High Hearts

PRAISE FOR THE NATIONAL BESTSELLER
RITA MAE BROWN’S
HIGH HEARTS

“A vivid and soul-searing picture of the psychological effects of war on decent and intelligent human beings.… She does a splendid job on behind-the-scenes power struggles in the Confederate bureaucracy.”

—
The Washington Post Book World

“An entertaining historical tale that presents the war between men and women as a subplot to the War Between the States … Should keep readers turning pages.”

—
Ms
. magazine

Books by Rita Mae Brown

THE HAND THAT CRADLES THE ROCK
SONGS TO A HANDSOME WOMAN
THE PLAIN BROWN RAPPER
RUBYFRUIT JUNGLE
IN HER DAY
SIX OF ONE
SOUTHERN DISCOMFORT
SUDDEN DEATH
HIGH HEARTS
STARTING FROM SCRATCH:
A DIFFERENT KIND OF WRITERS’ MANUAL
BINGO
VENUS ENVY
DOLLEY: A NOVEL OF DOLLEY MADISON IN LOVE AND WAR
RIDING SHOTGUN
RITA WILL:
MEMOIR OF A LITERARY RABBLE-ROUSER
LOOSE LIPS

Also by Rita Mae Brown
with Sneaky Pie Brown

WISH YOU WERE HERE
REST IN PIECES
MURDER AT MONTICELLO
PAY DIRT
MURDER, SHE MEOWED
MURDER ON THE PROWL
CAT ON THE SCENT
SNEAKY PIE’S COOKBOOK
FOR MYSTERY LOVERS

And look for

OUTFOXED

Coming soon in hardcover from Ballantine

One of the best parts of writing a novel is thanking everyone who helped you do it. My first thank you goes to Lawrence P. Ashmead for urging me to finally get to this story. My friend Wendy Weil, who is also my agent, gave me wonderful suggestions and support.

The following people gave freely of their knowledge and time, and I am indebted to them: Larry Rumley of Seattle; Elinor S. Hearn, Librarian of the Archives of the Episcopal Church in Austin, Texas; Sarah M. Sartain, Reference Librarian at the Virginia State Library; Sharon Gibbs Thibodeau, Archivist at our National Weather Archives; Robert E. Merritt of the Richmond
Times-Dispatch;
Colonel Joseph Mitchell, author of
Decisive Battles of the Civil War;
Richard Heinz; Carol J. Nicholas, Kentucky Reference Librarian of the Lexington Public Library; Eugene Genovese, Chairman of the Department of History at the University of Rochester; Jerry L. Russell, National Chairman of the Civil War Round Table Associates; Fritz J. Malvai of the Hampton Institute; Mr. Dawson and Preston A. Coiner of Charlottesville.

Thank you to Edward Foss, Gloria Fennell, and George Barkley, also of Charlottesville, for providing me with information on foxhunting history.

The U.S. Weather Bureau, the Smithsonian Institution, the Cartographic Department of the National Archives and the fabulous Library of Congress were there when I needed them. Truly, these organizations are national treasures.

The Albemarle County Historical Society, friend to writers, historians, and the public at large, put up with me wandering in and out of their small library on Court Square.

Federal Express of Charlottesville literally kept me going.
Materials came in and materials went out at a fast clip, and I could rely on them one hundred percent.

I wish to thank Thomas Selleck for sending me the “No Negative Thinking” T-shirt which I wore while writing the novel. I also wish to thank Jan and John Alonzo for asking him to send it to me in the first place.

Muffin Spencer-Devlin, a competitor in a different discipline, cheered me on. I appreciate the assistance.

I also must thank Daniel Van Clief of Nydrie Stud whose beautiful stables, unbeknownst to him, gave me inspiration.

I send a big kiss to the city of Richmond. Here in Charlottesville if I wander through the streets or fields with binoculars, maps, and notebooks, well, they’re used to me. “There she goes again” seems to be the prevailing attitude, but in Richmond they don’t know me from a hot rock. Nonetheless, the citizens of that fascinating city were tolerant, kind, and helpful.

I am blessed to live in Albemarle County, not just because the citizens are fun-loving, but because it is a community that nurtures writers as well as other creative people. I thank everyone in my hometown.

I am also fortunate to live in a state whose first lady, Lynda Johnson Robb, cares deeply about preserving and sharing women’s history. I hope other first ladies will follow her example.

Thank you, too, to Nightcap at The Barracks. Nightcap is a school horse. His generous temperament helped me go back to the typewriter, relaxed and refreshed.

