The War Comes to Redding- A Historical Fiction Novel

Background- Jonas Fairchild is a 13 year old boy living in Redding, Connecticut. It is September 16, 1778.

Chapter One -They're Back-

"They're back! They're back!!" Stephen had been running and he could barely catch his breath.

"Sit down" I said, "Here…  sit here." I got up off the log I was sitting on and guided him down to it.

I let him rest a moment then I asked: "Who's back?"

"Soldiers!" he blurted.

"The British?"

Stephen shook his head and took a deep breath. "No! American soldiers, the same ones we saw this summer; they were over by Colonel  Read's near the old wood lot. And this time they had surveyors with them. Why do you think they had surveyors Jonas?"

I handed him my fishing string to give myself a moment to think about it.

"I don't know for sure, but from what I overheard Isaac Platt talking about at church last Sunday, the troops may be coming to Redding for the Winter."

"Isaac and his brother are soldiers in a Massachusetts Regiment, and he said they were heading up to Quaker's Ridge in Pawling, New York later this week to meet up with the rest of General Washington's troops to train and plan out their strategy for the winter. He said there was a good chance he'd be back in Redding late in November if the General got his way."

Stephen looked puzzled: "Redding? You think they're coming here?

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This is how my novel begins. 

In this novel I pick up where My Brother Sam is Dead left off and tell you the story of what it was like to live in Redding in the Winter of 1778-79. Your narrator is Jonas Fairchild. Jonas is 13 years old and lives within walking distance to the middle encampment. His friend and mentor is a Native American Indian named Tom Warrups. Tom is in his 30's and lives just up the hill from Jonas and his family. Through Tom, Jonas learns about Indian culture and their way of life.

Jonas' father owns and operates two saw mills in town with his brothers. When the army decides on Redding for its winter encampment, the Fairchild family agrees to help the soldiers more efficiently cut their hut lumber by showing them how to make saw pits at each encampment. Little do they know they will be helping the soldiers in many more ways than this as the story unfolds.

More will be shared as I edit my chapters so stay tuned for updates about this very insightful first person narrative of what happened when 3,000+ soldiers and their camp followers arrived to co-exist amongst the Redding residents in the winter of 1779.

Themes in my upcoming novel- The War Comes to Redding

Right now there is a lot of new information about the Revolutionary War and the encampments at Redding coming out and these findings are much more than, "Hey, that's cool!" these findings fill-in gaps and tie-in groups previously over looked; they really are exciting.

My thought with this novel was to deliver some of this new information to readers via a story that's familiar (because it ties to My Brother Sam is Dead) and gives a fresh perspective of the War coming to Redding through the eyes of Jonas Fairchild, a thirteen year old boy.


Here are some of the topics you'll find in the novel:


1.  The impact of 3,000 soldiers situated in three encampments arriving with little time for locals to prepare.
 
In the novel I make it clear that Redding, Connecticut is a very small town about to double in size over-night.

I bring awareness to some of the dangers ahead before they appear in the storyline so readers have a better understanding of their impact when they actually happen.

Example from the Novel:

"Are you happy about the War coming to Redding Mr. Heron?" Elijah asked.

Mr. Heron paused for a long moment.

"I have concerns," he said thoughtfully. "I have concerns because as I just was explaining- with War comes uncertainty. The outcome you expect is rarely the one you get. And we will have a very large and diverse group of people here. If there is any trouble it will have to be handled swiftly and with force by the Generals or the safety of both the army and our citizens will be at risk."

I also explain the views some residents had about the needs of soldiers once they were in Redding through dialog between the characters.

Example from the Novel:

"The soldiers are starving," Abby said at breakfast "isn't there any way we can help them?"

"We have." Said Father. "We have provided them with an efficient means to cut their wood at all three of their encampments."

"But they haven't any food." Pleaded Abby.

"That is not our concern," Father said sternly. "they have the supplies in Danbury and it is the Army's job to get them here. If we give away our stored food to starving soldiers and our supplies run out, then we will be the ones starving."


2.  Another topic I have woven into the story is the role of the Native American Indian in this conflict.

Tom Warrups is a real-life character whose role in the American Revolution I have slightly altered to educate readers about Native American Indian culture and bring awareness to the presence of Native American soldiers in these encampments at Redding. I share Native American Indian Culture via Indian stories that Tom tells to Jonas(his 13 year old neighbor and the story's narrator); tell of the Native American Indian Soldiers via the interactions Tom and Jonas have with the soldiers; and shed light on the fears/questions the Native American Indians had about "Independent" America and what "Independence" would mean for them.

