Publisher's Synopsis
A Michigan Yankee Marches with Sherman is a historical Civil War novel based on the life of Rufus W. Seaman, the author's great-grandfather. It gives a day-by-day account of the army's activities and hardships, but more importantly, focuses on the human dimension of the life of Rufus and his comrades who are part of the campaign--on their homesickness, their scant rations and deprivation, the arduous work that sapped their energies as they dismantled key rail lines, their heart-felt joys, and their hunger for news from home. Its central climax militarily comes when Rebel troops abandon Savannah to Union forces and General Sherman can send President Lincoln the well-known telegram presenting him the city as a Christmas gift.
But the novel is not merely a chronicle of a wartime campaign; it also describes the life of Rufus' family back home in Michigan--his young wife Sarah and small daughters, Dorothy and Lucy, as well as his extended family, as all of them anxiously look to his return home. It sensitively probes the fabric of deeply held religious faith and war's challenge to confident Christian living. The narrative is a testimony to constancy in the face of adversity--not because it lays out theoretical arguments, but because its main characters are given the grace, despite adversity, to live in the hope and confidence that their faith gives them.
Rufus' health gradually worsens as in the late winter of 1865 Sherman's army leaves Savannah and begins slogging through heavy swamps, nearly intolerable weather, and costly battles with the enemy on its march northward through the Carolinas. The Christian confidence of both Rufus and Sarah undergoes trial by fire as the days pass, but is never extinguished. The final chapters of this novel are a tribute to reconciliation and to the power of the Gospel to bring the work's main characters through suffering to quiet triumph.
