The Black Flower: A Novel of the Civil War

Novel of the Civil War

by Howard Bahr

A Confederate soldier confronts the horror of battle and the power of grace in this “poignant, haunting, and important” novel of the Civil War (The Tennessean, Nashville).  A New York Times Notable Book and Winner of the William Boyd Award for Best Military Novel   In November 1864, Gen. John Bell Hood’s Army of Tennessee prepares to launch an assault on Union forces near Franklin, Tennessee. Dirty, exhausted, and hungry, the Confederate soldiers form a line of battle across an open field. Among them stands Pvt. Bushrod Carter, a twenty-six-year-old rifleman from Cumberland, Mississippi. Against all odds, Bushrod has survived three years of war unscathed—but his luck is about to run out.   Wounded in the battle, Bushrod is taken to a makeshift hospital on a nearby plantation. There, he falls under the care of Anna Hereford, who bears her own scars from years of relentless bloodshed and tragedy. In the grisly aftermath of one of the Confederate army’s most disastrous campaigns, Anna and Bushrod seek salvation and understanding in each other. Their fragile bond carries with it the hope of a life beyond the war, and the risk of a pain too devastating to endure.   Written with profound empathy and meticulous attention to historical detail, The Black Flower brilliantly portrays the staggering human toll of America’s bloodiest conflict. In his award-winning debut novel, “Howard Bahr casts a tale of war as powerful as any you’ll ever find” (Southern Living).  

Genres: Historical Fiction, Civil War, Fiction, American Civil War, War, Historical, Southern

350 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 1, 1997

About the author

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Howard Bahr (1946- ) is an American novelist, born in Meridian, Mississippi. Bahr, who served in the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam War and then worked for several years on the railroads, enrolled at the University of Mississippi in the early 1970s when he was in his late 20s. He received his B.A. and M.A. from Ole Miss and served as the curator of the William Faulkner house, Rowan Oak, in Oxford, Mississippi for nearly twenty years. He also taught American literature during much of this time at the University of Mississippi. In 1993, he became an instructor of English at Motlow State College in Tullahoma, Tennessee, where he worked until 2006. Bahr is the author of three critically acclaimed novels centering around the American Civil War. He currently resides in Jackson, Mississippi, and teaches courses in creative writing at Belhaven College.

Bahr began his writing career in the 1970s, writing both fiction and non-fiction articles that appeared in publications such as Southern Living, Civil War Times Illustrated, as well as the short-lived regional publication, Lagniappe (1974-75) which he and Franklin Walker co-edited. His first published book, a children's story entitled Home for Christmas, came out in 1987 and was re-published in 1997 in a different edition (with new illustrations) following the release of his first novel, The Black Flower: A Novel of the Civil War. This latter book, set during the Battle of Franklin, Tennessee in 1864, was nominated for a number of national awards, including from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Gettysburg College, and the Book-of-the-Month Club, and was a New York Times Notable Book, but its release was somewhat overshadowed by the release at the same time of the bestseller, Cold Mountain.

In 2000, Bahr's second novel, The Year of Jubilo, was released. This novel, set in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War in the fictional Mississippi town of Cumberland, deals with the dehumanizing effects of war and its aftermath on Southern society. The Year of Jubilo, like The Black Flower, was a New York Times Notable Book.

Bahr's third novel, The Judas Field, was released in 2006. In The Judas Field, Bahr again returns to the Battle of Franklin theme, but this time it is through the eyes of one of its participants, again from Cumberland, who travels back to the battlefield in the 1880s to recover the body of one of the fallen, and, in doing so, relives the horror of that fateful day in 1864.

Howard Bahr is a Freemason, having served as Master of the Lodge while he was in Oxford. He is also a member of the Episcopal Church.

Reviews

[Candi · Rating 5 out of 5]

"We are all in hell, all of us."

While reading this truly exceptional book about the Battle of Franklin, Tennessee, I had in my mind’s eye visions of some of the most nightmarish depictions of hell. Yet, despite these ghastly images, The Black Flower is a beautiful book, laced with camaraderie, humor and love. It is one of the most powerful and emotive books I have read so far this year, and I cannot get Bushrod Carter and Anna Hereford out of my head. I laughed and cried and then did the same all over again while writing this review and revisiting some of my favorite passages.

"Bushrod Carter was barely twenty-six, but his greasy hair and mustache were already shot with gray. The grime of the long campaign from Atlanta was etched in the lines of his face and in the cracked knuckles of his hands; crammed under his fingernails was a paste of black powder, bacon grease, and the soil of three Confederate states."

As Bushrod and the Confederate army prepare to go into battle, the tranquility of the McGavock’s plantation is about to be shattered as their home has been requisitioned to serve as a makeshift hospital for the Confederate soldiers. Anna Hereford is a guest and cousin to John and Caroline McGavock and their two young children. Her life will be forever altered by this event and by the victims that arrive on the doorstep following one of the bloodiest and most devastating campaigns of the Civil War.

