The creation of the book began in 1995, when I was given one of the best opportunities of my life. A colleague of mine gave me three diaries of a Civil War soldier that had never been transcribed. As a Southerner I was a bit taken aback that the soldier was from New Jersey. A knew little or nothing about the Union side of the war and not much more about the Confederacy. Growing up in the South, I steered away from something that I thought permeated our society. I have a degree in history but my area of expertise was British history.

However, what historian could turn down such an opportunity? Besides, my husband at the time was from New Jersey so I felt some sort of connection. So I embarked on the project.

I became totally consumed by the soldier, Eugene Forbes. His diaries were complete and detailed. The horror of a war that killed over 600,000 men finally came home to me.

The battles that he fought and the prison camps he resided just resonated with me. In part, because he seemed to hold no real resentment toward the South. His main reason for fighting was to keep the country unified. He rarely complained about the South, in fact most of his complaints were about the North and what seemed to him a disregard for the soldiers.

His diaries are glimpses into the war which are not laden with attacks but true observation.

I have tried in the novel to describe and engage the reader in the things that Eugene witnessed. He left many things mysterious about his own life which I have tried to incorporate into the book. I used the best research material I could to handle those things.

In part, as I have been told, I fell a bit in love with Eugene Forbes. Transcribing his diaries changed my life. I hope the same will happen with others and open the public’s eyes to a war that made this country the strong and powerful one that it has become.

In order to make these diaries and time relevant, the novel is set in modern day Charleston, SC. The heroine time travels back in time with the ghost and tries to make sense of a bloody past that still sometimes haunts us today.