Another Newspaper Interview!

Man Authors Novel On Black Civil War Regiment

By Jeff Mellott

Luray resident Kelly O'Grady's recently published novel, "Soldiers Just Like You," highlights the Civil War's 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment, the most famous black Civil War regiment.

LURAY - The 1989 film "Glory" rekindled interest in the story of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, the most famous black regiment that fought during the Civil War.

The film ends with the regiment's failed attack on Fort Wagner at Charleston, S.C., in July 1863.

Now, Kelly O'Grady, 52, of Luray, has based his latest novel, "Soldiers Just Like You," on the regiment and the largely forgotten trial of the black soldiers who were captured during the battle.

O'Grady's book follows the 54th Massachusetts and the Irish immigrants with whom they clashed at Fort Wagner, which covered the entrance to Charleston harbor from its location on Morris Island.

The 54th's courage during the battle helped demonstrate the fighting ability of blacks.

The regiment suffered 272 casualties, or 45 percent of the 600 men who charged the fort.

Not only did the Massachusetts regiment face combat, the soldiers also fought under the Confederate threat to treat captured black soldiers as runaway slaves. If captured, black soldiers faced being forced into slavery or execution for servile insurrection.

"Soldiers Just Like You," self-published last year and available in paperback at Amazon.com for $14.99, is O'Grady's second book.

In 2000, he published his first book, "Clear the Confederate Way: The Irish in the Army of Northern Virginia."

O'Grady, in explaining what interested him in writing about the events at Fort Wagner, said he's always sympathized with underdogs. During the Civil War, the Irish and other immigrants faced discrimination in both North and South.

"Wagner is an interesting battle, as it has two minorities fighting each other," O'Grady said.

Family

O'Grady's interest in the Irish comes from his family heritage.

Growing up in the Richmond area, he studied history at the College of William & Mary. After graduating in 1983, O'Grady began working as a journalist, eventually becoming a managing editor of weekly newspapers.

He left the newspaper business to take a job with the National Park Service, where he served as a ranger at the Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park.

O'Grady moved to the Shenandoah Valley last year after his wife, Krista, who also works for the National Park Service, was transferred to Luray. They have a 5-year-old son, Rory, and a 2-year-old daughter, Darby.

First Novel

Of late, O'Grady has dedicated more time to writing.

Because of the scarcity of records and his desire to have more literary freedom, O'Grady decided to write a novel instead of a nonfiction history.

His research for the novel included visits to Charleston and the grave sites of some of the people he fictionalizes in his book.

O'Grady said he drew his inspiration for the novel from the film "Glory."

But, unlike the film, the story doesn't end with the battle at Fort Wagner. Instead, O'Grady explores the subsequent civilian court prosecution of the captured black soldiers, who were put on trial for servile insurrection.

With Union warships bombarding Charleston during the trial, the court acquitted the black soldiers.

O'Grady found the court case and its outcome remarkable for Civil War Charleston.

"The whole thing is unbelievable looking back on it," he said.

The verdict did not free the men. Instead, Confederate authorities treated the captured blacks like other soldiers, and they were taken to prisoner-of-war camps, O'Grady said.

Author Interview: Soldiers Just Like You

People always want to know how an author gets an idea to write about a particular subject. Here's some information about the origins of Soldiers Just Like You.

An interview about Soldiers Just Like You with Kelly O’Grady

Q: What inspired you to write this book?
A: The story in Soldiers is a natural sequel to the story told in the movie Glory. My research for another book I wrote called Clear the Confederate Way about the Irish in the Confederate army was the first spark for the book. Glory of course was a great movie about the charge of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry on Battery Wagner in the summer of 1863. In Glory the men defending the fort, a massive sand rampart on Morris Island, South Carolina, are as faceless and nameless as the storm troopers in Star Wars. My research told me that the defenders of the fort were soldiers just like the men of the 54th. In fact many of them were Irishmen from Charleston, the Irish Volunteers. That unit has a grand history, a unique monument with Ireland’s Lady of the Harp rising out of a Palmetto tree. That strange juxtaposition of symbols—you’ll only find that in Charleston. It’s in the Saint Lawrence Cemetery there—the Catholic cemetery. I felt the Irish Volunteers deserved to have their story told. But that spark took me to a whole other level when I realized what happened after the battle.

