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THE WOMAN SHE LEFT BEHIND
In the spring of 1862, widowed Rachel Barnum leaves three children with her farm's hired man in Michigan to embark on either a fool’s errand or a hero’s journey. Traveling alone into the heart of darkness, Rachel needs to find her son Dwight, a Union soldier dying hundreds of miles away on a Missouri battlefield. When a large Rebel force entrenched on a Mississippi River island stymies her mission, Rachel fears her chances of finding Dwight in time to save him. And she despairs each day she’s gone from her 10-year-old twin girls and another son, 16, who can’t abide the hired man. With time running out, Rachel faces an agonizing abandon her firstborn to the ravages of war and go back to family and the man she loves? Or fight on against all odds? Until her death at age 96, Rachel reveled in sharing her life’s tales as a pioneer wife and mother but never told what happened as the Civil War’s second year began. The Woman She Left Behind is that story.
398 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 27, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
November 4, 2025
The Woman She Left Behind, by Tom Huggler
This is an AMAZING new biographical novel! I could not put it down.
I also enjoyed the author’s notes at the end about how he researched this. The book is set in spring 1862 when the real widowed Rachel Barnum leaves three of her children behind on a Michigan farm with the hired hand and starts the treacherous journey with her horse team and wagon to find her wounded soldier son in Missouri. The book includes the viewpoint of the hired hand just enough to help build suspense as to how this family will turn out in the end.
Author Tom Huggler’s impeccable research included Rachel’s real journals, interviews with relatives and experts from Michigan through Illinois to Missouri. Rachel endured a rainy spring with sleet as she started out alone on her buckboard pulled by two horses. She eventually hitched rides on delivery wagons, trains, and a hospital boat to get to her son. But what condition would she find him in? Was he still alive?
Rachel dealt with flooded towns, a tornado, communication difficulties, lodging challenges, and worries in general as a woman traveling alone.
Readers will find superb historical details about the communities and people between Michigan and the Mississippi River, and towns such as Cairo. Huggler’s fine writing helps us feel as if we, too, are making the journey. I’m so glad I did!
This is an AMAZING new biographical novel! I could not put it down.
I also enjoyed the author’s notes at the end about how he researched this. The book is set in spring 1862 when the real widowed Rachel Barnum leaves three of her children behind on a Michigan farm with the hired hand and starts the treacherous journey with her horse team and wagon to find her wounded soldier son in Missouri. The book includes the viewpoint of the hired hand just enough to help build suspense as to how this family will turn out in the end.
Author Tom Huggler’s impeccable research included Rachel’s real journals, interviews with relatives and experts from Michigan through Illinois to Missouri. Rachel endured a rainy spring with sleet as she started out alone on her buckboard pulled by two horses. She eventually hitched rides on delivery wagons, trains, and a hospital boat to get to her son. But what condition would she find him in? Was he still alive?
Rachel dealt with flooded towns, a tornado, communication difficulties, lodging challenges, and worries in general as a woman traveling alone.
Readers will find superb historical details about the communities and people between Michigan and the Mississippi River, and towns such as Cairo. Huggler’s fine writing helps us feel as if we, too, are making the journey. I’m so glad I did!
November 20, 2025
Tom Huggler’s The Woman She Left Behind is everything historical fiction ought to be. It’s a powerful story of human desires and connections in a historical setting that’s rendered with loving attention to small details as well as the overall feel of the era.
That era is early in the American Civil War. Widowed farm wife Rachel Barnum of Michigan sets out for Missouri as her elder son, Dwight, languishes in a Union Army hospital camp after fighting at New Madrid. She faces bad roads, sketchy accommodations, uncertain riverboats, and the hazards of war.
Readers will understand the urgency of Rachel’s quest and sympathize with her struggles, including worries about what’s happening back home, where a teenaged son and two daughters live under the stewardship of hired foreman John Welch, a good man who is nevertheless not their father.
The story is a fictional interpretation of a very real journey by the actual Rachel Barnum. Huggler, a seasoned nonfiction writer, brings professional-level craft to the narrative, and he appends a fascinating account of his own quest for the facts and surmises of Rachel’s journey. The Author’s Note alone is worth the price of the book.
Highly recommended.
That era is early in the American Civil War. Widowed farm wife Rachel Barnum of Michigan sets out for Missouri as her elder son, Dwight, languishes in a Union Army hospital camp after fighting at New Madrid. She faces bad roads, sketchy accommodations, uncertain riverboats, and the hazards of war.
Readers will understand the urgency of Rachel’s quest and sympathize with her struggles, including worries about what’s happening back home, where a teenaged son and two daughters live under the stewardship of hired foreman John Welch, a good man who is nevertheless not their father.
The story is a fictional interpretation of a very real journey by the actual Rachel Barnum. Huggler, a seasoned nonfiction writer, brings professional-level craft to the narrative, and he appends a fascinating account of his own quest for the facts and surmises of Rachel’s journey. The Author’s Note alone is worth the price of the book.
Highly recommended.
January 13, 2026
I received this book from the author to review it at sherimcguinn.substack.com
Tom Huggler did extensive research to create this fictional version of a real journey - and tells about that process after the story. However, as I read the novel, that research simply created the background and situational details. It never got in the way of a plot that kept me turning pages as new obstacles arose for a Civil War mother making a solo journey to bring her son home - sick, wounded, or dead.
While there is plenty of action, she also does, indeed, leave the woman she was behind. Tom did a masterful job of presenting Rachel Barnum’s inner conflict. In modern parlance, she is out of her comfort zone, a nineteenth century woman traveling alone into a war zone, having to find ways to accomplish her goal of finding her son. This leads to introspection and, out of necessity, changes in her behaviors.
I’d like to believe his fiction is close to the truth of Rachel Barnum.
Tom Huggler did extensive research to create this fictional version of a real journey - and tells about that process after the story. However, as I read the novel, that research simply created the background and situational details. It never got in the way of a plot that kept me turning pages as new obstacles arose for a Civil War mother making a solo journey to bring her son home - sick, wounded, or dead.
While there is plenty of action, she also does, indeed, leave the woman she was behind. Tom did a masterful job of presenting Rachel Barnum’s inner conflict. In modern parlance, she is out of her comfort zone, a nineteenth century woman traveling alone into a war zone, having to find ways to accomplish her goal of finding her son. This leads to introspection and, out of necessity, changes in her behaviors.
I’d like to believe his fiction is close to the truth of Rachel Barnum.
January 11, 2026
Excellent! The detailed writing transported me to the main character’s journey. I felt like I was traveling with her. The Author’s Notes detailing how the research for the book was done is just as fascinating as the book! Definitely recommend!
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews