Bakersfield Life

All > Events > Go & Do
The Shenandoah Spy BOOK SIGNING
Topics: book signing, Russo's
Originally posted on Bakersfield.com Thu Jun 19, 2008 13:53:43 PDT
Viewed 113 times
0 responses Start: Jul 26, 2008
End: Jul 26, 2008
Time: 2:00pm
Contact: Francis Hamit | francishamit@earthlink.net | 661-242-1686
Location: 9000 Ming Ave, Bakersfield, CA

Francis Hamit will sign and speak about and possibly read from THE SHENANDOAH SPY, his exciting new novel about Confederate Army spy and scout Belle Boyd.  Belle was a 17-year-old girl in Martinsburg, Virginia  in July 1861 when she shot a Union Army soldier who invaded her home and assaulted her mother. She was aquitted on justifiable homicide.  Her passionat advocacy for the South led her to become a Confederate Army nurse, courier, scout and spy.  As a spy she worked mostly from her uncle's hotel in Front Royal which had been taken over by the Union Army as its headquarters. Her affair with a Union staff officer allowed her to discover Union Army plans to trap Stonewall Jackson's Army.  She made a 15-mile ride in the dead of night to find and alert  Colonel Turner Ashby of the 7th Virginia Cavalry to the plan.  A few days later, at the Battle of Front Royal, she ran across the battlefield under fire to deliver further intelligence to Stonewall Jackson.  For this and other deeds she became the first woman in American history to be formally commissioned an army officer.   Although this narrative is presented as fiction, it is based upon real people and events and provides insights not just into the early Civil War, but also military intelligence operations and the way that guerrilla armies operate.

Mr. Hamit is a graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop who once served in Military Intelligence.  He lives in Kern County.  The book is a trade paperback at $18.95 and is available at Russo's Books and other fine book stores. 

 

Send to a Friend

Report a Violation