The Better Angels: Hearts Touched by Fire, Book 4

The Better Angels
Hearts Touched by Fire, Book 4
Gina Danna


THE BETTER ANGELS
Copyright © 2020 by Gina Danna
978-1-7351306-0-6
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover Design & Interior Format by The Killion Group, Inc.


Contents
Readers Discretion Advised
THE LIVING HISTORIAN'S CREED
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Author’s Notes
About the Author


Readers Discretion Advised
This book is historical fiction of the American Civil War. It is written to be as historically accurate to the period in description and language. It is a story of the War and of the people who lived it and contains adult content. Readers Discretion is Advised.


THE LIVING HISTORIAN'S CREED
We are the people to whom the past is forever speaking.
We listen to it because we cannot help ourselves, for the past speaks to us with many voices.
Far out of that dark nowhere which is the time before we were born, men who were flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone went through fire and storm to break a path to the future.
We are part of that future they died for.
They are part of the past that brought the future.
What they did—the lives they lived, the sacrifices they made, the stories they told and the songs they sang and, finally, the deaths they died—make up a part of our own experience.
We cannot cut ourselves off from it.
It is as real as something that happened last week.
It is a basic part of our heritage as Americans.
~ Bruce Catton


Author’s Note
“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
— Abraham Lincoln’s 1st Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861.
Before Abraham Lincoln took office in 1861, South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana and Texas had seceded from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America. The world waited for Lincoln’s response. His speech was aimed to reconcile with these seceded states in a desperate attempt to avoid war.


Acknowledgments
The 4th book in this series could only be made possible by the strong support from a team of people. I’d like to thank my editor, Louisa Cornell, who wades through my massive script without killing me. To JJ Jennings, who is my Civil War reference point when I hit a snag. To Bob Peternell who took me to Mines Run Battlefield, which doesn’t appeared to have been traversed since the 19th century. To my co-workers who find me dragging my computer to work, some wanting to be in the story without understanding the dangers that can bring, though some do fine themselves here in the past. To all, I say thank you!


Prologue
“My plans are perfect and when I start to carry them out, may God have mercy on General Lee for I will have none!”
—General Joseph Hooker, The Battle of Chancellorsville, May 1863
Virginia, November 1863
The giggle was faint, very feminine, and without opening his eyes, he grinned. He had always loved her laughter. Light, airy, the sound drifted and he remembered the first time he heard it. He believed he fell in love with her at that moment, not so long ago, when it was summer in Louisiana.
“Francois, Francois,” she coaxed him.
He didn’t want to answer, for that meant he’d have to open his eyes and at the moment, he realized his eyelids were so heavy, he doubted he could. Instead, he’d lounge here on this rattan settee in his mother’s rose garden and wait for her to get closer.
“Francois, darling,” she whispered into his ear. “It’s time to wake up.”
“No, ma chère, non.” He’d snuggle into the cushions more if they weren’t so hard. That confused him. His mother never allowed sturdy furniture frames out on the balcony…Plus the birds were overly chirpy, starting to grate on his nerves. He refocused on her.
“Francois, my love,” she cooed again, singing into his ear. “You’d better wake, darling.”
“Non, ma chère, come back to me,” he begged. He’d put out his arms to take her into his embrace but he discovered he couldn’t. It was like he was far under water, trying to build a house, as sluggish as he was. He frowned.
“Francois….” Her voice faded. No! She couldn’t leave him again! The birds around him seemed to multiple, busily squeaking louder and louder. He tried to get up, to go after her but the world began to swirl and he stopped, still feeling trapped and realized he’d gone no where. In his mind, he searched for her but his vision filled with smoke and the acid taste of gunpowder and sulfur burned his throat and clouded his vision.
“Francois! Wake up!” She screamed with a panic tone.
He twisted. In a split second, a stabbing pain shot into his foot, at his ankle, as if he was on fire. He roared in agony, reluctant eyelids splitting wide open. The shock of what he saw made him want to flee. He was lying with other men moaning and groaning. The men upright walked about at a hurried pace, their white coats stained in red along with more men in blue hauling some in and taking others out. The whole area smelled of blood, urine, sulfur, sweat and vomit, wafts so overwhelming, he held his breath, despite his own