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Shirley McCracken is a freelance writer and poet. Always interested in the Civil War, she was intrigued when her husband found a relic from the war on their farm. The relic, a Union breastplate, lay undisturbed for years in a kitchen drawer, but when the 150th anniversary of the war approached, she decided to write its story. She is a registered nurse, working in a critical care unit. She is a wife, a mother of two sons, and has two young grandsons who call her "Purple". She enjoys being outdoors, and has hiked, rafted, swam, scuba-dived, cross-country skied, even dog sledded. A horseman since her youth, she has ridden may miles on her Tennessee Walking horses, Jazz and Jubilee.
Reviewed by Alice DiNizo for Readers' Favorite
In 1975, Darwin McClain finds an old Civil War era breastplate buried in the ground while he is readying the fields of his home in eastern Tennessee for planting. His wife Marty cleans it off and puts the breastplate in a drawer in their home and forgets about it until 2005. At that time, a young man named William Jefferson Walker, a student at the University of Tennessee, shows up on their doorstep inquiring about his ancestors who may have lived nearby. He mentions that where he is from in Texas, he has found the graves of his ancestors, the Bensons. A patch of jonquils is planted nearby, just like the patch of jonquils on Marty and Darwin's land near where Darwin found the old breastplate. Could the McClain homestead now be near the long demolished home of Kitty and William Benson who served as an attaché to President Lincoln during the tumultuous years of the Civil War? Kitty was the adored, tomboyish daughter of Missouri Senator John Henry Caliborne and his Ireland-born wife, Kathleen. Senator Claiborne had an estate, Willows, outside Washington, D.C., which was a second home to Abraham Lincoln and his wife Mary and in time became a hospital for the wounded soldiers from Manassas. Kitty meets Will when he accompanies the Lincolns to the Willows. They fall in love and marry and move to eastern Tennessee when Will is sent to see why Ulysses Grant is trapped at Shiloh, Tennessee, early in the war. Will and a small group of skilled woodsmen who are sharpshooters become known as the Phantom Warriors as they cut telegraph lines and destroy train tracks throughout Tennessee. The brass breastplate that Kitty gives Will when they marry saves his life as a Phantom Warrior and she buries it in their fields when it is time for them to flee to Texas.
"The Breastplate: A Civil War Adventure" is an engrossing story of the Civil War years as they played out in Tennessee. Southern states fought for the right to decide on abolition and slavery, not to have it dictated by the federal government and "The Breastplate" tells of those awful days of the Civil War and of Kitty Benson's bravery as she made certain that no one, Union or Confederate soldier, starved, or did without proper food, clothing or medical care. Believable characters and a well-written and well-conceived plot line make "The Breastplate" a must-read for readers everywhere.