Example from the Novel:

"My people are fearful of what your Independence means for us. Will it be to our benefit or demise? We don't really know. What we do know is that since the white man has arrived in what you call "America," our ancient home lands have been taken and we have been pushed out. For those of us that fight for the Independence of your people we hope this War brings what your Declaration of Independence promises *and* restores for us the rights that we have lost. Do you know what I speak of Jonas?"

"Yes." I said, "We memorized the Declaration last year at the schoolhouse."

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness -- that to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever Any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new Government."

"That is right," said Tom "and I pray that it is known that the Native American Indian soldiers here in Redding are not 'merciless Indian savages' and recognized that they too are men in pursuit of Life, Liberty and Happiness; fighting for their own unalienable rights."


3. Black soldiers or African American soldiers are an important part of the novel. In fact, that is what I am presently working on right now because of information discovered while reviewing documents forwarded to me about the Native American Indian soldiers positioned in Redding.

4. The looting of local farms by the starving soldiers and the locals reaction to this looting.

Example from the Novel:

The snow was really coming down now, it was up past my ankles and with the winds picking up I knew it wouldn't be long before walking would become difficult so I cut across the road and into the pines by the swamp. That's where I saw them, there were three of them and they had someone's calf. There were drag marks across the clearing so I figured it was dead, but still it made my heart hurt to see them butchering it. I ran home as fast as I could.

"What's wrong?" asked my Father as I burst through the barn door.

"Soldiers!" I said. "They stole somebody's calf and they're butchering it in the pines!"

My Father slammed the hay rake he was using down to the ground and cursed. "That's the third calf this week!" He grabbed his gun and headed over to the horse stall.

"Tell your Mother I'm riding over to Sanford's. And tell her not to worry, we're going to handle this without bloodshed."

5. Illness at the encampments due to the cold and the War's on going small pox epidemic. Some modern estimates have the small pox responsible for 100,000+ deaths during the Revolutionary War and because we did have soldier deaths at Redding's encampments I included it as an important element in the story.

6. The executions at Redding in the winter of 1778-79, why they occurred and why they were important to the war and Redding going forward are included as well. 

Desertions and spying were a problem at this point in the War and it was during the Winter of 1778-79 that these issues were dealt with by General Putnam. To give an additional view of desertion and to show that for some it was necessary, the high drama of my novel involves the desertion of several Native American Indian soldiers and a gravely ill Black Soldier.


Why I'm writing this novel:


The purpose of my novel is to bring attention to more Revolutionary War topics than simply battles and timelines with the hope that it will fuel future study of these topics in local schools and help students become more aware of the history that surrounds them and push them to explore interests of their own.

In this novel I pick up where My Brother Sam is Dead left off and tell you the story of what it was like to live in Redding in the Winter of 1778-79. Your narrator is Jonas Fairchild. Jonas is 13 years old and lives within walking distance to the middle encampment. His friend and mentor is a Native American Indian named Tom Warrups. Tom is in his 30's and lives just up the hill from Jonas and his family. Through Tom, Jonas learns about Indian culture and their way of life.

Jonas' father owns and operates two saw mills in town with his brothers. When the army decides on Redding for its winter encampment, the Fairchild family agrees to help the soldiers more efficiently cut their hut lumber by showing them how to make saw pits at each encampment. Little do they know they will be helping the soldiers in many more ways than this as the story unfolds.

More will be shared as I edit my chapters so stay tuned for updates about this very insightful first person narrative of what happened when 3,000+ soldiers and their camp followers arrived to co-exist amongst the Redding residents in the winter of 1779.
Future Updates:

For more previews as I finish new chapters be sure to "Like" me on Facebook or "Follow" me in Twitter...

My Brother Sam is Dead Facebook page
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You can also sign-up for my Dropbox Folder. This book and many others will soon be posted to the Dropbox Folder along with teaching resources for them.

What’s in the My Brother Sam is Dead Dropbox Folder?

Everything I have collected and written over that past 6 years and that's a whole lot. The idea behind this folder is to help parents and teachers better understand what topics the authors have woven into each chapter of the fictional history novel, My Brother Sam is Dead.

I have broken out this resource into three sections:

1). Guide to MBSD(2 e-books and 8 supporting documents),

2). Maps, Photos and Visuals and

3). Teaching Resources(includes lesson plans and online quizzes).

All my ebooks are included at this resource and much more. Photos and maps of everything that occurs in the novel and teaching tools are included as well.

This is everything you need and more to get your kids really excited about the novel and come away with a very good understanding of why the novel was written.