This novel is extremely well-researched and focuses on the day just preceding the battle as well as the one immediately following. The intricacies of the actual battle are small change compared to the intimate view we have of the deepest thoughts of a handful of characters – their worst fears, greatest hopes, and most poignant memories of the time before war disrupted their very personal lives. We meet well-seasoned soldiers and generals, Bushrod’s ‘pards’ – Jack Bishop and Virgil C. Johnson, the bandsmen, the Chaplain, untrained conscripts, an evil creature that defies the term ‘human’ (and made my blood run cold), the beautiful yet reticent Anna, the McGavocks, and even Old Hundred, "a terrier cur… he was hateful and ill-tempered and had no use for anyone."

What sets this particular book apart and will leave an indelible mark on my heart (and likely yours too), is the stunning imagery, the achingly real emotions of the characters, and the haunting landscape of the Departed. If someone had told me that the brilliant Howard Bahr had somehow walked straight from this battlefield to his desk to pen this novel, I dare say I would believe it. He somehow managed to get right into Bushrod’s head and I immediately followed. The futility and horrors of war could not have been more strikingly depicted. Bushrod had an aversion to looking the enemy in the eye. It would be like looking directly at your own brother or father or uncle just prior to firing your musket. Or, even more disconcerting, would be the reflection of your own soul in the image of the ‘Stranger’, who it turns out is really not so different from yourself at all. There are so many vivid and poignant passages in this compact novel, but one that really stands out is a description of the army, its men, and the only ‘logical’ reason that Bushrod can fathom for man willing to engage in warfare in the first place. He struggles to make sense of this madness just as they are about to advance and face their enemy:

"Bushrod could not remember when his army had last been arrayed like this, where he could see nearly all of it at once. It seemed an enormous living thing, breathing and moving, possessed of instinct and intelligence and malevolence all its own. Bushrod knew it was the sum of many parts, that those parts were individual men, each one the result of a complex personal history and each one convinced that he stood at the very center of the universe. But to look at it like this, to see the long lines flung out in diminishing perspective over the folds and wrinkles of the land – to see it thus, a vast patchwork quilt of color, all the faces and hands blurred by distance – then the individual was completely absorbed, lives were poured and blended into the one great Life, and Bushrod felt as he did when he contemplated the enormity of the stars. How else could we ever do this thing?"

I really could just go on and on trying to convince you to read this book. Instead, the extra time will be better spent if you start right away trying to beg, borrow or steal your own copy of this very affecting novel. You don’t have to be a Civil War buff by any means to reap the rewards of this one. You do need to be a fan of reading about humanity and the human spirit. Oftentimes, there is a very surreal quality to this book and I found it to be quite fitting in these circumstances when one is contemplating the meaning of life and senseless death. The ground is littered with the dead, the maimed and the wounded. It is a gruesome sight, but it is handled with tremendous care and sensitivity by Howard Bahr. I am actually perplexed as to why this book is not more widely read or this author more celebrated. Anyone that ranks books such as Cold Mountain (Charles Frazier) or The Red Badge of Courage (Stephen Crane) or March (Geraldine Brooks) at the top of their lists, or fans of Douglas C. Jones should find The Black Flower equally (or in my case, more) remarkable.

"Some times I do not think I shall live to be very old – but should it be God’s will for me and any come to me and ask how it was in the old War times, I will say – that there was really no victory, and no defeat. There were only brave men." – from Bushrod Carter’s Commonplace Book, Florence Alabama, November 16, 1864

[Jeffrey Keeten · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't generally think of myself as someone who reads civil war literature and yet perusing my bookshelves I realize I have accumulated more books about that period of history than I would have thought. I have severalStephen W. Sears books. I have a run of the Owen Parry series involving a character I really grew to appreciate Abel Jones. I still think about a line from Faded Coat of Blue. "I often contemplate the loneliness of Jesus." I'm not per say a religious man, but that line resonated with me and the stark truth of it keeps it lingering in my thoughts. I have Landsman: A Novel, Booth: A Novel, and Sweetsmoke. I recently picked up a copy of Coal Black Horse per the recommendation of my friend Mike Sullivan. Little did I know that I am a reader of Civil War literature and Black Flower joins this illustrious list of books that will always find a home in my library.

Like many American families I have a history with the Civil War and I want to thank both my great great grandfathers for having the fortitude and the luck to survive so that I am here today. I am directly descended from both sides of the conflict.

My great great grandfather, Thomas Newton Keeten, was conscripted into the Confederate army at age 17. He served with the 26th Virginia Battalion, Finigan's Brigade, Brecken Ridge 3rd Division of Earley's Army Corps.

My great great grandfather, Robert Campbell Ives, served with Company K, Iowa 19th Infantry. He enlisted at age 21. He marched all the way from Iowa to Arkansas only to promptly get shot in the jaw in a cornfield. A Confederate doctor poured gunpowder in the wound, as legend has it, that stopped the bleeding and saved his life. For the rest of his life he wore a full beard to hide the damage to the structure of his jaw. A few years ago we hired an intern from Arkansas that was telling us about how her family homestead served as a Union hospital during a battle fought on their land. I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck start to tingle. Turns out, sure enough, my GG Grandfather was more than likely treated at her family homestead. The Intern's ancestor was paid in Union script and because she thought there was no way the Union was going to win the war she used the script as kindling to light the fire in her kitchen stove.


