding message that these things are timeless: love and war, personal crisis, and the universal craving for hope. An exceptional novel.

  —MARY NICHELSON, lead journalist for TWJ Magazine

  © 2014 by

  JOCELYN GREEN

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Published in association with the literary agency of Credo Communications, LLC, Grand Rapids, Michigan, www.credocommunications.net.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Edited by Pam Pugh

  Interior Design: Ragont Design

  Cover Design: Left Coast Design

  Cover photo of girl’s hair and face copyright © StockLite/Shutterstock;

  of girl’s cloak and blouse © 2012 Klubovy/iStock. All rights reserved.

  Author Photo: Paul Kestel of Catchlight Imaging

  Maps of The Atlanta Campaign and the City of Atlanta: Rob Green Design

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Green, Jocelyn.

  Yankee in Atlanta / Jocelyn Green.

  pages cm. -- (Heroines behind the lines, Civil War; Book 3)

  Summary: "When Union soldier Caitlin McKae wakes up in Atlanta wounded in battle, the Georgian doctor believes her only secret is that she had been fighting for the Confederacy disguised as a man. In order to avoid arrest or worse, Caitlin hides her true identity and makes a new life for herself in Atlanta. Trained as a teacher, she accepts a job as a governess for the daughter of Noah Becker, a German immigrant lawyer who enlists with the Rebel army to defend his homeland against Sherman’s army. This story is about two families torn apart by war, two hearts divided by love and honor. In a land shattered by strife and suffering, a Union veteran and a Rebel soldier test the limits of loyalty and discover the courage to survive."-- Provided by publisher.

  ISBN 978-0-8024-0578-4 (pbk.)

  1. United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865--Fiction. 2. United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865--Women--Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3607.R4329255Y36 2014

  813’.6--dc23

  2013047170

  We hope you enjoy this book from River North Fiction by Moody Publishers. Our goal is to provide high-quality, thought-provoking books and products that connect truth to your real needs and challenges. For more information on other books and products written and produced from a biblical perspective, go to www.moodypublishers.com or write to:

  River North Fiction

  Imprint of Moody Publishers

  820 N. LaSalle Boulevard

  Chicago, IL 60610

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Printed in the United States of America

  To Jason and Audrey

  It is only distance that separates us.

  And to divided families everywhere.

  May your hearts be joined even if your hands cannot be.

  God sets the lonely in families.

  Psalm 68:6

  A Note on the City of Atlanta

  Prologue

  Act One: Loyalties in the Balance

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Act Two: Eating War

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Act Three: Scourge and Suspicion

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Act Four: Enemy at the Gate


  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Act Five: Refined by Fire

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Epilogue

  The History behind the Story

  Selected Bibliography

  Discussion Guide

  Acknowledgments

  Excerpt from Wedded to War

  Excerpt from Widow of Gettysburg

  About the Author

  Friend,

  Thank you for choosing to read this Moody Publishers title. It is our hope and prayer that this book will help you to know Jesus Christ more personally and love Him more deeply.

  The proceeds from your purchase help pay the tuition of students attending Moody Bible Institute. These students come from around the globe and graduate better equipped to impact our world for Christ.

  Other Moody Ministries that may be of interest to you include Moody Radio and Moody Distance Learning. To learn more visit http://www.moodyradio.org/ and http://www.moody.edu/distance-learning/

  To enhance your reading experience we’ve made it easy to share inspiring passages and thought-provoking quotes with your friends via Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, and other book-sharing sites. To do so, simply highlight and forward. And don’t forget to put this book on your Reading Shelf on your book community site.

  Thanks again, and may God bless you.

  The Moody Publishers Team

  So far as civil war is concerned, we have no fears of that in Atlanta.” So proclaimed the Atlanta Daily Intelligencer shortly after a Georgia convention voted to secede by a margin of only 2 percent. The day after the vote, the earth literally cracked, rattling Atlanta but causing no damage. “May not its coming and passing away so easily,” wrote the paper’s editor, “with the clear and bright sky, be symbolical of the present political convulsion in the country, which in the South will pass away so easily, leaving the spotless sky behind.”

  He could not have been more wrong. Founded in 1836 as a dusty frontier town at the end of the railroad tracks, Atlanta soared to significance during the Civil War—or War Between the States—becoming the second most important city in the Confederacy, after Richmond. As it rose in prominence as a manufacturing, transportation, medical, and government center, the population surged from 11,000 people before the war, to 20,000 by 1863. The booming city was home to both the upright and the unsavory, to staunch Rebels and secret Unionists. As war encroached upon the city, every able-bodied man was pressed into service.

  A small portion of Atlanta enjoyed extravagant wealth. Most were middle-class families, many driven to poverty and homelessness by the end of the war. But before Sherman’s army ever set foot in Georgia, and regardless of their loyalties, the women on the home front were squeezed by the blockade, hunted by hunger, plagued by uncertainty, and still played hostess to refugees and convalescents. Though their strength is often passed over in the tale of Sherman’s fire, they were heroines behind the lines.

  As Atlanta rose on the tide of war, so it would be crushed by it. Yankee in Atlanta is a story of conflicting loyalties, divided families, and hearts refined by fire.

  The Virginia Peninsula

  Saturday, May 31, 1862

  Not now. Please, not now. Rebel bullets ripped through the sulfurous fog hovering above Caitlin McKae’s head. Her middle cramping violently, she prayed her anguished bowels would not betray her. Not now.

  “Don’t let them take my leg, please! I’d rather die on the field!”

  “We’re getting you out of here, Marty!” Caitlin fairly shouted as she and the other three stretcher bearers carried the wounded soldier a quarter mile to the rear. Sweat poured from beneath her kepi and inched across her tightly bound torso. River water from the rain-swollen Chickahominy soaked through her brogans, and she faltered more than once in the red clay quagmire.

