Historical fiction, as the title clearly states, combines history, which is factual, and fiction, which is an product of imagination. The two don’t always coexist peacefully. An Uncertain Peace
I began reading books about the period and joined the Atlanta History Center. Franklin Garrett’s
As someone who has studied a great deal of history and who, by his very nature sees the past in human terms, I am drawn to what happens after the fighting ends. That is when I find things get interesting. Very often, wars utterly transform the social structure of the antagonists. Life is never the same afterward. So it was after the American Civil War. How fundamental the changes were can be summed up by noting that before the war one would say, “The United States are…”. The emphasis was on pluralism. After the war, the phrase became, “The United States is…”. The emphasis had changed to unity. That happened in four short years.
Thinking about the Civil War era led me to Reconstruction Atlanta.