From Publishers Weekly
Opening just prior to the presidential election of 1864, Batchelor's epic novel presents a tapestry of American life during the Civil War.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
This is an unusual Civil War novel. It deals not with military campaigns or battles, but with the Confederate incendiary attack on New York City late in November 1864, and with the espionage and counterespionage activities that preceded it. As such it can be enjoyed simply as a complex cat-and-mouse tale of pursuit and evasion, of widening interlocking plots and ever-constricting suspense. But it is much more. Only Richard Slotkin's The Crater ( LJ 11/15/80) approaches the depth of its historical appreciation of the many issues involved in the war. And for Batchelor it is a war that still continues: his American Civil War is a metaphor for the civil war raging in the American soul between liberty and conscience, virtue and betrayal, greed and guilt, success and failure. This is a more traditional novel than his earlier books and is Dickensian in scope and characterization and in its compulsive readability. An exceptional work. Charles Michaud, Turner Free Lib., Randolph, Mass.
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