Q: So Soldiers is a military book?
A: Not at all. It’s really a courtroom drama. You see Glory also left out probably the most interesting part of the 54th’s history. Sixty black soldiers were captured in the battle and put on trial in Charleston that fall. They were charged with being slaves in insurrection and if convicted they could be executed or sent back into slavery. In a nod to the Constitution, the state appointed them lawyers and set a jury trial.

Q: This all really happened?
A: Yes, it’s part of the record, but there’s not much left of the trial, since Charleston was partially burned in 1865. We do know that one of the POWs’ lawyers was Edward McCrady, a Confederate colonel from Charleston and another civilian attorney, a man named Nelson Mitchell, who everyone at the time considered a joke for a lawyer. The book is well-researched. I was a historian with the National Park Service for ten years. I hope readers appreciate how the story sticks to the historical record. I think it’s authentic in its language and dialogue. I wanted to put the reader right back in the middle of the siege of Charleston.

Q: Knowing what we know about South Carolina during the war, it’s seemed like a forgone conclusion that the soldiers of the 54th would be convicted.
A: I’m sure that’s what the authorities thought. But they didn’t reckon with Nelson Mitchell, who I think is the real hero of this story. He would have to convince an all white jury, some of them slaveowners, that these black men were soldiers and not slaves. Remember, the 54th were the first black fighting unit in the war, and some of them became the first black POWs. You have to imagine that the Confederate authorities wanted to make an example of them, and the pressure on the jury to convict must have been enormous.

Q: It does sound like quite a story. Without giving too much away, how does the trial proceed?
A: There are a lot of surprises during the trial. Twists and turns of fate that the reader will not see coming. A Marian apparition plays a part in it, for instance, and a pathological prison warden creates quite a scene.

Q: It sounds like the story rests not only on historical fact, but well-drawn, interesting characters.
A: It’s almost unbelievable how many important figures of the war end up in Charleston during this period. Clara Barton, Harriet Tubman, were both there. PGT Beauregard is the Confederate commander. One of his deputies, Thomas Jordan, is from Luray, the town where I live. The commander of Fort Wagner is General William Taliaferro, a man who went to my college, William and Mary, and has a building there named after him. Of course, the commander of the 54th, Robert Gould Shaw, was killed in the battle. The sons of Frederick Douglass were there as was John Mitchel, the son of the Irish patriot. Of course I mix in numerous fictitious characters like Slim John Sweeney and the lovely Carmen Vezelay.

Q: Sounds like there’s romance among the cannon fire?
A: Absolutely. Not to glorify war, but the Civil War is probably the most romantic period in this country’s history. There is romance between some characters, but the real romance of Soldiers Just Like You is in the heroic stories on both sides. The black soldiers whom the trial revolves around, their lawyers, some of the Confederate soldiers and their families and sweethearts, the whole Charleston community. The story is a sweeping narrative wrapped around the beautiful city of Charleston and it encompasses what is happening on both sides of the battle line, in the city as the civilians try to cope with the Union siege and on the battlefields as Union and Confederate, black and white are swept up in the maelstrom of the war.

Q: You said you wanted to tell the story of both sides. Can you tell us about some of the heroes?
A: The main hero on the Union side is a soldier named Reuben Jeffries. He was twelve in 1863, a member of the 54th and a defendant in the trial. He is still alive in 1961 and tells the story in a flashback. He still bears a bayonet scar from the battle. He tells an audience of history buffs celebrating the centennial of the war: “I knew I won’t no angel. I always knew I was just a man. A soldier as brave or stupid as any fightin’ man who ever lived. Problem was them Rebels had to be taught that part. That I was a man-a soldier just like them.” That sets the tone of the book. Another hero is Captain William Ryan, the commander of the Irish Volunteers. He exemplifies the meaning of heroic duty. A hero isn’t a baseball player or a popular singer, like we think of today. A hero fulfills his duty even when he knows he will die trying. The ancient Greeks, the 54th Massachusetts, the Irish Volunteers understood what a hero is and knew what was expected of them. Mary Nora Ryan, Captain Ryan’s wife describes her husband as “so handsome, so brave, so holy.” The Ryans are devout Catholics. He is a shipping executive in civilian life, but comes to the defense of Charleston when the war starts. His religion is central to his story and his heroism.

Soldiers Just Like You by Kelly O’Grady. A great book to read in the sesquicentennial of the Civil War.

Book Spot on WHSV-3 Transcript

Luray Author Sheds Light on Civil War Soldiers
Luray, Va.

An author living in Luray has released a new book about some of the black men who fought for the Union in the Civil War.

"It shows that both sides had good people that were willing to do the right thing when it came down to it and both sides had bad people too," says Kelly O'Grady.

O'Grady's book, "Soldiers Just Like You," picks up where the movie "Glory" leaves off after the first black prisoners of war were captured by the Confederacy in South Carolina.

Even in the Confederacy, the 60 black men captured were put on trial, which O'Grady says is one of the most important trials in the nation's history.

"It was an important sort of civil rights trial and I think that Martin Luther King taught us that the rule of law is really important and that we can change things by peaceful and by lawful means if a society adheres to the rule of law," says O'Grady.

He explains blacks did fight on both sides during the war, but he says a lot fewer fought for the South and they often only joined the Confederate soldiers because they were promised their freedom.

"It's not a moral equivalent at all that blacks fought for both the North and the South. It's not the same thing at all," says O'Grady.

His book is historical fiction because he says many of the court records were lost in fires and he felt it was the best way to portray the scene.

"I decided to really capture the emotion of the moment and I needed to do it as a fictional treatment and not just as a historian," explains O'Grady.

Well Researched Novel Entertains and Educates

Clarion Reviews has released a Five Star review of Soldiers Just Like You.

Author Kelly J. O'Grady puts faces and personalities to individual soldiers in this historical novel that is based on the true story of the 54th Massachusetts, the Union's first Negro unit of the Civil War.

On a stage in Charelston's Hibernian Hall, the 110-year-old Reuben Jeffries, a 54th Massachusetts veteran and the only living survivor of the battle, shares his memories of those long-ago events with reporter Rory Ryan and the Irish-American audience.

The reader meets soldiers from both the North and the South as events and skirmishes lead up to the famous Battery Wagner battle in Charleston in July 1863. Whether it's the Irish Confederate Volunteers in Charleston, the 54th Massachusetts, President Lincoln's advisors or the military leaders, the author personalizes the war.

The stories are interwoven with battle scenes, strategies and historical figures. On all sides, the characters' dialogue gives the reader insight into their reasons for fighting. Crisp, believable dialogue paces the story, the progress of the war, and the political climate. O'Grady reveals men's character, their fears and hatreds, and their honor and bravery through their actions and dialogue.

When white attorney Nelson Mitchell stops to talk to Uncle "Unc" Silas, a black shoeshine man, their conversation sums up the times. Nelson tells Unc he's defending a young man. Unc replies," Unc likes how you say that so easy and kind...You call this Liberty Town niggah a man, just like that. I ain't ever heard a white man refer to a Negro as a man."

The reader meets Harriet Tubman, Clara Barton, Frederick Douglass and President Lincoln, as well as other historical figures. O'Grady's authenticity of time and place, attention to detail, knowledge of weapons and battles, legal ramifications and courtroom procedures demonstrates a well-researched project.

After weeks of digging latrines for the white soldiers, the men of the 54th anxiously await orders to fight. When they charge the island, casualties are high. The 54th breaches the wall of the fort but loses Colonel Shaw in the battle. Reuben is among the sixty black men taken prisoner by members of the Irish brigade.

From jail to prison to the courtroom, four black soldiers face a decision that not only determines their fate; it will determine the future of the other black prisoners and black men in the military.

Author Kelly O'Grade is a native of Richmond, Virginia, and a historian. This is his second book about the Civil War.

Replete with details of everyday life, the plot flows smoothly as history, war, and personal lives intertwine. O'Grady combines well-researched facts with storytelling to produce a historical novel that entertains and educates.

Pat Avery

I Don't Believe In Suspension of Disbelief

Good historical fiction shouldn't require the reader to suspend disbelief. It seems to be all the rage now for writers to rely on fantasy to hook an audience. Time travel, reincarnation, the acquisition of super powers all seem to creep into many forms of popular entertainment.

When I taught 12-year-olds, one of the hardest concepts to get across to them was the very finite line between fantasy and reality. They have grown up believing that anything was possible because they had seen all manner of things happen in a movie. The hero with a handgun who can wing the bad guy in the shoulder from 100-yards. Space travel that has no limit and no fuel or oxygen concerns. Time travel that doesn't create jet lag or even swelling feet. They've seen it all with their own eyes.

One can punch a button on YouTube right now and find "authentic" moving pictures taken during the Civil War. These are modern films of course, that cinematic giants have "distressed" to look like old films with no disclaimers. A cursory search though would easily turn up that even the most primitive motion picture camera wasn't invented until 1878. But YouTubers aren't the most curious bunch. Like many of us, they operate in an almost perpetual state of suspension of disbelief. The comments with the video prove that many people, and not just 12-year-olds, take for granted that there are "home movies" of the Civil War. There are arguments about whether the videos are "real." Or complaints. Why aren't they in HD?! What great fun.

But real life is entertaining too. That's why I think that good historical fiction should take a reader back to the time where the story occurs. An author needs to make every effort to immerse himself and the reader into the past. The culture, the social norms, the way people talk, the everyday technology must be authentic. Every anachronism must be guarded against. The quickest way to ruin historical fiction is a mistake of fact where the reader either must ignore the mistake-suspend disbelief-or fling the offending tome away in disgust.

Preview Friday

In the new version of True Grit, a nice remake of the original by the way, the Texas Ranger LeBoeuf mentions that he was "with Kirby Smith in the Army of Northern Virginia." Why wasn't LeBoeuf right about serving with Kirby Smith in the ANV?

While Edmund Kirby Smith did fight in Virginia early on, (He was wounded as a brigade commander at 1st Manassas.) he left the Confederate army in the east before it became known as the Army of Northern Virginia. Generally that name wasn't used until R.E.Lee took command during the Seven Days Campaign in June 1862. By then Smith was invading Kentucky. Also by this time there were Texas troops in the ANV. Hood's Brigade contained the only Texans in the ANV, presumably where LeBoeuf would have served.

I wish producers, directors, writers, or even actors would research such things. I think Civil War fiction needs to get factual things like this right. Make up the plot, the characters, the setting, but if you mention historical fact, make sure it squares with the record.

Kirby Smith was an interesting fellow even so. A West Point graduate, he taught Mathematics there, fought in the Mexican War and on the Indian frontier. He served as a botanist on the Mexican Boundary Commission and while convalescing after Bull Run married the girl who made him a shirt on the joking promise that whoever made the garment would get the handsome colonel who went with it. They had 11 children. Smith basically ran his own war in the Trans-Mississippi, even appointing his own subordinate generals. At the end of the war, he surrendered the last Confederate force in the field and fled to Mexico and then Cuba. He returned to the states and became president of the University of Nashville and later taught at the University of the South. LeBoeuf could only hope for half as much adventure.

Fridays seem like a good day to preview worthy fiction offerings. Here's an excerpt, the beginning of Soldiers Just Like You. A 54th Massachusetts veteran talks about his part in the assault at Battery Wagner, the famous scene that ends the movie Glory.

Prologue: Centennial Hero

March 17, 1961-Hibernian Hall, Charleston, South Carolina

I saw a black-haired boy run along the Morris Island beach today. A rising wind off the Atlantic brought it all back to me. The ground shook and I staggered up the strand. Black men and white horses parted heavy salt surf. Booming shot and shell deafened me, but I saw the silent splashes. Out of the dark night, the rebel fort glowed in the distance and we kept moving, five thousand Union soldiers as one. It was a race now--a race to certain death. On this journey, immortal freedom would take the place of earthly bondage. That was what we wished for, the best we could hope for. And then the enemy cannons found us on the naked beach and an explosion raked our column. Blood and brains and flesh splattered across my face, the body and blood of a black man, an offering to other black men. His death seemed an act of freedom. Joining the army and fighting was the one free thing many of us had ever done. We kept going forward, frightened but determined to see an end to this.

The Rebel rifles opened on us as we neared the sand walls and more of us dropped like black birds on a field of seed. But on and on we galloped. We knew it was a matter of simple time now. Running, running like a wave of black avengers. God was with us or we would soon be with Him. The flashes of instant death along the Confederate line lighted our way, sucking us in like moths to a bloody flame. Men were screaming, their white teeth flashing fear in the darkness. Another line of cannons ignited in our front not thirty yards away and I watched a hundred men simply disappear, their entire earthly being ground to bloody pink mist. And still we stormed onward ‘til we reached the sloping walls of the fort and stopped. A moment for prayer, some wide-eyed glances at fellow survivors, and then we climbed those sandy ramparts like a host of holy angels rising up to heaven!

Reuben Jeffries, his voice fairly booming now, suddenly stopped his battle narrative and the air wheezed out of him in a deadpan chuckle. “It seemed that way at the time anyway.” He continued quietly. “But I knew I won’t no angel. I always knew I was just a man. A soldier as brave or stupid as any fightin’ man who ever lived. Problem was them Rebels had to be taught that part. That I was a man--a soldier just like them.”

Civil War Fiction at 150 Years

There is alot out there about the American Civil War, by some accounts one of the most written about events in world history. This year we commemmorate the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the conflict. It’s not a celebration as some are already mistating. I don’t think we want to celebrate the most costly war in American history. But we certainly need to remember it and learn from it.

There are already many Civil War sites out there, but few deal with the rich collection of fictional writings based on the war. That’s what this blog will be about.

As with anything, when we talk about Civil War fiction, there is the good, the bad and the ugly. There’s some really bad, bad stuff out there. And the more you know about the facts of the war, its people, its time, the more you gag on the bad. The worst is probably what is often portrayed by Hollywood. More of that  in a later post.

Much Civil War fiction is based on or has grown out of Margaret Mitchell’s classic, Gone With The Wind, which in  today’s world seems dated, racist, or just plain wrong. But like it or not it was the single most important piece of Civil War fiction ever written. Almost every bit of Civil War fiction written today seems to flow from GWTW, for good or bad. More on that later too.

I have just completed my own fictional book on the war, Soldiers Just Like You, based on the true story of a trial of black soldiers  of the 54th Massachusetts captured during the Battle of Battery Wagner. If you’re familiar with the film Glory, you know about the 54th and its attack on a Confederate island fortress. The movie did a pretty good job with the military story, though the attack proceeds in the WRONG DIRECTION! Where was the Historical Consultant, where was the director’s head?  How about looking at a map?

Anyway the 54th was the Union’s famous black regiment and while the attack and its sacrifice was important, a better story is what happened after the battle, where the movie abruptly ends. When sixty of the black men were captured, South Carolina denied that they were soldiers, POWs with inherent rights, but contended they were slaves in revolt and should be executed or at least returned to slavery. A trial ensues in Charleston, but in 1863, how could black men get a fair trial in the Cradle of the Rebellion, a city under siege? Sometimes history gives fiction writers a better story than we can make up, and this certainly was a case of that. You can find the book on Amazon.com or if you want a signed copy, go to the website, SoldierJustLikeYou. com.

I feel that I have been blessed with all the talents to be a Civil War fiction writer. Those who know me know that I have a rich imagination, a keen eye cultivated as a journalist, and a good feel for human nature.I have written non-fiction books and articles about the war and worked as a professional historian interpreting some of the battles in Virginia. I feel I know the history and its times. And I had the best time writing this story, researching it as vigorously as I have my non-fiction.  I try to stay true to the historical record, and I believe I do except in the most literary sense. I don’t believe in “what if” books, where an author takes a line of history and tries to imagine how things might have turned out differently. Instead I think good Civil War fiction stays true to the basic facts and tries to show  the higher truth of the human condition. In the Civil War those higher truths include things like the commitment of those who fought for both sides, and the inherent prevailing duty and honor of the era. I believe good Civil War fiction tries to show the times as they really were where the reader gains meaningful  insight into society, politics, religion and culture.

For instance, why didn’t people smile when they sat for a picture back then? That seems so different from what we take for granted today when someone with a camera pops up. Leave aside the enormous changes in photo technology since then; they could not even imagine cell phone cameras or Scype. Oh if we only had a video of Lee and Jackson at Chancellorsville! I have seen thousands of Civil War photos, as well call them now, and never once have I seen someone saying “cheese.” Very rarely I can infer a slight smile from younger people, but I can tell they have been told not to smile and are trying not to. Why is this? Modern people want to let others know we are happy. Victorians wanted others to know they were serious, God-fearing people who should not be lightly regarded. What a difference in values Civil War society had compared to us. That’s why it’s always dangerous to judge them by our standards. It just can’t be done fairly.

      Civil War fiction, the good, the bad, the ugly. I’ll continue this discussion next time. In the meantime go see True Grit. LaBoeuf, the Texas Ranger, says he was with Kirby Smith in the Army of Northern Virginia. What’s wrong with that statement?