There Was a Time: A Civil War Romance

By: Kenneth Neff Hammontree

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Synopsis: [from the back cover] "The Civil War was a time of great tragedy for the United States--and great drama. Kenneth Hammontree, in this second printing of There Was a Time, focuses on a small but poignant story from the pivotal Battle of Gettysburg. Mary Virginia "Jennie" Wade was helping her mother make bread in her sister's little brick house. Right in the midst of the fighting for Gettysburg, she was struck down by a Confederate sharpshooter's bullet. Unknown to Jennie, her childhood sweetheart, Corporal Jack Skelly, was at that very hour suffering with wounds inflicted during the battle of Carters Woods, from which he would soon die. Author Hammontree shows us the thoughts and feelings of Jennie, Jack, and their families on those fateful days of June and July 1863. We see the full bloom of love between the ill-fated pair, their tentative plans for the future amid the destruction and uncertainty of war, and the reactions of the people around them. Kenneth Hammontree captures precisely the combination of excitement and the dread that overcame Gettysburg and its inhabitants, making us feel as if we were actually there. And finally, he has given us a fictionalized version of Jack's farewell letter to Jennie written in the hospital and lost during the Battle of Gettysburg. All told, There Was A Time is an educational and touching experience not to be missed by any discerning reader."