Civil War Novels and More, by Greg Seeley

Greg Seeley

Greg Seeley was raised on a farm north of Afton, Iowa. He graduated from the University of Northern Iowa with a major in history and received his Master’s Degree from the University of Iowa. Greg is a retired certified public accountant and lives in Overland Park, Kansas with his wife Carolyn, a retired math teacher. Henry’s Pride is Greg’s first novel. He is also the author of a book of verse entitled The Horse Lawyer and Other Poems.

Henry’s Pride

Inspired by the handwritten journals and letters of the author’s great grandfather, Henry’s Pride is the story of men and women on both sides of the Civil War. Writing nearly in real time 150 years after the events, from 2012 to 2015, Greg Seeley takes us on a journey behind enemy lines, onto the battlefield, to the neglected farms back home, and inside the prison camps during this divisive period in American history.

Meet Henry Hancock, a prideful Union sergeant and later captain, who faithfully performs his duty while trying to make sense of what he calls “the nation’s nasty business.” Meet his brother Jonas, injured, mustered out of the army, yet still traumatized by his experiences in an artillery battery. Meet Theodore, a runaway slave too young to join the Union Army, who becomes a hired worker at their Minnesota farm. You’ll also meet Darius, the young heir to a Georgia plantation, fighting for the Confederacy to protect his inheritance while Hamilton Stark, his overseer back home, goes to extreme lengths to prevent runaways and head off a slave insurrection.

Mr. Seeley, a loyal student of history, interweaves these very compelling and realistic stories with letters to and from home, describing a world so vivid and human you will be instantly transported.

My thoughts: Henry’s Pride captures historical events during the Civil War, from both sides, through the stories compelling characters. Inspired by the journals and letters of an ancestor, the author has written a masterful book that Civil War buffs will especially appreciate. (Smattering of crude language)

Henry’s Land: A Broken Peace

In Henry’s Land: A Broken Peace begins where author Greg Seeley’s debut novel, Henry’s Pride, leaves off. The Civil War has come to an end and the characters are left in various predicaments. Most of the Federal soldiers have returned home – many bearing the physical scars of war, others with wounds less obvious but equally traumatic. Life, for the most part has returned to normal as it was prior to the war. The Northern economy has prospered.

Henry Hancock and his family and friends, although faced with a severe drought, are essentially comfortable and well off in Minnesota. In the defeated South, some of Seeley’s characters, including a former slave and his one-time overseer are drawn together in an unexpected bond brought on by a common hardship. Meanwhile, ex-Confederate soldier, Darius Morgan, still languishes in a Norther prison awaiting his parole. Southerners struggle with their new-found poverty and with navigating a barren Georgia landscape left in the wake of General William T. Sherman’s devastating March to the Sea.

My thoughts: Henry’s Land continues the Hancock saga from the Civil War book, Henry’s Pride, with characters from both the northern and Confederate areas, even ones with nefarious intentions. Things are ripe for a third book in the series. (Some crude language in this one.)

Horse Lawyer and Other Poems

The Horse Lawyer and Other Poems chronicles the struggles and triumphs of three generations of an Iowa farm family over a 125-year period. The “story” begins with a soldier coming home from the Civil War and setting foot for the first time on his newly-purchased farm and ends when the land next changes hands in the early 1990s. The book is the story of the family, their friends, and their neighbors as they try to adapt to the changing world around them. Their lives and personal aspirations are shaped by two world wars, a harsh climate, the dust bowl, and the Great Depression. They seek to meet this adversity and thrive through love, self-reliance, work, faith, and a strong sense of community.

My thoughts: What a compelling way to preserve and share the soul of three generations of farm families, through the author’s fatherline in free verse. Not only that, but they lived on the same nook of Iowa soil over a span of 125 years. A favorite!

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Ira Seeley’s burial place, Greenlawn Cemetery, Afton, Iowa