General John Bell Hood

Black Flower is set around the Battle of Franklin in Tennessee. The Union troops were on the high ground settled in behind earthworks so when General John Bell Hood decided to attack little did he know he was dealing a death blow to his own cause. The losses suffered at Franklin were devastating to the Confederate Army. They suffered 6,252 casualties, but as importantly they lost 14 generals and 55 regimental commanders. It shattered the leadership of the Army of Tennessee and destroyed its ability to be an effective fighting force for the rest of the war. Because the Union army retreated to Nashville some on the Confederate side considered it to be a victory. One of the many times the South won a battle only to slide closer to losing the war.

Our hero of the novel is Bushrod Carter. He is 26 years old and from Cumberland Mississippi. After the battle in which he lost a finger and was knocked silly. He is looking at the carnage and says:
"I was about to say how funny it is...I mean, I am so use to losin, I thought winnin might be different---but it ain't, not so's I can see. Ain't that funny?" To me that sums up the whole Civil War experience for most soldiers. There is no difference between winning and losing there is just losing and losing.

Carnton Plantation

The Carnton Plantation served as a medical hospital for the Confederate side and the children's rooms were used as a makeshift operating room. The blood that soaked into the woodwork of the floor is still visible today.

Carrie McGavock

Carrie McGavock, the lovely Southern belle who worked tirelessly to help the wounded, found herself the next morning cooking breakfast for an army in a blood stained dress. Nearly 1,500 Confederate soldiers are buried on the McGavock land and for the rest of her life Carrie tended those graves.

Confederate graves in a field at Carnton Plantation from the Battle of Franklin

In this story, her cousin Anna Hereford, in one of those moments that defies logic; and yet, that is the definition of love itself, falls in head over heels for Bushrod Carter.

Bahr wrote a lyrical, ethereal dreaming novel. The characters are frequently floating away from themselves remembering another time, trying to forget the horrors of the present, wondering if life will ever be worth living again. One such memory Bushrod has while holding Anna's hand.

"So he put out his right hand, palm up, and Anna settled her own in it like a bird alighting. Bushrod thought of when he was a boy and sometimes a chimney swift would come in through the hearth; when that happened, he would always be the one to catch it, he loved to wrap his hand around it and feel the softness and the little hammer of the swift beating heart. Outside he would open his hand; for an instant the bird would lie blinking in his palm, then flicker away so fast he could never find it in the sky. He half-expected Anna's hand to do the same, but it lay still, and he closed his own around it."

I have heard of people experiencing trauma that for the rest of their lives changed the way food tasted or the way scents would linger, that only they could smell, for decades after an unpleasant event. Lieutenant Tom Jenkins describes such an affliction that haunted him the rest of his life.

"Tom Jenkins could smell them: their sour breath, their farts, the stink of their wool and sweat, the smell of death. That was one of the things he would carry away from the war: how it stank like death--a rich, sweet smell that festered in the nose and clung to everything but most of all to men. Years later he would smell it on men that had been there. He would smell it on himself in the nights when he would slip from his bed, dress quietly and leave the house---smell it while he walked the streets and alleys of Cumberland until daybreak. Nothing smelled like that, nothing else in the world. And nothing could wash it away."

This book is only 267 pages. It is a book that every sentence carries weight. I couldn't read this book with anything going on in the room around me. I found the best time to read this book was during the midnight hours when the house is quiet and I could let myself sink into this slice of Civil War Tennessee. Howard Bahr has written other Civil War novels and I will certainly be adding them to my growing shelf of Civil War literature.

For the bonafide Southern perspective of this novel read my friend Mike Sullivan's review. Mike Sullivan's Review

[Lawyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Black Flower: A Novel of the Civil War: Howard Bahr and Franklin, Tennessee

The Black Flower: A Novel of the Civil War is the first of three novels by Howard Bahr set during the American Civil War. The other volumes are The Judas Field: A Novel of the Civil War and The Year of Jubilo: A Novel of the Civil War. A number of members of On the Southern Trail are currently reading all three volumes
of this compelling set of related tales set during and after the Civil War. This review is reposted for those "Trail Members" engaged in this read. It is my sincere hope that perhaps this review will lead other readers to discover what I consider to be outstanding historical fiction based on the
war that tore our nation apart. Howard Bahr is an exceptional writer. Consider joining "The Trail," and join in the ongoing read by other members.



Some times I do not think I shall live to be very old--but should it be God's will for me and any come to me and ask how it was in the old War times, I will say--that there was really no victory, and no defeat. There were only brave men.

--Bushrod Carter's Commonplace Book
Florence, Alabama
November 16, 1864"


Howard Bahr, 1946-

Howard Bahr was born Howard Hereford in Meridian, Mississippi, in 1946. Bahr is his stepfather's name. Both his father and stepfather are deceased. However, his mother lives in Jackson, Mississippi, where Bahr teaches creative writing at Bellhaven College.

