The Spring Rider

by John Lawson

One spring day, Jacob finds a Union soldier in his family's barn. The Civil War was fought long, long ago, but the soldier has come back, just as the Spring Rider—a long, thin man with a stovepipe hat on a too-small horse—does every year. The soldier has come to fight the war again, and with his bugle he calls the spirits of soldiers, Union and Confederate, to the battle. Jacob wants to be a part of the battle too, and with the dashing, heroic Confederate Colonel Ashby he rides the countryside, reliving the excitement and danger of the Civil War.
Gray, Jacob's sister, is sixteen and pretty. She waits for the man who will fall in love with her, but first she meets the Spring Rider—a wise, sad Abraham Lincoln, who has come to stop the fighting once and for all. He is searching for Hannibal, the soldier with the bugle—the soldier who has the power to call "good night" to the battle. But Hannibal meets Gray, and the Spring Rider's plan to put the war to rest becomes complicated by Hannibal's love for Gray. The living, though, cannot share life with the dead, and they all know that a choice must be made.
The yearnings for love, for peace, and for victory are made real as their symbols slip in and out of the shadows of the Virginia countryside, in John Lawson's hauntingly beautiful book.

Genres: Historical Fiction

147 pages, Library Binding

First published January 1, 1968

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

John[1 space]Lawson : Science Fiction
John[2 space]Lawson: Science Fiction & Fantasy
John[3 space]Lawson (This profile)
John[4 space]Lawson: Christian Religion
John[5 space]Lawson: English explorer, Naturalist
John[6 space]Lawson: 1712-1759
John[7 space]Lawson: b. 1913
John[8 space]Lawson: b. 1947
John[9 space]Lawson: Sports, b. 1949
John[10 space]Lawson: 1674-1711

Reviews

[Leeann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Can a reader enjoy the writing without liking the book? I understand the premise of the book and the history it depicts, but I could not get a handle on the story. The live characters--Gray and Jacob--were hard to imagine. Everything seemed just outside of grasp. If I want to be caught in a dream then I want to be asleep.

[Rosa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poetic and sad, like You Better Come Home with Me, but with several disturbingly casual racist comments.
This book was written at or near the height of the Vietnam War, the second-most bitter and divisive war in American history. Why would it have lines about how killing "Chinamen" and Indians feels no different from killing flies, and not have the twelve-year-old boy learn differently? Chilling.

[Cheryl A.]

Reading on openlibrary.org.