Katy of Catoctin

by George Alfred Townsend

. . . .Like many such literary projects nursed by a journalist, this one had not only to be postponed, but finally to become a portion of a broader story, because too many of the actors in the tragedy still lived, and the mere crime presented no elevated moral to justify its embellishment. Considering it, however, as one of a series of cumulative acts of violence committed upon or from the soil of Maryland during the conflict of Emancipation, the author felt not only an epic propriety to be in the theme -- George Alfred Townsend Gapland, Md., 1886

556 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 1959

About the author

1841-1914

War correspondent during the American Civil War and novelist.

He wrote for the Philadelphia Inquirer, in 1861 he started to write for the New York Herald.

By 1868, he became a Washington correspondent, working for the "Chicago Tribune," and after 1874, for the "New York Graphic.

His novels included The Entailed Hat (1884), which fictionalized a true story of a woman named Patty Cannon who kidnapped free blacks and sold them into slavery. Townsend's other works include the short story collection Tales of the Chesapeake (1880) and the novel Katy of Catoctin (1887).

Townsend wrote under the pen name "Gath", which was derived by adding an "H" to his initials, and inspired by the biblical passage II Samuel 1:20.