Tall, distinguished in appearance, Professor Bahr has been on the quiet side when I've met him at book signings. However, he's led an interesting life, and is quite the story himself.

After four years in the Navy, a portion of it in combat in Vietnam, Bahr returned to the States, working as a brakeman on a railroad on the Gulf Coast. He enrolled in the University of Mississippi in 1973. He became the curator of Faulkner's home, Rowan Oak, in 1976, holding that position until 1993. It is not surprising that Faulkner is among his favorite authors.

During his Ole Miss years, Bahr obtained his BA and Master's degrees in English, teaching literature at the University. Although he began a doctoral program, he did not submit a dissertation. Thinking his career at Ole Miss had reached a dead end, he took a position at Motlow State in Tennessee, teaching literature and creative writing.

While at his new teaching position Bahr wrote The Black Flower: A Novel of the Civil War. Getting it published was another story.

The Historical Context


General John Bell Hood, Commander, Army of Tennessee

John Bell Hood, who had fought at Gettysburg with Lee, witnessed Pickett's Charge, but learned nothing from it. Wounded by an exploding shell he lost the use of his left arm for the remainder of his life. At Chickamauga he lost a leg, amputated just below the hip.

He had pursued courtship of a Richmond belle, Sally Buchanan Preston, known to her friends as "Buck." She repeatedly turned Hood's efforts at courtship aside. Before his transfer to the Western theater of the war, she reluctantly agreed to marry him. The wedding never occurred.

Hood had taken the command of the Army of Tennessee from Joe Johnson who had defended Atlanta using trenches and breastworks. His troops had loved him for his value of their lives.

Hood was a different animal. He was aggressive to the extreme. He despised fighting on the defensive. His objective was to cut off Union troops under the command of General Schofield from uniting with General George H. Thomas, known as the "Rock of Chickamauga" for his stand at that battle on September 19, 1864.

On the night of November 29th, Schofield's troops quietly crossed the exhausted Confederate lines without being discovered, moving on to take the heights of Franklin, Tennessee.

Upon learning that Schofield had eluded him, Hood became enraged the following morning. He would launch a frontal assault at Franklin, Tennessee. He had eighteen divisions of troops, almost 20,000 men.

"When he explained what he meant by 'make the fight'--an all out frontal assault, within the hour--consternation folllowed hard upon doubt by his lieutenants that they had hear aright. They too had looked out over the proposed arena, and could scarely believe their ears. Attack? here? headlong and practicallly gunless, against a foe not only superior in numbers but also intrenched on chosen ground and backed by the frown of more than sixty pieces of artillery?", Shelby Foote, The Civil War: A Narrative, vol. III, p. 666, Random House, New York, 1976.

Bushrod Carter's War

He was born in Cumberland, Mississippi, in 1838, and baptized at the age of eleven months in the Church of the Holy Cross. He attended the University of Mississippi at Oxford and was educated. He had a love of books and poetry, having been taught by his cousin Remy that without poetry the heart was empty. When the war came he immediately enlisted in the Cumberland Rifles with his pards Jack Bishop and Virgil C. Johnson. He had fought in every engagement entered by the Army of Tennessee. Yet, though he was but twenty-six, his beard and mustache were streaked with gray.

"His own side--that is, the Confederate States of America, which existed for Bushrod only as a vague and distand, and rarely generous entity--had provided him a first-rate Enfield rifle with blued barrel and a rich, oily stock into which he had carved his initials...[H]e was not a sharpshooter; Bushrod preferred to leave his targets to chance."

Through all the fights, Bushrod was uncomfortable, preferring to call his enemies as "The Strangers." In the assaults, he did not look up, nor did he think about what was happening, nor did he know what he did during battle. It was only later that he would remember what he had done. He would rather not remember it.

Now, it is November 30, an Indian Summer day that hunters back home would dream about having. Unlike earlier times he is wishing it is this time tomorrow. He is waiting for something to happen.

Often in battle he thought there was another Bushrod Carter who took his place who did those things he did not want to remember. At times the other would speak to him. He heard it now.

"All a-tremble over things that ain't happened yet, that might not happen atall. I won't have this, won't have it. Now, listen. Listen--

Bushrod shut his eyes tight, and in the dark behind his eyes arose a vision: the battlefield, the tangled breastworks of the enemy floating closer and closer, what had been life's endless prospect shrunken to a few yards of brittle grass. And the Departed! The Departed rising from the earth like blackbirds, by the hundreds, by the thousands, groaning and chattering, disappearing forever into the smoke--

That was Hawthorne said the voice. Remember what he said. The black flower. Let the black flower blossom as it may--"

His pards are as they always are. Jack, the cynical one. Virgil C. the clown.

"'This is all folly,' Bishop went on, 'and I for one am inclined to forego the whole thing. See those trees yonder?' He swept his arm toward the river. 'They will make this whole end of the line bunch up toward the center, and it'll be a fine day for hog killin, won't it Bushrod, old pard?'"

