Posts Tagged ‘McClellan’

I can’t speak for others who write historical fiction, but I have developed a philosophy in plot and characters.  I personally do not want to distort history, even in a novel.  As a historian, I believe that to be a disservice to history and to the reader.

Flying under the radar means to me that you try diligently not to change any major part of history by remaining below the flow of recorded events and characters.  This is especially difficult when some of your characters are real historical figures, and you are giving them life and dialogue.  It is, however, possible if you remain steadfast to that historic flow.

I try to create a group of fictional characters who carry the story as heros, villlians, or participants in the action, then I weave them in with real people of the time.  The story takes place at a level beneath the actual historical line, the radar if you will.  Ian Carlyle, for instance, isn’t a general or a major politician.  He’s a company commander or staff officer (First book in Ian Carlyle Series, Follow Me to Glory), a British observer on McClellan’s staff, or a military liaison officer at the British legation (Second book in the series, The Gettysburg Conspiracy)  - all minor positions in the big historical picture.

Latest Release by Will Hutchison

The Gettysburg Conspiracy is a perfect example of my point.  It is a story about a fictitious assassination attempt on Abraham Lincoln.  We know there were such threats and attempts.  The story is thus plausible.  We know he had terrible security in Washington and when he traveled.  We know he went to Gettysburg for the address.  We know his bodyguard, Ward Hill Lamon, was concerned for his safety in Gettysburg.  Thus, the story is even more plausible.

Could it have happened?  We know it fails, but how does it fail?  How does the hero foil the plot?  Who are the bad guys?  What will happen to them?

Someone much better at this than me once said something like -”fiction is drama, and drama is conflict.”  Even if you know the end, you can create drama within the tale.  After all, in most crime dramas, the bad guy inevitably gets caught.  We all know that.  The questions are who is he, how does he get caught, who catches him, and am I, the reader, invested in the characters – both good guys and bad guys.  In historical fiction you can add more questions:  Is the story historically believable?  Could it have happened?  Is the background and setting authentic and plausible?  Is the dialogue real for the historic period?

Some time as Lincoln rode back to DC from Gettysburg by train, Ward Hill Lamon might have quietly whispered to him, “Say, Abe, there was an attempt to assassinate you back there in Gettysburg.  Not to worry, we took care of it.”  Lincoln might nod his head and resume looking out the train window as it rolled east toward Washington.  Thus, below the radar of history … a minor footnote at best, yet a good story when you’re hip deep in the middle of it.

Map of Site of Gettysburg Address as drawn by the conspirators - Map by Curt Musselman

Ian Carlyle, surrounded by scenes from The Gettysburg Conspiracy - Sketch by Peter Culos

The first in the Ian Carlyle Series.

What on earth possessed me, a Yank, to write for my debut novel a book about the Crimean War, a very British war – not well known in the US.  Actually it didn’t start out that way. My original thought was to write about British observers in the American Civil War on General McClellan’s staff. There were about a dozen of them.

I began writing about these Civil War observers, but it soon dawned on me that they received their combat experience, and became the fine officers they were, in the Crimea, six years before our Civil War. I decided that the setting for the first novel must be the Crimea. I would bring my characters into the American Civil War in the sequel. The Crimean War then became my passion, my obsession, if you will.

Through the next three years of research I made numerous visits to the UK, and two trips to the Crimean battlefields.  After a ton of hours at the Scots Guards archives at Wellington Barracks, London; Eton College; and various amazingly beautiful places in Scotland; I finally felt I could put pen to paper … or more precisely finger to keyboard.

Actually, people know more about the Crimean War than they may realize. For instance, the Charge of the Light Brigade – Florence Nightingale, the lady with the lamp – the ‘Thin Red Line’. These all came out of the Crimean War. It took place at the height of the reign of Queen Victoria, and was primarily fought on the Western coast of the Crimean peninsula (present day the Ukraine), between 1854, and 1856.

The war’s origins are shrouded in political mystery and intrigue, ranging from somewhat bogus religious reasons to the expansionist doctrine of the Russian Czar, Nicholas I, in an effort to gain free access (A warm water port)  between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. The spark which caused the feces to hit the fan was when Russia invaded the then Ottoman (Turkish) Empire.

Britain and France, the most unlikely of bedfellows, came to Turkey’s aid, supported by Sardinia. Although a Turkish Army basically forced Russia back across her borders, the people and governments of Britain and France felt strongly that Russia needed to be taught a lesson. Thus in September 1854, a combined allied army landed on the Crimean peninsula. Their mission was to capture Sevastopol and sink the Russian Black Sea fleet harbored there.  Their long term strategic goal was to stop Russia from ever again entertaining ideas of expansion in the Mediterranean.

The Russians sunk a major part of their own fleet to block the harbor to British and French ships, and it took the allied army, at great cost, the next two years to ‘capture’ Sevastopol. In the end, the Russians merely evacuated the city in good order, and left it to the British and French.

I think a writer must follow his instincts and above all his passion. I guess my original intent was that “Follow Me to Glory” would be a prequel to the major American Civil War work, but as I researched and wrote, Ian Carlyle’s owing up adventures and his Crimean combat experiences took on their own character and importance.  Thus, it is a prequel in the sense that it is the first in the Ian Carlyle Series, where his character comes of age as a man, then as an officer in the caldron of war.  The sequel, “The Gettysburg Conspiracy,” brings Ian Carlyle, now a seasoned veteran, into the American Civil War. There will also be at least a third in the Ian Carlyle series. I am determined, however, that each book will be of equal importance, and each will stand alone as a story in itself.

I did ponder the idea of making the setting for the series in a different era, but there is such a strong connection and impact between the Crimean War and our Civil War (only a few years apart) that I doubt there is any other period or set of wars which would so readily lend themselves to my vision.

I have always been mesmerized by this simpler Victorian age. Where they were more gentle and genteel among themselves, yet still using terribly blunt linear tactics when throwing armies at one another head-on. The lines drawn in cultural values, and in war, seem to me clearer than more recent conflicts. Of course, there’s that passion of mine for the 19th century. I couldn’t very well ignore that, could I?