The Awful Immediacy of War On One’s Very Doorstep

“You’ve written a vivid and powerful book,” Tony Earley told me, “one you were meant to write.”

It took a while to realize this. I wasn’t particularly interested in Civil War history, even when it was right under my nose. In my mind, Civil War novels were mostly about battles—and I like writing about people. 

Oh, I knew about the Shelton Laurel Massacre. I’d seen the historical marker many times; I’d walked through the house in Marshall, North Carolina, where the commanding officer of the troops responsible for the Massacre had lived—the same house that had been ransacked by men from Shelton Laurel.

I knew the basic facts: During the Civil War, thirteen men and boys, suspected of supporting the Union, were captured by Confederate forces and shot by a firing squad. What some called a justifiable wartime action, is remembered around here, as a massacre. And the ensuing enmity between divided local inhabitants gave my county a nickname it still bears—Bloody Madison. 

It wasn’t until the election of 2012, as our country became more and more polarized, that the awful immediacy of war on one’s very doorstep, seemed sadly relevant. I began to plan a book, not about battles but about people—good, well-meaning people—caught up on both sides of a deadly conflict. 

Though Civil War history had never been of particular interest to me, I began to realize that there was a novel waiting to be written, right here under my nose—historical fiction, not a mystery like my previous books.

Research revealed a compelling story. In 1861, voters in Marshall, county seat and home to the more affluent, slave-holding citizens, backed secession. The non-slaveholding farmers of Shelton Laurel opposed secession but were prevented from voting. Some entered the Union Army, many stayed home, violently resisting conscription by the Confederates. When salt was declared a vital resource, the Laurelites were not allowed to purchase any. And salt was necessary to preserve a family’s meat. In early January of 1863, a force of fifty-some men, most of them Laurelites on leave from the Union army, rode into Marshall. They raided the town’s salt repository and went on to ransack stores and houses, including that of Colonel Allen, pounding up the stairs to rip the blankets from the beds where the colonel’s children lay desperately ill with scarlet fever.

Soon, a troop of Confederate soldiers from Allen’s command made its way to the Laurel Valley in search of the perpetrators of the raid. Women were tortured in a vain effort to make them tell where their men were hiding. At last, thirteen random men and boys were rounded up—most of them probably not a part of the raid on Marshall. Told they would be taken to Tennessee for trial, they were housed overnight in a nearby cabin. The following day they would be marched a few miles away and shot—the Shelton Laurel Massacre.

Determined to use multiple voices in my telling of the story—voices from both sides of the conflict—I chose three historical figures from among the Confederates—Colonel Allen, his wife, Polly, and Colonel Keith, the officer commanding the firing squad. From the people of Shelton Laurel, I picked Marthy White, described in the records as ‘an idiot girl.’ She was one of the women tortured, but I could find nothing more about her. So I felt free to improvise and made her, not an idiot, but mute. 

I interviewed an Allen descendant who showed me a pamphlet recounting Lawrence Allen’s heroic deeds. The descendant was passionate in his defense, saying that the so-called massacre was a justified military action, taken against dangerous men (yes, and boys) who had been carrying on guerilla warfare against the Confederate troops. “Nothing but a bunch of savages!” he insisted. And with that I had a line that would be used and reused in my telling. 

Colonel Keith, the officer generally held responsible for the massacre, was a bit of a puzzle to me. As I tried to humanize him, to suggest motivations for his behavior, he persisted in acting like a villain. I had been talking about my work in progress on my blog and was surprised to receive, almost like a voice from the grave, an email from a Keith descendant. She asked that I treat her ancestor fairly and noted that he had ended his days as a highly respected member of his community. 

The new information shaped my final chapters and lent an ironical twist to the fates of the two colonels.

Then I began to encounter the name Judy Shelton—still fondly remembered in Shelton Laurel as Aunt Judy or Granny Judy. Judy was nowhere in my original plan for the novel, but as I pieced together the records and stories, when I visited the site of her cabin where the captured men had spent the night and touched my hand to the chimney that is all that remains, Judy came alive and, in many ways, became the linchpin of my story. A single mother of many children, a strong-minded mountain woman, determined not to marry and so lose control of her inheritance, and the woman who, with the help of others, buried the bodies of the massacre victims.

Finally there was the fictional Sim, an unwilling conscript to the Confederate Army. There were many like him, caught up in a war they wanted nothing to do with. This fictional character gave me the freedom to pull together the various voices and turn history into a novel, depicting both the moments that divide us from one another, as well as those that heal our wounds.

I had no idea when I began what a balancing act it would prove to be—weighing the known facts against the demands of story-telling, of constructing an arc for the plot and for each character, at the same time sticking to what is known while embellishing with what might have been. And all the while, these characters were looking over my shoulder, breathing down my neck, whispering in my ear … No. that wasn’t it … Be sure to tell about … Yes, I think that’s close …

I listened to those voices. And now I hope they’re all satisfied—Polly and Lawrence Allen, James Keith, Marthy and Sim. And especially Judy.

About the author

Vicki Lane has lived on a mountain farm in Madison County, North Carolina, since 1975. Her novels include Signs in the Blood, four other Elizabeth Goodweather Mysteries, The Day of Small Things, and her new historical novel, And the Crows Took Their Eyes.

Her work has been praised for authentic dialogue, evocative detail, and rich, clear, intelligent writing, capturing the essence of the Carolina mountains and their people.

Vicki teaches with the Great Smokies Writing Program (UNC-Asheville.) and leads writing workshops at various venues.