"'If you are killed, said Virgil C., 'can I have your watch?'
'No!' said Bishop. 'I have told you a hundred times, that watch was give to me by my mother, and I intend to carry it even unto the grave.'"

The army formed up at the McGavock family place, Carnton Plantation. The breastworks are visible a mile and a half away over clear plain. It is a killing field.


Carnton Plantation

It is over around two a.m. Jack was right. It was a good day for hog killin. Bushrod is buried beneath the dead seven and eight deep at the Strangers' breastworks. He is rescued, and carried back to Carnton. He has been struck in the head with the butt of a musket. The tip of a finger has been shot off. But he is alive.

At Carnton Bushrod will be cared for by Caroline McGavock's cousin Anna. Each have known love and lost it. Perhaps they have one more chance.

The Long Road to Publication

Howard Bahr submitted "The Black Flower" to several publishing companies. All rejected it. Ultimately, The Nautical and Aviation Pulishing Company of America, Baltimore, Maryland, published the novel as part of a project to launch a series of historical fiction. The novel was largely overlooked and rarely reviewed.

In 1998, Henry Holt and Company, New York, published "The Black Flower" as a new work in a trade paperback edition. Robert Wilson, reviewing the novel for the NYTimes wrote:

Howard Bahr's first novel was published in hardcover last year by a small press in Baltimore, but despite being nominated for several awards it escaped the attention of most reviewers and readers. Now appearing in paperback, it's being republished as if it were new. The success of ''Cold Mountain'' certainly has something to do with this, since ''The Black Flower,'' like that surprising best seller, is, as its subtitle reminds us, ''A Novel of the Civil War.'' Let me promise right now not to compare Bahr's bold effort with ''The Red Badge of Courage,'' ''The Killer Angels,'' the film ''Glory'' or a certain public television documentary. Forget Margaret Mitchell, Shelby Foote and even Charles Frazier. Bahr's novel is too eccentric and too uneven to support such comparisons. And at moments it's almost too good to support them."

Wilson particularly found Bahr to write with a post Vietnam ferocity, establishing the malignity of war and its pointlessness, calling "The Black Flower" a deeply moral novel. Indeed it is.

The Reviewer Wraps Up

Just how good is "The Black Flower?" It was nominated for The Stephen Crane Award, and won The Lincoln Prize from Gettysburg College and The LSU Michael Shaara Award for Civil War First Fiction. It was also nominated for the the Sue Kaufman First Fiction Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In addition, the novel was chosen as both a Book-of-the-Month Club and a Quality Paperback Book alternate. It was also considered a New York Times Notable Book of the Year in 1998.

I have walked the terrain of Franklin. I've been to Carnton, the Carter House Gin. It is small wonder that among Civil War historians the Battle of Franklin is frequently called the Pickett's Charge of the West. Surveying the ground, Hood's "lieutenants" were correct. So was Bushrod's cynical friend, Jack Bishop. The very lay of the land would funnel the army into a trap where they were subjected to enfilading fire.


The Killing Field at Franklin

Bahr wrote a significant novel regarding the futility of war. In stark and at other times, dream like, prose, he reminds us that there is no glory in war. As Bushrod tells us it is hard to tell the difference between winning and losing.


The McGavock Family Cemetery

Just walk through the McGavock Family cemetery at Carnton. You'll agree.

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

5+ Stars - I do wish there were a rating "Stupendous"

Perhaps if I had been born in Oxford, Mississippi, I could have been a great writer. Seems everyone who puts pen to paper in that town writes something extraordinary. Howard Bahr is my new favorite writer. He puts emotion into his work without saccharin; he brings reality with all its starkness and tempers it with a bit of humor; and he finds what it is that essentially makes us human, the parts we most try to hide and keep to ourselves, and he lays them bare for the world to see. He collapses you into tears that purge your soul, and you cry not only for his characters who have touched you so, but for yourself and for all the potential that was lost and buried in your world before you came.

I have always loved the Civil War. I was born into a South that still remembered its loss and mourned them as if they were fresh. I grew up in the shadow of Kennesaw Mountain and I went there and felt the blood still rushing beneath its calm surface. I felt the pride and the shame and the waste of that war as if I had known it in some regard closer than a history book. My grandfather, whose older brothers had fought in it, carried a bit of it in his soul and remembered its aftermath and the impact that it had on their lives.

And they would look out over the stones and the grass and the tranquil bloodless fields and find, each in his turn, the only truth that was left them: that the stones possessed a logic of their own, that it all seemed to make sense once but didn’t now, and whatever meaning there once was could no longer be got at by old men drowsing in the sunlight with full bellies and no one to shoot at them. With this, all distinctions blurred--between enemies, between the living and the dead--until the old men arose and knocked out their pipes and walked away, wanting to forgive everyone, starting with themselves.

But this is not largely the tale of those old men who survived and felt the moments after the war. This is, rather, Bushrod Carter’s very personal story of the war he fought, of the losses he endured, and of his own attempt to make sense of it all. At its beginning, we find Bushrod, his friends, Jack Bishop and Virgil C. Johnson, and the army of the Confederacy about to engage in one of the bloodiest and most useless battles of the entire war, the Battle of Franklin, Tennessee. They are about to cross the land of the McGavock’s, intersect with the lives there, and change a sweet and peaceful home beside a meandering river into a witness to battle, an onsite hospital, and a river of blood. Bushrod must grapple with every inch of moral territory a man can encounter: a love for his fellow man, the memory of a life before, the madness of continuing to pursue a cause no one can even remember, and a belief in a God who seems absent most of the time.

...but he had never figured out how God could look down on such madness and not take a hand. The best he could do was to remind himself that men made their own troubles mostly, and that God spent a lot of time grieving Himself.

Amen. War now is so different, so impersonal in some ways; we kill men that we do not have to look into the eyes of while we do it. But, in this war, we are fighting ourselves, our own, and we must look into the face of the man we kill and try not to see that what we slay is a piece of ourselves. Perhaps that is what has always made this war seem different to me. That and the feeling that of all the avoidable wars in the history of mankind, this one was the most avoidable.

Needless to say, I will read the rest of Bahr’s works. His two other Civil War books are on order. I am grateful to Diane at the Southern Literary Trail for introducing me to this marvelous writer. Not since Cold Mountain have I read a Civil War novel that brought me so close to the hearts of the men who fought and the women who witnessed and paid the price in loss and remembrance.

[Lori Keeton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some times I do not think I shall live to be very old—but should it be God’s will for me and any come to me and ask how it was in the old War times, I will say—that there was really no victory, and no defeat. There were only brave men.
—Bushrod Carter’s Commonplace Book
Florence, Alabama
November 16, 1864

This is one of those books that deserves all the stars and more. It is highly emotionally draining but it is one of the most unapologetic renderings of a civil war battle that I have ever read. Howard Bahr gets into the mind of one particular Confederate soldier presenting a view of the events from his emotions and thoughts. We meet Bushrod Carter on the eve of the Battle of Franklin Tennessee. From the first page we are privy to what is on his mind with a dream of snow falling and turning into hoe cakes drenched in molasses as they hit the ground. A striking image from the beginning of the hunger and starvation of war. A few pages later Bushrod is trying his best not to think but remembering the first charge at Shiloh and the fear instilled within him then. There is Another that completely takes him over in a battle and most of the time he doesn’t even remember what he did during a battle because he is under the Other’s will. It is during his dreams that the scenes play out for him from beginning to end allowing him to come to grips with the terror he bestowed and endured.

Then he would watch as scene after scene unfolded, with himself at the center of each, and whatever of terror and outrage and violence he’d missed before would return undiminished in fatal clarity and no effort of will would make it stop until it was played out to the end—Bushrod all the while telling himself That could not be me but knowing all the while that it was.

The Strangers were the enemy and the Departed were the dead. His thoughts go straight to the fact that he has no quarrel with the Strangers but the sight of the upturned ground where they’ve laid their shells and canisters brings to the forefront the fact that the Strangers would if they could, send him straightaway to join the long ranks of the Departed. And then his next thoughts focus on being at the mercy of the one Stranger who has the power to rob him of all that God Himself had promised—. How could one who doesn’t know him be so willing to kill him?

This is not just Bushrod Carter’s story. It is also a story of comaraderie between Bushrod, Jack Bishop and Virgil C. Johnson. Mixed into the turmoil and toil of war is the bond of friendship and the humor that lives there. It’s a brilliant addition that truly allowed these men to stay sane - to banter and joke about with each other. We also see the role the surgeons played as they set up a makeshift hospital in a requisitioned plantation. The number of limbs that were sawed off is just remarkable. Bahr also brings to life the conscripts in the character of Nebo Gloster who knew nothing about the war and was thrown into the regiment with Bushrod and the others. His ineptitude causes one of the most shocking scenes in the entire novel, but he can’t be faulted. Another conscript is the most evil character named Simon Rope. Just the epitome of vileness and immorality.

Anna Hereford’s story brings a light into the darkness as she is the niece of the McGavock’s whose house is being used as the hospital. She and Bushrod connect so quickly bringing the hope of promise and possibility for the future.

The sheer emotional roller coaster I went on as I read this memorable novel left me drained and empty. I took each and every word and savored it so that it would last. The scenes are harsh and raw but that is what makes Bahr’s work so authentic. It left me in tears many times and completely in shock by the end. It is surprising to me that this novel was published in 1997 in the same year as Charles Frazier’s highly acclaimed Cold Mountain. Both books focus on the Civil War but in different ways. Frazier’s novel is about a journey of returning home but Bahr’s looks at one battle up close through the eyes of an infantryman. Both novels, in my opinion are worthy of the highest ratings. But The Black Flower will be my favorite of the two and it has been hidden in the shadows of Cold Mountain. Just look at the GR statistics for these books that have been around for 25 years. The Black Flower has 1,644 ratings and 216 reviews while Cold Mountain has a staggering 231,941 ratings and 5,997 reviews. I say this to make a plea to anyone who loves good literature to find this book and read it! It is so deserving of all the accolades too.