Claudia Garthwaite, my researcher and right hand, was a part-time saint and I thank her.

For those of you who write me about my cats, I pass on the sad news that Baby Jesus died on October 6, 1982, at the ripe old age of seventeen. She was followed too soon by my mother who died August 13, 1983, at the age of seventy-eight. I console myself with the knowledge that they both had good, long innings.

I still enjoy the protection of little friends, and I would like to thank my mews: Cazenovia, Sneaky Pie, Pewter, and Buddha.

Novels, like human beings, usually have their beginnings in the dark.
High Hearts,
a slight variation on this theme, was born in 1948 in blinding sunshine. My great-grandfather Huff, born in 1848 or 1849, was still alive. Breaking one hundred is not uncommon on that side of the family. He enlisted in the army at age thirteen or fourteen. In 1948 I was three and a half, so I recollect vaguely the details of his conversation. But I do recall his passionate need to tell me about the central event of his life. In this he was successful. I could not pass a battlefield without beseeching my father to take me through it. Fortunately, my father encouraged me in my pursuits. I often wonder how many times I took that poor man out of his way or made him late for an appointment. No matter, he cheerfully turned down dirt roads, put the car on the shoulder, and out we’d go to wander over pastures and through woods with our inadequate maps. Mother’s contribution was to park me in the library on Saturdays so I could ransack the sections of books devoted to the War Between the States. I have always had the strangest sensation that I was not really learning anything but rather I was being reminded of something I already knew.

When you sit down to write a novel, old research and recollections aren’t enough. You’ll find a bibliography in the back of this book should you wish to further your own studies.

Walking battlefields is more difficult than when I was a child. Some, like Manassas, are carefully preserved. Others, like the Seven Days which took place around Richmond, are not preserved and the trenches, the dead, the forests have often given way to modern needs. If you attempt to retrace
Stuart’s ride around Richmond, this will become apparent to you.

The characters in this book belong to the First Virginia Cavalry, and their actions often parallel those of the troops belonging to Colonel Fitz Lee.

For those of you who wish to read battle reports, allow me to warn you. The Union officers often did not bother to file a report if they lost a battle. They habitually inflated Confederate numbers and then screeched to President Lincoln that they needed more men. Does this sound familiar? The more things change, the more they stay the same.

The Southern officers created a variation on this theme. Their assessment of enemy numbers was usually closer to the mark, but if they did not fare well in an engagement, they wrote florid reports in which they praised their personal favorites.

Julius Caesar started the rage of congratulating one’s military exploits in print. By the time of the Civil War almost 2,000 years later, men had perfected it to an art. In reading these reports, you can immediately spot the man who has an eye to future public office. Nothing has changed there either.

You must consider anything written by a Southerner after the Civil War which attacks General Longstreet as corrupt. The fortunes of that man are too complicated to address here, but suffice it to say he was made a scapegoat and much abused by everyone except for Robert E. Lee.

This novel is written entirely from the viewpoints of Virginians. They did not think as Georgians or South Carolinians. Virginia, then as now, nurses its own peculiar vision of world events. Sometimes we are prophetic, other times dead wrong, but we are always Virginians. While I admire a novel that attempts to explain both sides of a story, that was not my intention. My concern is what happens to the main characters. You see things as they saw them. To give them credit for our world view would be a slander on them and on me.

Which brings me to the problem of slavery. No one alive knows what it is like to be a slave. We may know what it is to be downtrodden, despised, deflected, and determined to win despite the odds, but not one of us knows what it is to be owned. Since I could interview no one, I sifted through records. For the most part, the records are written by the owners of the slaves. Even after the Civil War, few former
slaves could read or write. Franklin D. Roosevelt created the WPA Program, and one of those projects enabled writers to go out and interview former slaves. These interviews, unedited, poorly typed, and of varying quality, exist in eighteen volumes. They are only available in libraries designated as Federal record depositories. Claudia Garthwaite, my researcher, and I poured over these volumes. I spent the summer of 1984 in Alderman Library at the University of Virginia reading the direct word of slaves. We also read
A Classified Catalogue of the Negro Collection
in the Huntington Library at the Hampton Institute. Aside from a few religious fanatics interviewed, volume after volume reveals individuals who could laugh at the world and themselves. Some were servile. Most were not. All were curious, caring, and filled with a rare perspective due to their phenomenal experience. What was most impressive was their ability to love and to even love and extend forgiveness to the very people who possessed them. This takes a rare spiritual courage, all the more remarkable since so many of the subjects expressed it. These people did the best they could with what they had. Do I pity them? No. I’m proud of them.