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Summary
Summary
This text is the result of the authors'' research into two young boys who joined the Iowa army. 125 years later Mary Davies Kelly found information on the two boys in her husbands genealogical history and fate led her to find out more about them.'
Reviews (4)
School Library Journal Review
YA-A genealogist, researching the family of her military-historian husband, came across tantalizing glimpses of two young Iowa brothers who had "died young, leaving behind no letters, no diaries, nothing but the bare skeletons of their military careers outlined in the reords of their service in the Civil War." The Kellys, driven by the desire to learn more of these ghostly boys, made full use of a variety of resources to re-create the world and the events the young soldiers experienced in their brief lives. In the details of the ordinary lives of civilians and common soldiers, the authors bring home the cost and horrors of war to the people caught up in it. They communicate a sense of the diverse factors that can determine the course of history; and as the brothers' deaths spelled the end of their parents' pioneer dream, so the Civil War ended other dreams of the nation. An epilogue links the world of these brothers with that of present-day readers. "Notes on Sources Used" offers interesting glimpses into how the Kellys pieced this story together and could be the basis for a book itself, as it shows how fascinating and creative historical research can be. For teens interested in the Civil War, or for those susceptible to the romanticism inherent in the story of these handsome, doomed young men, this will be a rewarding book.-Christine C. Menefee, Fairfax County Public Library, VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Joined by his wife, genealogist Mary Davies Kelly, journalist Orr Kelly (Brave Men, Dark Waters and From a Dark Sky) shifts from popular accounts of navy and air force special operations to excavate the Civil War experiences of two great-uncles, Andrew and Barney Brayman. Both fought for the Union, one died in the process and neither left any diaries or letters to illuminate their story. Thus, their biographers are forced into much conjecture, and have cobbled together a book based on the published histories of the brothers' units, the after-action reports of their commanders and diaries and letters of those with whom they served. Andrew died in the Battle of Marks' Mills, Ark. (April 25, 1864), in the midst of an inconsequential campaign. Barney served in the cavalry under Sherman, was taken prisoner in late July of 1864 and spent six months in the notorious prison at Andersonville before being exchanged. Having contracted tuberculosis at Andersonville, he died in 1871 at age 24. Andrew and Barney move like vague shadows across the vivid backdrop of this book, whichgiven the absence of any direct knowledge as to the brothers' hopes, motives, emotions and experiencesis, unfortunately, all backdrop. 20-plus illustrations. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
The Kellys, a journalist and military historian and his genealogist wife, join forces to produce this admirable private's eye--actually two privates' eyes--view of the Civil War. The two were Iowa farmboys and Orr's great-uncles, and both were in uniform before turning 18. Andrew Brayman spent much of his service in hospitals, which the Kellys describe in vivid but never gratuitous detail, and was killed in a comparatively minor western battle that was rather a sideshow to an unnecessary campaign. Barney Brayman was initially luckier, joining the cavalry, but his luck ran out during the Atlanta campaign, when he was captured and sent to Andersonville. The captivity so damaged his health that he died of tuberculosis before he was 30. Some of the brothers' junior, but few of their senior, officers emerge creditably from the Kellys' account. The Brayman brothers, however, emerge from this excellent popular military history as persons one would have liked to know and who definitely deserved longer lives. --Roland Green
Library Journal Review
While researching family history, the authors discovered that Orr's two great uncles, Andrew and Barney Brayman, had fought in the Civil War with the 36th Iowa Volunteer Infantry and 8th Iowa Cavalry units. With little written record of the Brayman brothers, the Kellys had to rely on other accounts of these units' battle experiences to reconstruct this history. Andrew died at the Battle of Marks' Mills and was probably buried in a mass grave. Barney was captured after the Union defeat at the Battle of Newnan in Georgia and spent several months in the infamous Andersonville prison. He never completely recovered from his prison ordeal and died several years after the war. In this spellbinding narrative, the authors, Orr, a military historian (From a Dark Sky, LJ 9/1/96), and Mary, an experienced genealogist, paint a clear picture of a Civil War soldier's life. This book will appeal to Civil War buffs and interested general readers alike. For public and academic libraries.Grant A. Fredericksen, Illinois Prairie Dist. P.L., Metamora (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
