Jacob's Ladder: A Story of Virginia During the Civil War Unknown - 1998

From the publisher

With the epic canvas of the Civil War as a backdrop, the inhabitants, both black and white, of a Virginian plantation fulfill their unforgettable destinies. Duncan Gatewood, the seventeen-year-old heir to the Gatewood Plantation, falls in love with Maggie, a mulatto slave, and she gives birth to their son, Jacob. Maggie and Jacob are sold south, and Duncan is packed off by his irate father to the Virginia Military Institute. Another Gatewood slave, Jesse -- whose love for Maggie, is unrequited -- escapes to find her and is sheltered by a young white couple who are sentenced to five years in the state penitentiary for this crime. Jesse, driven by his passion for freedom, joins the ranks of Mr. Lincoln's army, and in time will confront his former masters in battle.

From the interlocked lives of masters and slaves, and from a wealth of carefully researched, yet unobtrusive historical detail, Donald McCaig conjures a passionate and richly-textured story set in the heart of America's greatest and most devastating war. The loves, letters, and struggles of the characters connect a Vicksburg brothel to a Richmond salon, the riches of a sleek blockade runner with scenes of dire poverty, and the nightmare of a Confederate hospital to the lurid hell of the battlefields at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville.