At first, the regiment was assigned to a ceaseless round of guard duty at different garrison posts around the state. When they did hear the sound of enemy guns, they were always in a rear area, adding support to other units at the front.
But in 1863, the regiment at last saw action near Dover, North Carolina. The results were disastrous. In two battles just east of Kinston, the regiment was routed and it lost half of its men. It became a laughing stock among other units and its morale plummeted.
The 56th was gradually built back up to strength, but it was kept far to the rear for the rest of 1863, assigned the duty of rounding up conscripts and impressing supplies from the civilian population. The worse elements in its ranks came to the fore during this dark period and the regiment was relieved from this duty when it became evident that it was exceeding its orders. Governor Vance, in fact, threatened to call out the militia to expel them from the state!
But in 1864, things began to change. As the Confederacy weakened after Gettysburg and Vicksburg, it was no longer possible to keep unused manpower in the rear area. At the battle of Plymouth, North Carolina in April 1864, the 56th led a frontal assault on a heavily defended Union garrison and carried it -- one of the few victories the South could celebrate in 1864. Within two weeks, the regiment was on its way to Virginia.
The 56th was one of a few Confederate regiments that, in a three day and night battle, held Petersburg, Virginia against Grant's Army of the Potomac at bay until Lee could rush the Army of Northern Virginia to its assistance. The regiment played an important part in all the battles in the Richmond-Petersburg area until the end of the war. These included The Crater, Globe Tavern, Fort Stedman, Five Forks, and Sailor's Creek. And it was represented by a handful of men at Appomattox Court House.
During the last months of the war, the regiment was virtually annihilated in the final battles around Petersburg and Richmond. But in its final destruction, it found itself as a military unit -- its reason to be, as well as giving unexpectedly a final, more lasting message to modern America. And, as an added bonus, the novel describes these events that actually happened in realistic detail.
A major theme of the novel is the regiment s search for some kind of redemption or atonement. Ray shows that war brings out the worse, as well as the best in people. Atrocities were committed on both sides, but Ray demonstrates any wrong-doing is usually paid for in some way or another. He feels that the regiment, as with any military unit, was aware of right and wrong action and their the latter must be corrected in some way, at some time.
But even more, the final purpose of any action; the reason why such things as war and suffering must be experienced and endured, are questions that not only every soldier, but every citizen of the United States, then and since, have tried to answer. Why was all the devastation and loss of life in such a terrible event as the American Civil War necessary?
ACROSS THE DARK RIVER provides some interesting answers to these questions and does so in the words of participants themselves. Ray points out that "In a very real sense, the war is not over. Many of the issues that were first raised then have still not been settled. National unity, race relations, even the place women in professions -- every issue. we have now, they had then. Achieving equality is an on-going struggle."
The experience of Blacks in the war is also covered, not only in the Union Army, but also in the Confederate Army. Ray demonstrates sensitivity and pride in the contributions of Black Americans on both sides of the conflict. One of the novel's most reassuring qualities is the honest, but positive and conciliatory light in which race relations in both the Old South and modern America are addressed. The novel is a superb contribution to modern historical fiction. Characters are not only historical figures, but emerge in the book as flesh-and-blood human beings caught up in the drama of the moment, The action is not only realistic and graphic, but historically accurate as well. One reviewer stated that it is the most accurate writing on the war that he has encountered, adding it appears to have been written by a veteran of the war. Written in the present tense, the reader has the unique experience of knowing almost at first hand.
Ray uses the record of this unit to examine the personal experiences of historical characters in the war and the dominant issues that the war addressed and left for future generations to resolve. What I had tried to do Ray says, was to recreate a lost period of American history in the words and experiences of the men and women who lived it and to demonstrate that their experience still has relevance to the modern world. Almost every character actually existed; almost every incident in the novel actually occurred. In a very real sense, they tell the story. I was only the bearer of their ordeal.
