My review of The Cotillion Brigade by Glen Craney #HistoricalFiction #BlogTour #CoffeePotBookClub @glencraney @maryanneyarde

 

The Cotillion Brigade 

(A Novel of the Civil War and the Most Famous Female Militia in American History)

By Glen Craney

Georgia burns.

Sherman’s Yankees are closing in.

Will the women of LaGrange run or fight?

Based on the true story of the celebrated Nancy Hart Rifles, The Cotillion Brigade is an epic novel of the Civil War’s ravages on family and love, the resilient bonds of sisterhood in devastation, and the miracle of reconciliation between bitter enemies.

“Gone With The Wind meets A League Of Their Own.”

-- John Jeter, The Plunder Room

1856. Sixteen-year-old Nannie Colquitt Hill makes her debut in the antebellum society of the Chattahoochee River plantations. A thousand miles north, a Wisconsin farm boy, Hugh LaGrange, joins an Abolitionist crusade to ban slavery in Bleeding Kansas.

Five years later, secession and war against the homefront hurl them toward a confrontation unrivaled in American history.

Publication Date: 15th March 2021

Publisher: Brigid's Fire Press

Page Length: 399 Pages

Genre: Historical Fiction

MY THOUGHTS

All Nancy cares about is coming out into society properly, for her debut to be good enough for Brown Morgan to notice her. Unfortunately, there is another girl with Brown as her goal, Sallie Fannie Reid, who just so happens to have her debut on the same day, at the same time, alongside Nancy. How can she possibly turn Brown’s head if Sallie is trying to do the same?

Hugh LaGrange is a farmer and is busy turning up a field when he meets Professor Edward Daniels, in the midst of an argument with his brother over the right of a man to own another human being, and what the Bible says on such a matter. The professor tempts Hugh away from a farming life, into one of an Abolitionist, and a teacher.

When the Civil War comes around, Nancy and Hugh play their parts, but despite Nancy being in the South, and Hugh the North, the roles they play are shockingly similar. Hugh joins the army, followed by his brother, Winston, and, although he starts as a simple Private, it doesn’t take him too long to make his way up to a higher title, in charge of leading and protecting men. Nancy, however, is in a different circumstance. She is a woman, left at home in a village abandoned by its menfolk, as they left for war. With the threat of attack on the horizon, Nancy rounds up the women and forms her own militia, a force of women willing to do anything to protect their homes and families.

Even though Hugh is on the side of the Abolitionists, and therefore on the side of good, I much preferred reading about Nancy. Her pure determination to keep her town safe led to wondrous things, keeping up the hopes of those around her, and giving the women less cause to panic. They could protect themselves, they didn’t need their brothers and husbands to do it for them, despite what society might deem acceptable for a woman to do. Society certainly didn’t think it was alright for women to hold and fire guns, to stand in ranks and give commands, yet when people heard of the Nancy Harts, they couldn’t help but be impressed, rather than angry. When news reaches you that your sisters and wives have taken up arms in the war you are fighting, to protect themselves, and that they may even have a higher rank than you, you felt proud, if not slightly disheartened that your rank was lower.

Hugh had an incredibly interesting story, for his chapters were filled with war, battles won with either words or weapons, and while Nancy is closed off from the war, except through the stories in the paper, Hugh is in the middle of it. As you read, you learn of the generals, the manoeuvres of the soldiers and how ill-prepared some of them were. What was the point of a general that had bought his title, and didn’t know how to use it? Much better to have one who was awarded his title, for at least you knew then that he deserved it, and that you could trust his instincts – they had brought him this far, at least.

There were some points, at the start of this book especially, where the story was a little slow for me, and the immense amount of detail meant that it took me an incredibly long time to get through the first couple of chapters. Although, I am glad I kept reading, for as the war started and things intensified, the pages flew by and I didn’t want to put this book down.

Throughout this entire book, there is the thought that, at some point, Hugh and Nancy will meet. As it is mentioned in the blurb, I do not think it is a spoiler to say that this happens, and as the tension rises, with Hugh’s forces so close to Nancy’s, I was engrossed and I found myself hoping that Nancy would be alright, that those around her would remain unharmed. Despite Nancy being from the South, and having slaves of her own, they are not mentioned much in the story, so the connection between her and slavery isn’t there. If it was, I do not think I would have liked her as much. As it is, she is a lovely woman, although extremely stubborn at times.

Despite the slow start, I greatly enjoyed this book, and the detail, while trying at the beginning, painted a vivid picture as I continued reading. I would definitely read this book again, as it was incredibly captivating and I could not put it down.

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Glen Craney

A graduate of Indiana University School of Law and Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Glen Craney practiced trial law before joining the Washington, D.C. press corps to write about national politics and the Iran-contra trial for Congressional Quarterly magazine. In 1996, the Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences awarded him the Nicholl Fellowship prize for best new screenwriting. His debut historical novel, The Fire and the Light, was named Best New Fiction by the National Indie Excellence Awards. He is a three-time Finalist/Honorable Mention winner of Foreword Magazine’s Book-of-the-Year and a Chaucer Award winner for Historical Fiction. His books have taken readers to Occitania during the Albigensian Crusade, the Scotland of Robert Bruce, Portugal during the Age of Discovery, the trenches of France during World War I, the battlefields of the Civil War, and the American Hoovervilles of the Great Depression. He lives in Malibu, California.

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