My Brother Sam is Dead Dropbox Access

African American soldiers in Redding's encampments

While doing research over the weekend about the number of African American soldiers in Redding's encampments I came across this:

"As for blacks in the Connecticut regiments, we have brigade returns for August 1778 showing 148 black soldiers in Parson's brigade and 62 in Huntington's brigade. At that time the 6th Connecticut Regiment was serving under Brigadier General Parson."

Source: http://www.americanrevolution.org/rees.html 

I found this interesting because both Parsons and Huntington were in Redding for the Winter of 1778 to 1779 and have now started to look a little deeper to see if all 210 Black and Indian soldiers came to Redding.

I'll update as soon as I have more information.

New My Brother Sam is Dead Help Resources

I loved reading the novel My Brother Sam is Dead when I was a kid, it was exciting; it was sad; it had soldiers; it had mystery, but I never really understood it as the authors wished to me to. But after reading it again several years ago(as an adult), I got it. I understood why it was written and I saw all the topics that the authors had woven into each chapter.

At the time I re-read the novel I was in the process of recording the history of Redding in digital format. I was and I still am gathering information about Redding, Connecticut and posting it online so everyone else can enjoy it too. (My website is: HistoryofRedding.com)

What I realized was that a lot of what happened in the book really happened and a lot of the characters were real. So what I started doing was looking at the novel as less of a story and more as a lesson in what happened in Redding at the start of the American Revolution.

That's when the connection between the real and the fictionalized became clearer and the topics the authors had woven into each chapter started to flow out. It was at this point I began creating my resources to help parents, teachers and students understand the novel better.

From the website, there grew an entire sub-site dedicated to My Brother Sam is Dead and then came online self-grading quizzes, and then an e-book and another and another. And that was great for a while, but then as more people read my e-books they expressed a need for more information and information they could use (as needed) to take this novel to new levels in their classrooms and homes.

Enter Dropbox.

Until Dropbox I could not get people the files and information they needed without a lot of work. I burned thousands of CD's and it was a lot of work. A lot of work and there were shipping issues and it just wasn't working. But Dropbox fixed all of that. With Dropbox I am able to give people access to all my files and they have access to my files from any computer they are on, it's awesome.

My Dropbox account is a work in progress so you will always have my latest research and the most accurate information available. You will also have access to new maps and photos and resources.

What’s in the My Brother Sam is Dead Dropbox Folder?

Everything I have collected and written over that past 6 years and that's a whole lot. The idea behind this folder is to help parents and teachers better understand what topics the authors have woven into each chapter of the fictional history novel, My Brother Sam is Dead.

I have broken out this resource into three sections:

1). Guide to MBSD(2 e-books and 8 supporting documents),

2). Maps, Photos and Visuals and

3). Teaching Resources(includes lesson plans and online quizzes).

All my ebooks are included at this resource and much more. Photos and maps of everything that occurs in the novel and teaching tools are included as well.

This is everything you need and more to get your kids really excited about the novel and come away with a very good understanding of why the novel was written.

My Brother Sam is Dead Dropbox Access

Lecture- 4,000 years of Native American Occupations in Redding

May 19, 2012 at 12pm
Redding, Connecticut's Community Center
Lonetown Road, Reddding CT

Redding Archaeology; Open Spaces and University Excavations

Over the last few years, Redding's open space and planning policies have led to the preservation and study of important archaeological sites. Several college and university archaeological field schools have brought hundreds of students from around the world to unearth Redding's illustrious past.

You are invited to attend a lecture describing Norwalk Community College's research in Redding. They have uncovered evidence of over 4,000 years of Native American occupations at Gallows Hill.

Lectures will be presented on Saturday afternoons at the Redding Community Center.

May 19, 2012 at 12pm
Redding, Connecticut's Community Center
Lonetown Road, Reddding CT


View the lecture details:
Redding Archaeology; Open Spaces and University Excavations

Redding's Open Space and Archaeology

March 24, 2012 at 3pm
Redding, Connecticut's Community Center
Lonetown Road, Reddding CT

Redding Archaeology; Open Spaces and University Excavations

Over the last few years, Redding's open space and planning policies have led to the preservation and study of important archaeological sites. Several college and university archaeological field schools have brought hundreds of students from around the world to unearth Redding's illustrious past.

You are invited to attend a lecture series describing Yale University's excavations in the 1800s industrial community of Poverty Hollow, Western Connecticut State University's work at the 1778-79 Revolutionary War Middle Encampment, and Norwalk Community College's research at the 4,000 years of Native American occupations at Gallows Hill.

Lectures will be presented on Saturday afternoons at the Redding Community Center.

View the lecture schedule:
Redding Archaeology; Open Spaces and University Excavations

Love and Marriage During the American Revolution

Farmer's livestock was not the only object of the visiting soldier's desires while they were encamped in Redding CT during the Winter of 1778-79.

