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And There I'll Be a Soldier: A Western Story
Tormented by Southern partisans, Missouri farm boy Caleb Cole joins the Union’s Eighteenth Missouri. About the same time, down on the Texas coast, violin-playing Ryan McCalla, from a well-to-do family, enlists in the Confederacy’s Second Texas—mainly in the spirit of adventure—with some friends. The two teenagers are about to grow up quickly. Fate will bring the two together—along with a teenage girl from Corinth, Mississippi, when the Confederate and Union armies clash at Shiloh, Tennessee, and then again in the town of Corinth. They will learn that war is far from glorious.
247 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 15, 2012
40 people are currently reading
56 people want to read
About the author
Johnny D. Boggs
106 books83 followersJohnny D. Boggs is a Spur- and Wrangler Award-winning author of the American West and frontier. Born in 1962, Boggs grew up on a farm near Timmonsville, South Carolina, around the old stamping grounds of Revolutionary War hero Francis Marion (chronicled in his frontier novel The Despoilers). He knew he wanted to be a writer at an early age. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico with his wife, Lisa Smith; son, Jack Smith Boggs; and basset hound, June.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
April 9, 2020
I've read a lot of books, both novels and non-fiction, about the American Civil War. I enjoyed this one, as I like Johnny Boggs' writing style and I particularly like the way he writes dialogue. I could hear the people speaking as I read--maybe I should listen to an Audio book the next time I read a JDB novel!
I liked how Boggs showed us the two sides of the conflict in this story. The Southern viewpoint is represented by a young Texan, Ryan McCalla, who lives near Houston. He joins an outfit that is supposed to help guard the Gulf Coast (with the Union blockade off the coast, the threat of the Union seems near at hand despite Texas being relatively far from the North). For the North, we get a Missouri farm boy, Caleb Cole. He joins up to help keep Missouri in the Union. As the fortunes of war would have it, both men in their respective units get sent across the Mississippi to Tennessee. And there, on April 6-7, 1862, at the horrific Battle of Shiloh, the two young men (teen-agers) encounter each other in the killing fields.
The story continues after the battle, both men surviving, although wounded. The Confederates retreat to the rail crossroads of Corinth, Mississippi, with the Union forces pressing forward. They capture the city but the Confederates evacuated it and it is at best an empty victory for the North. In Corinth, we meet another character, a young woman named Grace Dehner, who works as a nurse there. So we get a female and civilian viewpoint, but I would have liked to have seen more of Grace in the story.
While the story of Shiloh is well-known (I'd like to think) from books and even in at least a couple of movies ( anyone remember "Journey to Shiloh" with James Caan?), the Battle of Corinth of October 3-4, 1862, is almost entirely forgotten. Confederate forces attacked the town and there was desperate hand-to-hand fighting at a Union battery--Battery Robinett--and there Ryan and Caleb encounter each other one more time...
A final note--I was interested to read about Corinth in a Civil War novel, as I have been there. The Interpretive Center there with exhibits on the Battle of Shiloh as well as the Siege and Battle of Corinth is well worth the visit. Be sure to ask the staff some questions!
I liked how Boggs showed us the two sides of the conflict in this story. The Southern viewpoint is represented by a young Texan, Ryan McCalla, who lives near Houston. He joins an outfit that is supposed to help guard the Gulf Coast (with the Union blockade off the coast, the threat of the Union seems near at hand despite Texas being relatively far from the North). For the North, we get a Missouri farm boy, Caleb Cole. He joins up to help keep Missouri in the Union. As the fortunes of war would have it, both men in their respective units get sent across the Mississippi to Tennessee. And there, on April 6-7, 1862, at the horrific Battle of Shiloh, the two young men (teen-agers) encounter each other in the killing fields.
The story continues after the battle, both men surviving, although wounded. The Confederates retreat to the rail crossroads of Corinth, Mississippi, with the Union forces pressing forward. They capture the city but the Confederates evacuated it and it is at best an empty victory for the North. In Corinth, we meet another character, a young woman named Grace Dehner, who works as a nurse there. So we get a female and civilian viewpoint, but I would have liked to have seen more of Grace in the story.
While the story of Shiloh is well-known (I'd like to think) from books and even in at least a couple of movies ( anyone remember "Journey to Shiloh" with James Caan?), the Battle of Corinth of October 3-4, 1862, is almost entirely forgotten. Confederate forces attacked the town and there was desperate hand-to-hand fighting at a Union battery--Battery Robinett--and there Ryan and Caleb encounter each other one more time...
A final note--I was interested to read about Corinth in a Civil War novel, as I have been there. The Interpretive Center there with exhibits on the Battle of Shiloh as well as the Siege and Battle of Corinth is well worth the visit. Be sure to ask the staff some questions!
February 25, 2014
As Good if not better than "Red Badge of Courage" & "Cold Mountain".
Mr. Boggs wove the history of two young men, who end up on the opposite side of one another in the American Civil War. Their views and the ideas of things they were fighting for.
The meeting at Shiloh and life afterwards.
Good look at two Units, the 2d Texas and the 18th Missouri Infantry Regiments.
I also liked what the soldiers said that "CSA" stood for. Corn, Salt and Apples! :0)
Mr. Boggs wove the history of two young men, who end up on the opposite side of one another in the American Civil War. Their views and the ideas of things they were fighting for.
The meeting at Shiloh and life afterwards.
Good look at two Units, the 2d Texas and the 18th Missouri Infantry Regiments.
I also liked what the soldiers said that "CSA" stood for. Corn, Salt and Apples! :0)
November 29, 2014
Fictional history at it's finest. Many people today still don't understand the glory of war, it takes reading a few novels but historical and fiction to get real in debt view on what the glory of war is. The simple fact is they're is no glory. Just blood, gore, pestilence (small pox, rubella, and dysentery in those days) and death. What we put our young people through then and today for the spoils of war. For Cole and McCalla, though they fought on opposite side's they still we're able to locate something that many don't find during war, HUMANITY. I was disappointed that neither of them went back to locate Grace right away. But to only do it went it was to late to say their thank-you's. I learned from this novel that they actually had show pigs (Durocs and Poland China's) back in those days and hackamore's have been around since the middle eighteen hundreds. And that not everyone had the grey confederate uniform or the blue union uniform and that many had sported the clothes on their back's from the day they enlisted to white colonel sanders look-a-like uniforms. If you love history and westerns I highly suggest reading this novel.
December 25, 2018
I appreciated the detail here about Civil War combat. Boggs obviously did his research and it shows. Unfortunately, there's nothing here you cannot find in The Killer Angels, The Red Badge of Courage or Bruce Catton's histories. What that leaves you with is an underinvolving story that seems to rely a bit too much on luck to bring its protagonists together. Not a bad read but Civil War buffs are going to be disappointed.
September 15, 2017
And There I'll Be A Soldier
This 's a very good book. I really enjoyed how both the main people Ryan and Cole communicated together in the middle of the fighting in the civil war. One from the north and one from the south. Interesting on how they decided which side they would fight in. I would recommend this book to my friends.
This 's a very good book. I really enjoyed how both the main people Ryan and Cole communicated together in the middle of the fighting in the civil war. One from the north and one from the south. Interesting on how they decided which side they would fight in. I would recommend this book to my friends.
September 25, 2017
I enjoyed listening to this book on a recent car trip. It is a good depiction of what it must have been like for young soldiers during the Civil War. The battle scenes were gruesome and the hardships extreme. The idealism that began the war and the realities of actual combat were grim reminders that war should never be entered into without counting the cost, mostly to young lives.
July 9, 2021
Of the many Civil War novels I've read, this is one of the better ones. The author covers the monotony of preparing for war and all its tumultuous horror. Boggs writing keeps the reader's interest in this saga. His descriptive writing puts the reader in the midst of the fighting without emphasis on the gore. I think he succeeds at this because the fighting is viewed from the perspective of the two main characters.
A nice touch is the epilogue. Here Boggs gives the reader a perspective of how the savagery of battle can affect postwar life, and how time moderates the violence.
There is a line at the end of the story that sums up this narrative: "Surrounded by death, by inhumanity, and, yet, humanity; he remembered never feeling so alive."
A nice touch is the epilogue. Here Boggs gives the reader a perspective of how the savagery of battle can affect postwar life, and how time moderates the violence.
There is a line at the end of the story that sums up this narrative: "Surrounded by death, by inhumanity, and, yet, humanity; he remembered never feeling so alive."
May 21, 2019
Good, solid 4 star. The only thing about it that really didn't please me, so far as story-telling, was that Grace had a much smaller role in the book than the over blurb led me to believe. Though it was very idealistic in parts, the heartbreak of the War Between the States was well represented.
February 13, 2022
Good. Sad. Story told from 2 soldiers perspective. Interesting and quick read.
August 2, 2013
This wasn't a grab you by the pants four stars, but I still felt the rating was deserved. The historical fiction account of the Civil War Battle of Shiloh in 1862. What drew me in was the daily portrayal of a Reb and Yankee soldier. How naively optimistic and joyful when signing up and how defeated and dragged down they became as battles progressed. If you are a Civil War buff, you will enjoy it.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews