The Roads of War by John Cameron Book Review

Synopsis

During the Civil War, Lewis McCormack has to return to his regiment’s training camp, leaving his wife Eliza to tend to their homestead. Rearing children, surviving a declining economy, and paying the family debts leads to intolerable hurdles and even more difficult decisions. Amid the chaos of war, Lewis just wants to stay alive—to make it back to his family.

Meanwhile, Private Davey Morris is detailed as courier and travels through war-torn Pennsylvania to complete his mission, while Private Tandy Strider uses his thirty-day wounded furlough to search for the young prostitute that he has deemed his soulmate.

As the war progresses, Lewis realizes that his soul has hardened—and deep inside, he only feels emptiness. Will Lewis make it through the war? And when he returns, in what state will he find his family? Will they even survive?

My Thoughts

The Roads of War is John Cameron's first historical novel and follows a small group of Confederate soldiers from when they first enlist through to the surrender at Appomattox and its aftermath.

Lewis McCormack, 35 years old, has volunteered for the New Carolina army much to his wife Eliza's anger and anguish. She deems him too old to go to war, but Lewis is determined to defend his family, his land and his way of life.

We first meet Lewis when he is about to rejoin his company after a ten day furlough during which he has recruited three more volunteers to bolster the company's depleted strength from men lost to disease and other ailments. This, even before they engage with the enemy. The three are Lewis' cousin, Davey Morris, 25 years old, and Eliza's cousins, Jordan Sloan and Tandy Strider, 19 and 18 years old respectively. To these young men he is a father figure, guiding and keeping them out of trouble as much as he can until they part ways.

In Lewis' absence, Eliza struggles to keep the farm going and her children safe. To that end, she is pressed into making a difficult choice.

Henry, a slave who works on the McCormack farm, faces his own dilemma: wanting to aid the Union cause by joining other slaves in a secret society but fearing the consequences to himself and his family.

All these threads give the reader an overall view of what is happening at the time, but it is Lewis' experiences that dominate this story, as he and his fellow soldiers criss-cross Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania, facing hardship, battles and death, with the constant worry of how their families are faring back home.

Lewis gradually declines from a confident soldier, anticipating that the war will be quickly resolved, to a battle-weary one as the conflict continues. His main focus is to stay alive to be reunited with his family. He fears that he is becoming immune to the death and destruction around him. That he is still able to self analyse indicates Lewis is not quite as hardened as he thinks.

While the surrender brings relief to the survivors, the sense of abandonment is palpable. After years of having every move dictated to them, the men are left to make their own decisions. Sadly, the hardest one is whether to go home. Those that do make their way homeward face more hardship across a land ravaged by war and patrolled by Union soldiers, grateful for the small acts of kindness extended to them.

The Roads of War is an engrossing story. Such is Cameron's ability for description that he takes us on an emotional journey, beginning with a sense of excitement and adventure to the grim reality of war. He not only describes the toll on the people, but also the toll on the land.

This is a novel I highly recommend and look forward to reading more from John Cameron.

Thank you to Bradley Jones of Wildbound PR for a review copy.