Evelyn Byrd

Chapter 2: Preface

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About This Book

Set during the closing years of the Civil War, the narrative follows Virginian families and soldiers confronting the slow erosion of their world as battles, raids, and privations consume estates and livelihoods. Central figures include a cultured artillery captain, his quick-thinking aide, and a young woman whose private writings and choices reveal inner courage. Episodes range from artillery actions and burned barns to trench life, starvation, nights of vigil, and domestic reckonings. Themes examine endurance under loss, the conflict between duty and preservation of memory, and how personal loyalty and love persist amid communal collapse.

Preface

THIS book is the third and last of a trilogy of romances. In that trilogy I have endeavoured to show forth the character of the Virginians—men and women.

In “Dorothy South” I tried to show what the Virginians were while the old life lasted—“before the war.”

In “The Master of Warlock” I endeavoured faithfully to depict the same people as they were during the first half of the Civil War, when their valour seemed to promise everything of results that they desired. In “Evelyn Byrd” I have sought to show the heroism of endurance that marked the conduct of those people during the last half of the war, when disaster stared them in the face and they unfalteringly confronted it.

GEORGE CARY EGGLESTON.