They were young men, most of them, but veteran of a long, vicious war; they were strong, dangerous men, cynical about death, even their own, which they had long ago accepted as inevitable. They had seen other battlefields, other helpless dead, and thought that nothing could ever surprise or grieve or frighten them again. Even so, they found nothing in all their bitter days to prepare them for the scene that confronted them now. They stood in silence, listening to their own heartbeats, understanding all at once that, whatever their experience, they had not exhausted the possibilities for horror.

[Connie G · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bushrod Carter and his two best buddies were marching with the Confederate army to the 1864 Civil War battle in Franklin, Tennessee. Hungry and exhausted after three years of war, Bushrod did not feel good about this battle, especially since the Union was on higher ground behind earthworks.

"He was not afraid, he just wasn't ready, and he knew that if he had a hundred years he would be unready still. Too many things to say, too many thoughts he hadn't shaped yet, too much life. So he looked at his hands, and through them he offered up all that he was and ever had been: all things he had made, good and bad, all the faces he had touched, all the bright threads that had passed through his fingers in his little time. It was the best he could do, it would have to be enough."

The McGavock's home was requisitioned by the Confederates as a makeshift hospital. Although the Union retreated, the fields were filled with the smell of death, and the Confederates lost an overwhelming number of soldiers and experienced officers. Bloody-aproned surgeons, fortified with alcohol, brought out their dull saws to deal with the wounded. The dead and injured covered the floors of the house with blood, and the stains still remain. Anna Hereford, a cousin to the McGavocks, will never forget the next few days. Wounded Bushrod Carter shared some special moments with Anna which will haunt her forever.

"The Black Flower" destroys the myth that war is glorious. It has few descriptions of the actual Battle of Franklin, but takes us into the minds and emotions of the soldiers and Anna. Howard Bahr's writing is sensual--full of images of the ragtag soldiers, the fog of gunsmoke, the smell of unwashed clothes and fear, the sounds of the drums, the cries of the dying, and the heartbreaking, senseless deaths in both armies. But there are also sweet moments between Bushrod and Anna, and humor in the friendships of Bushrod and his friends. This beautifully written book is not to be missed.

[Chrissie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book of historical fiction about the Battle of Franklin of the Civil War, a disastrous battle for the Confederate side, fought on November 30, 1864, in Franklin, Tennessee. It looks at the soldiers' state of mind before, during and after the battle. It is a book of character portrayal focusing on three Southerners, three boyhood friends born in Cumberland, Mississippi--Privates Bushrod Carter, Jack Bishop and Virgil C. Johnson, the first two twenty-six years of age and Johnson twenty-four. They are three years into the war, and they know now what battle is about. Fear, filth, vermin, unimaginable suffering and death. Other characters join the story --Nebo Gloster, Anna Hereford and Simon Rope are the most important. After the battle the setting is a Confederate field hospital owned by Caroline McGavock, Anna's cousin. By looking at this one battle and these individuals we come to grasp emotionally the horrors of this war. We are not given a pretty picture, and this is by no means an easy read. No other book I have read on the Civil War so movingly and so devastatingly brings this war alive. What is delivered is an accurate and true to life picture of the war.

Please remember that a three star book is one I think is good and can recommend to others, but why have I not given it more stars? The horrors described are relentless. Sitting with this book for a lengthy period of time becomes tortuous. While only a talented writer can bring such unimaginable horrors alive, the unending flow became too much for me. A diversion, here and there in the book, would have helped. That is complaint number one.

Number two: the characters are realistically drawn as complicated individuals with both good and bad qualities, EXCEPT for one—Simon Rope. He is the book’s devil incarnate, and he is a big mistake in this book. He plays an important role in the unfolding of the plot, so the entire story needs to be revised if he were to be removed.

Number three: there is not one word about why the Civil War was fought. Nothing. A few words about slavery and why Southerners were dependent on it would not have been out of place.

The audiobook I listened to is read by Brian Emerson. It is OK; thus, I gave the audio performance two stars. It Is not hard to follow, he speaks clearly, and he captures well how Southerners speak, but he has a peculiar manner of drawing out the last syllable of the last word in each sentence interminably. This becomes enervating.

This book is definitely worth reading. It accurately portrays the horrors of the battles of the Civil War. I would like to thank those who recommended the book to me.

[Jay Schutt · Rating 4 out of 5]

A simple story beautifully written with descriptive prose of the hopes of life and the horrors of war. Mostly, the horrors of war. Well done.

[Terry · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Black Flower, A Novel of the Civil War, is a moving story of one man’s experience of war at Franklin, one of the worst battles of the American Civil War. At the same time, it is also a love story that emerges in the midst of carnage. It is not a story about slavery or states rights or whatever reasons young men went to war. It is about surviving a gruesome battle and finding love in its aftermath.

