The Parting: A Story of West Point on the Eve of the Civil War - Couverture rigide

Adams, Richard Barlow

 
9798986126234: The Parting: A Story of West Point on the Eve of the Civil War

Synopsis

Factually based, The Parting is a flashback story about the 50-member West Point Class of 1861 during its last year at the academy before the band of brothers is undone by disunion and confronts one another at the First Battle of Bull Run.

Framed between mid-August 1860 and late April 1861, this period-piece love story between John Pelham from Alabama and Clara Bolton from Pennsylvania is played out against the issues of slavery and states' rights, the Democrat and Republican parties, the abolitionists of the North and the fire-eaters of the South, the contentious election of Abraham Lincoln, the secession of Southern states, the resignations of Southern officers and cadets, the posturing intended to avoid war, and the surrender of Fort Sumter that dashed all hopes for peace.

In August 1860, who would have thought that the upcoming November presidential election would result in the unraveling of a nation and a war between its parts, a war that would claim more lives than all its other wars combined? THE PARTING is a factual narrative of the impulsive descent of the United States of America from peace to war from August 1860 to the First Battle of Bull Run, July 1861. It is also an epic love story of West Point cadet John Pelham from Alabama and the beautiful Philadelphian Clara Bolton, who has never seen a slave and aspires to be the country’s second female doctor.

John Pelham is a first-classman (senior) at the Academy and the most popular and gifted man in the Class of 1861. Clara is a senior at Clermont College for Women on Long Island, facing an uphill battle to become a doctor in a profession reserved for men. The story unfolds against the backdrop of West Point and interwoven themes of states’ rights, slavery, Democratic and Republican parties, abolitionists of the North, fire-eaters of the South, the election of Abraham Lincoln, the secession of Southern states, the formation of the Confederacy, the resignations of Southern cadets and officers, the posturings intended to avoid war, and the bombardment and surrender of Fort Sumter on April 14, 1861, that dashed all hopes for peace.

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