The Land Aflame
by Walt Drannan
All rights reserved by Denlinger's Publishers, including the right to reproduce this electronic book, or portions thereof, in any form, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.
This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
The author of "The Land Aflame", Walt Drannan, has a BA in Art, a BA in English, with a writing emphasis, and a minor in French. He also holds a BA in History, with a minor in Humanities. These degrees were a granted "Cum Laude." Additional study has been had at the Heatherly School in London, England, L'Academie de la Grande Chumiere in Paris, France, and Manchester College of the University of Oxford, England.
Drannan has, for the past ten years been a writer, illustrator, and is presently the editor of a monthly tabloid called "Young at Heart" published by the New-Press Newspaper of St. Joseph, Missouri.
To tell the truth, it was with a sense of obligation to read a locally written book rather than seeking something interesting, that I began to read "The Land Aflame" by Walt Drannan. Walt served for many years as an official with the St Joseph Grain Exchange before he retired. He is the editor of "Young at Heart", the monthly senior-oriented tabloid published by the News Press.
Was I ever surprised? The Drannan book turned out to be excellent. It found me reading rapidly, but carefully, so I could find out what was happening on the next page. The novel had everything: history, romance, war, sex and suspense. And it winds up with a surprise ending.
A tale of the Civil War that tore Missouri into two factions, even pitting brother against brother, the novel reflects much research and considerable writing ability.
My reaction is that the book would make an excellent two-part television drama or a first-rate motion picture.
—Fred Slater, retired editor, St. Joseph News-Press, St. Joseph, Missouri 4/5/02
The work is written omnisciently with action that tends to flow between the numerous characters and locations, yet the principal male protagonist, Cole Logan, (and later his brother, Ben) is most instrumental in the movement of the plot. The story has a number of sub-plots.
The battle of Pilot Knob was a major Missouri confrontation between formal units of the North and South. Prior military action had mostly been in the form of guerrilla combat by irregular bands, many times of neighbor against neighbor within the state and across the Kansas territory and Missouri state line. It was at the battle of Pilot Knob that Cole Logan first faced the horror of war and saw his friend, Taylor Gaunt, suffer and die of wounds received during the attack on Fort Davidson.
After the fiasco at Fort Davidson, then commanded by Union General Ewing, Confederate General Price changed his plans from seizing St. Louis, which was heavily occupied by Union troops, to an advance west toward Jefferson City, the state capital. After a number of skirmishes near that city, the Confederates decided to bypass the capital since it too was heavily defended and would likely be difficult to take. General Price's brigades continued moving west taking the smaller communities and foraging in the countryside.
By this time, Cole Logan had been promoted to Sergeant and, as a scout on the headquarter's staff, was sent as a messenger to contact William Anderson, known as "Bloody Bill Anderson" to order that leader of a band of southern irregulars operating in northern Missouri, to destroy communications and bridges of the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. It was a dangerous mission for Logan but he successfully found the guerrilla band and was with them when Anderson was shot dead from the saddle by a Union patrol.
Logan managed to escape and, after a series of escapades in northern Missouri, he made his way back to his Confederate unit in time to participate in the October battles of Westport at Brush Creek and the skirmish at Mine Creek before deserting the fleeing Confederate army to make his way back to Arkansas and home.
While Price's troops were engaged in Missouri, life in Arkansas of course continued. The wounded men from the battle of Pilot Knob had been returned through Pocahontas in wagons and the names of those known to have been killed in action were printed in the account of the battle as carried in the Pocahontas Herald. It had been erroneously reported that both Cole Logan and his friend, Taylor Gaunt, had made the supreme sacrifice for the Southern cause and everyone accepted their fate as having been buried in some unmarked hero's grave in Missouri. The saddest of all were the now widow, Victoria Gaunt, and Miranda Ballard, the Baptist preacher's daughter, who expected to marry Cole Logan and who, unknown to all except Tulup, the slave, was carrying Logan's child in her womb.
Ben Logan, while he viewed the loss of his brother Cole with sadness, he had mixed feelings since now the preacher's daughter was available and seemed ready to accept the courtship which he was eager to pursue. The wooing was done and the date was set.
By this time Cole Logan had made his way across northern Arkansas and arrived home just in time to rush to the church to disrupt the wedding of Ben and Miranda. It was obvious that true love reawakened as the miracle of Cole's return from the dead swept through the congregation. A crestfallen Ben Logan recognized the situation, departed the church, returned home, packed his bag, and left to start a new life in Memphis, Tennessee, then under Union army occupation. Cole and Miranda were joined in wedlock immediately and the people of Pocahontas left the church shaking their heads in astonishment at the turn of events.
Before he left for Memphis, Ben wrote a note to Cole and the new bride, wishing them well. On impulse, he penned a note to Carole Pauli, the newspaper publisher's daughter, saying he was going to Memphis and bade her "good-bye." Carole, when she received this unexpected short letter from a young man she admired but hardly knew, experienced a strange feeling of warmth and wonder.
Upon arrival at the ferry wharf at Memphis, Ben Logan was routinely picked up for interrogation by the Union Major Devlin Armstrong Reed who was the Assistant Provost Marshall of the City of Memphis. Reed, in addition to his military duties, operated an illicit brokerage company on the side. Ills little company bought cotton and shipped the contraband north up the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. It was a profitable enterprise that bordered on the illegal, but which was tacitly sanctioned by both the North and the South.
A partner in this cotton business was a somewhat unsavory character named Homer Underwood who was employed by Allan Pinkerton's Detective Agency. Reed. really needed a trusted Southern partner to buy cheap cotton. Underwood, as a Northern Agent, was free to travel at will and could sell the bales at high prices at Evansville and Cincinnati. Ben Logan became the third partner in the arrangement and before long had become a successful cotton buyer who was thoroughly trusted and even liked, by Major Reed. Reed was disdainful of Homer Underwood, the third partner, who's social habits the Major found hard to accept. It was during his cotton-buying trips in northern Arkansas that Ben Logan found time to court and win Carole Pauli.
Underwood, the Pinkerton man, mysteriously disappeared and, after a time of absence, Major Reed cut him out of the "Rule Brokerage Company" ownership. This increased the profits shared by the two remaining partners.
With Mrs. Victoria Gaunt as chaperone, Miss Carole Pauli spent four delightful days in Memphis. The two ladies enjoyed the company of Ben Logan and the dashing Major Devlin Reed who found the widow Gaunt more than interesting. She, impressed by the officer-gentleman, reluctantly tugged her hand loose from Ws as the ladies departed in a buggy to return to Pocahontas, Arkansas.
The War of the Rebellion was about finished. The South had been shredded by a relentless grinding of the Union war machine. The revengeful period of reconstruction was about to begin.
On the 16th of June 1865, Benjamin Logan and Carole Pauli were married at Memphis, Tennessee. In attendance were the father of the bride, Victoria Gaunt and young daughter Amanda, Major Devlin Armstrong Reed, and Mr. and Mrs. Cole Logan and infantson, Ben, who had been named after his uncle.
Ben Logan expanded his brokerage business to include real estate after Victoria, and the Major found happiness with each other and moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts with their daughter Amanda.
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