Tattered Gray

Author's Note

As a Louisiana native with family living in and near DeSoto Parish, I have heard stories of the Battle of Mansfield, otherwise known as the Battle of Sabine Crossroads, ever since I was a little girl. According to the family tale, my great-great-great-great grandfather participated in the fighting while his children and his female slaves stayed at home and hid under their beds, frightened terribly by the noise of the cannonade. This story, passed from one generation to the next until it fell upon my ears, set my imagination in motion as I wondered what it was like to live in the midst of a war and be helpless to do anything about it.

The main characters of Tattered Gray as well as most of the minor characters are entirely fictional, but there are several names mentioned throughout the story that were either actual residents of the area or soldiers during the Battle of Mansfield. It is important to me to recognize these individuals, even if only indirectly, for I want them to be remembered as real people that once drew in the breath of life and lived during one of the darkest conflicts of United States history—not simply as a rigid face in an old photograph, curled at the edges and faded by time. Their names are: Captain Robert Fields and his wife Eliza, Terrell Goldsby, Martha Lord and her husband Seth, William Whitton, and the Childers family. All of the generals named throughout the story are also real men.

I am eternally grateful to my husband and my family—those of the older generation who passed stories of the battle down to me as well as those living now who have supported my endeavors. I am also immensely thankful for the hard work and dedication of the historians who have focused on the subject matter. Without their work, I would have been unable to even attempt to recreate Mansfield as it was over 150 years ago. I would like to especially thank Dr. Terry Jones for his extensive research on the Twenty-eighth Louisiana Infantry as well as historian Michael Mumaugh for his research on the Mansfield Mutiny, an event that seems to have been largely obscured by the passage of time.I also owe a huge thank-you to @KDCampbell who made the cover image. Please check out her page for her writing and other work. Last but certainly not least, I would like to recognize the documented civilian accounts of the Red River Campaign. While I hope I have avoided any unforgivable historical discrepancies, I will take the liberty to say that any inaccuracies are entirely my own. 

Thank you for stepping back in time with me.