Alemeth

The 2017 historical novel Alemeth won critical praise for its lifelike rendering of the American South in the Civil War, focusing on the life of John Alemeth Byers, son of a wealthy cotton planter, who became a private in the 17th Mississippi Infantry. This work includes the entire novel, then adds nearly a hundred and fifty pages of Historical Notes documenting the facts behind the story, including historical information on the cotton plantation of Amzi Walton Byers, his family and his sixty slaves (including the young Gilbert, who accompanied Byers to the battle lines); on the early history of Ole Miss, its Trustee Colonel James Brown, and its President Frederick Barnard; on Sand Springs Presbyterian Church in Orwood, now on the National Register of Historic Places; and on Howard Falconer and the Oxford Intelligencer. It includes the text of sixteen wartime letters written home by Byers from the front in Virginia. (Byers fought in the Seven Days Campaign, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, and Cold Harbor before being killed at the battle of Cedar Creek.) The wide array of historical characters who became a part of the story also include the preacher Lyman Beecher, the Confederate spy Jacob Thompson, the slave Dred Scott, and Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant. 551 pages. Biographical sketches, illustrations, graphics, photographs, source citations.