  Head pounding like a fusillade, Caitlin slogged back through the mud to pluck more wounded comrades from the spongy earth, wondering how long this desperate battle for Richmond had lasted so far. Had an hour passed? Two hours? Three? Suddenly spent, Caitlin doubled over, gripping her knees. Her stomach heaved, though it had no contents to vacate.

  But her body wasn’t through. Her insides churning, Caitlin was left with no choice but to break away to the furthest pine tree she could make it to and find relief in relative privacy behind its trunk.

  Before she could reach it, a lead ball tore through her arm. The twisting pain in her middle paled as fire blazed through her right bicep. The bullet had ripped completely through.

  Caitlin’s thundering pulse dimmed the sounds of battle as she dropped to her knees. With fumbling fingers, she unbuttoned her jacket with her left hand, wriggled free of it, and wrapped it around her bloody shirtsleeve. I could go back. I can still hold the stretcher with my left hand. But she couldn’t. Strength sapped from her body, her limbs felt as though they’d been filled with lead.

  Flat on her back now, Caitlin tried to steady her breathing. The sky is still blue, she told herself. Somewhere, far above me, where bullets cannot reach and cries cannot be heard, the sky is still blue. The haze of gun smoke thinned, and she caught a glimpse of Professor Lowe’s balloon Intrepid hovering in the sky, with Lowe inside, reporting Confederate troop movements to General McClellan. Her eyelids drifted closed and she imagined herself there. But if I were, I would cut the lines tethering it to the ground and sail away, far away from war and disease and death. If only it weren’t for Jack. Her thoughts trailed into a blank expanse as welcoming as the sky.

  Mud splattered her face as another bullet pierced the ground next to her. Suddenly, her ears tuned to the musket fire still rattling in the air. Rolling over, Caitlin dragged herself into the pine trees, leaned against a trunk, and felt the earth shudder with the booming of artillery.

  “God, when will it end?” she groaned through gritted teeth.

  “Soon.”

  Caitlin turned toward the gravelly voice and found a bearded Rebel soldier. Mosquitoes hummed near his bleeding stomach. He would die within hours, even if he were in a hospital. “You’re bleeding, too.” He nodded to her crimson-soaked arm. Her jacket-turned-tourniquet must have fallen off when she’d crawled here for shelter. “Take mine. I’ll not be needing it now.”

  “Thank you,” she breathed, and let him help her tie his jacket to her arm. Gooseflesh raised on her skin as the sweat filming her body turned cold.

  “Can you read?” He handed her a small New Testament with Psalms and Proverbs. “Do you know the one about the valley of the shadow of death? I reckon that ought to do.” His face was so pale. Surely he was in that valley now.

  Though her mind began to cloud, with her left hand, Caitlin opened the cover and saw it had been inscribed with the soldier’s name and regiment, the Eighteenth. She flipped to Psalm 23, and forced her voice through chattering teeth. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies …”

  Caitlin’s eyelids refused to stay open. She was sinking, deeper, as though the Virginia swamp was swallowing her whole. Her grip loosened on the Bible in her hand, and her consciousness slipped fully beyond her grasp.

  Atlanta, Georgia

  Thursday, June 19, 1862

  Lips cinched, Caitlin McKae fought the instinct to reach toward the smoldering pain in her arm—the pain that had dragged her back to consciousness and told her she had survived.

  Where am I? She shook her head, hoping to clear the fog. Flies droned lazily about the room. Muffled voices swam toward her from the hallway while the air sat thick and heavy on her skin. Beyond the shuttered window, locomotives bellowed and chugged.

 
Where is Jack? “Please,” she prayed through cracked lips. “Keep him safe …”

  “Well looky here.” The door creaked, and a wedge of light broadened on the floor, framing a stocky silhouette. The odor of corn liquor seeped from his grey uniform as he stepped to her bedside, peering past his mustache at her. “Look who’s finally awake. I got a whole heap a questions for you, girly-girl.”

  Oh no. Her hand flew to her heart, felt it hammering against her palm with only one threadbare sheet between. The binding around her chest was gone.

  “That’s a fact.” He chuckled. “Your secret is out now, so you might as well fess up directly.” One hand flexed around a club while the other rested on a revolver in its holster. His lips curled into a grin.

  The alarm clanging in Caitlin’s mind rivaled the screeching steel of a steam engine grinding to a halt outside.

  “Ain’t you got something to say for yourself? For starters, how could such a pretty girl such as yourself come to this? Leastwise, maybe you was pretty once.” He reached for her, wearing the same possessive expression she had seen too often before.

  “Don’t touch me,” she whispered, trying in vain to knock his hand away. When he laughed and called her “playful,” she spit in his face, dormant anger and fear combusting in her veins.

  Cursing, the officer ground his club into her bandaged arm. A gasp escaped her as searing pain ushered her back to the moment the bullet first tore through her flesh.

  “George Washington Lee, you get out of here this instant!” The club fell away, and Caitlin, nearly breathless, blinked up at the blessed interruption—a silver-haired woman, blue eyes blazing, cheeks flushed. “How dare you treat her this way?”

  “And just who is she, Miss Periwinkle?” Coughing racked Lee’s body until he dabbed his mouth with a handkerchief. “She reeks of espionage.”

  Caitlin sat up, pulling the sheet up over her chest, and swallowed the moan bubbling up from the pain.

  “Of course not.” The woman jabbed her finger toward the man, as she stood with one fist propped on her ample hips. “She has more patriotism in the tip of her freckled nose than a regiment of conscripts. Why else would she fight for the cause?”