Below are some entries in the parish records that prove that "amid the horrors of war sly cupid found a chance to inflict his wounds". They are given as entered by the Rev. Nathaniel Bartlett:

Feb. 7, 1779. I joined together in marriage James Gibbons, a soldier in the army, and Ann Sullivan.

March 18, 1779. I joined together in marriage John Lines, a soldier in the army, and Mary Hendrick.

March 30, 1779. I joined together in marriage Daniel Evarts, a soldier in the army, and Mary Rowland.

April 15, 1779. I joined together in marriage Isaac Olmsted, a soldier in the army, and Mary Parsons.

April 28, 1779. I joined together in marriage Jesse Belknap, an artificer in the army, and Eunice Hall.

May 4, 1779. I joined together in marriage William Little, steward to Gen. Parsons, and Phebe Merchant.

May 23, 1779. I joined together in marriage Giles Gilbert, an artificer in the army, and Deborah Hall.

March 9, 1780. I joined together in marriage William Darrow, a soldier in the army, and Ruth Bartram.

Suggested Reading List: My Brother Sam is Dead

Suggested Reading

My Brother Sam is Dead Related

1. Brother Sam and All That
by Christopher Collier with an essay by James Lincoln Collier.
Historical Context and Literary Analysis of the Novels of James and Christopher Collier.
1999 Clearwater Press, ISBN 0-9667657-0-2

2. Westchester County During the American Revolution, 1775-1783
by Otto Hufeland

3. Rebels and Redcoats: The American Revolution Through the Eyes of Those Who Fought and Lived It
by George F. Scheer and Hugh F. Rankin

American Revolution

1. The Whites of Their Eyes
by Paul Lockhart.
Bunker Hill, the First American Army and the Emergence of George Washington.
Harper, New York, 2011.

2. Washington’s Spies: The Story of America's First Spy Ring
by Alexander Rose.
Rose unfolds the story of a Long Island-based spy ring of idealists and misfits who kept George Washington informed of what was going on in enemy-occupied New York.
Bantam; 1st Edition (April 25, 2006)

3. George Washington, Spymaster
Thomas B. Allen.
How the Americans Outspied the British and Won the Revolutionary War
National Geographic Children's Books (January 9, 2007)

4. The Bridge Not Taken: Benedict Arnold Outwitted
by Damon Greenleaf Douglas
Best account of the 1777 British Raid on Danbury written to date. Amazing resource that includes primary source documents, maps.
Westport Historical Society, 2002, ISBN 0-96487-592-6

5. Don Troiani's Soldiers of the American Revolution
by Don Troiani and James L. Kochan
From Bunker Hill to Yorktown, from Washington to Cornwallis, from the Minute Men to the Black Watch, these pages are packed with scenes of grand action and great characters, recreated in the vivid blues and reds that defined the Revolutionary era.
Stackpole Books (January 3, 2007)

6. Yankee Doodle Boy (Joseph Plumb Martin)
by George F. Scheer
A young soldier’s adventures in the American Revolution told by himself.
Holiday House/New York, 1995, ISBN 0-8234-1176-1

Historical Fiction books covering topics related to the American Revolution

1. Guns for General Washington
by Seymour Reit
This book tells the story of Henry Knox’s daring mission to cross 300 miles of forest bring 183 cannons from Fort Ticonderoga to George Washington’s army in Boston. This is a significant event in the early part of the Revolutionary War, a mission which many thought was impossible. This book tells the story from the perspective of Knox’s 19 year old brother Will.

2. The Secret Soldier: The Story Of Deborah Sampson
by Ann McGovern (Author), Harold Goodwin (Illustrator), Katherine Thompson (Author)
When "Robert Shurtliff" enlists as a common soldier in the Continental army, no one suspects there is anything unusual about him. The new soldier serves bravely for a year and a half. It is not until "he" is hospitalized with fever that his secret is discovered. Private Shurtliff is really a woman - 23 year-old Deborah Sampson!

3. Toliver's Secret
by Esther Wood Brady (Author)
A timid girl is asked to help the Patriots by delivering a secret message.

4. Patriots: Young Adult Historical Fiction Novel about the Battle of Bunker Hill
by Gregory T. Edgar
2nd Place Winner of the 2010 Premier Book Award in the category of Young Adult Fiction. Three teenage boys - two Americans and one British – learn that war is not the glorious adventure they thought it would be, and that their enemies are human beings after all.


For more check out my collection of My Brother Sam is Dead e-books at Amazon.com's Kindle. You can read them for free with a Prime account.