“For the first time in all Bushrod’s soldiering, the sight of his army arrayed for battle drove fear, reluctance, even the sacred knowledge of death itself from his mind, and in their place burned a single, incandescent idea: that here, on this field, he was witness to a scene that would never be played again, and whatever the balance of his life, he would measure it from the moment unfolding around him.”

“He was not afraid, he just wasn’t ready, and he knew if he lived a hundred years he would still be unready.”

“The earth remembers things.”

I found this novel to be more powerful than All Quiet on the Western Front, and more meaningful for me being the war fought in my own country.

[Antoinette · Rating 5 out of 5]

Howard Bahr takes the reader into the heart of the Civil War. We meet Bushrod Carter on the eve of the battle of Franklin, in Tennessee. We are with him before the battle, during and after. The author captured the fear, the comradeship, the loss and ultimately the ravages and futility of war. Bushrod Carter has become a character I will always remember. He is a caring individual who is fighting for their cause, but cannot look the enemy- “ the strangers”, as he refers to them- in the eye. He is brave but afraid; he is a gentleman but also a soldier.

“ Thus it was that Bushrod Carter could look away toward the distant trees and feel no less a man for being afraid.”

“...that here, on this field, he was witness to a scene that would never be played again, and whatever the balance of his life, he would measure it from the moment now unfolding around him.”

You can’t help getting tearful as you read his story, but the author has managed to sprinkle some humour throughout. The repartee between Bushrod and his friends is dead on perfect.
It is quite a brutal book but it had to be- War is nothing if not brutal.

A superb book that I highly recommend if you are interested in reading more about the Civil War!
Thanks Sara for recommending this book to me. I will definitely be reading the other two books in the author’s Civil War trilogy.

Published: 1997

[Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is a recurring image in this novel of a river flowing inexorably onward, a river sometimes of water, sometimes of men. It adds to the feeling of inevitability...all of this must happen. No reason of course, only the orders of insane generals.

This was one of my comments late in the reading of this extremely well-written, effective novel of the pyrrhic victory "enjoyed" by the Confederate Army at Franklin, Tennessee in late November of 1864. I would only amend it to say that the same river also occasionally flows back into memory, toward Mississippi and childhood, moments of past peace and surety.


"Thinking of the river had comforted him once, but it
pressed heavily on him now, for there would be no
gathering there. he remembered the vision he had made
---was it only yesterday?---and how it had sustained
him, but it was gone now, like all those who might
have gathered with him. All the old boys, camping this
night along a far shore where Bushrod Carter could not
follow....
He was tired, and there was too much death. So he lay
down beside his comrade, pillowed his head on the legs
of the Departed, and slept for a time.

And dreamed of rivers and calm waters, of all the boys
passing down through sunlight and patterns of shade on
a slow current that bore them home---" (p 197-8)


There is so much to recommend in this book, well conceived and developed characters who are consistent throughout and appear consistent to their time; an unflinching portrait of war and the physical and emotional cost to all involved --in the era of hand to hand combat and brutal, largely ineffective medical care; a portrait of some of the Southern mind that this Yankee has found very interesting and instructive. That war did not touch the land I live on. The Revolutionary War is The War of my area, but a very different event in our nation's history and certainly emotions.

Thank you to Southern Literary Trails for leading me to this book. I plan to read Bahr's follow-up novels.

[Diane Barnes · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book took me a while to read, but was worth every second spent with it. I read slowly to digest the beauty of the language and the imagery, and considering that most of the novel is about death and dying and the futility of war, that speaks volumes about the talent of the author. The battle of Franklin, Tennessee and it's aftermath is depicted in such detail, and so poignantly, that it must be read slowly simply to digest it emotionally. This is the best Civil War novel I have ever read.

[Joy D · Rating 5 out of 5]

“They wandered aimlessly through the wreckage of the battlefield. Now and then a hand would claw at their trouser legs. Voices rose from the shadows, disembodied like voices in dreams. Some demanded relief, others begged; they asked for water or for a surgeon, they asked for mothers and sisters, these voices. Some begged to be shot. From all these the boys shrank in guilty horror.”

Confederate soldiers and friends from Mississippi, Bushrod, Jack, and Virgil, are part of the same company fighting the American Civil War. They have become war weary and seriously consider desertion. We follow them as they participate in the Battle of Franklin, Tennessee (1864). Bushrod meets Anna, whose cousin’s house is taken over and used as a field hospital.

I had never read anything by Howard Bahr before and was very impressed with his writing. The storyline illustrates the terrible death toll taken in the Civil War. It is does not touch on the causes. It is intensely focused on the relationships between friends, and what might have been for Bushrod and Anna in different circumstances. As may be expected in a book about war, it is extremely sad. It is a powerful story of attempting to retain human compassion in the midst of devastation.

“In the tricky, shifting light of the fire, the sleepers—Anna, Bushrod, and Nebo—seemed figures in a very old painting, caught in a vanished moment of repose. It was easy to believe that they might sleep forever, free of pain and grief and confusion, pardoned from all things and especially from tomorrow. They might never change—only the colors around them, already soft, yielding year by year to the benign erosion of time. It was an illusion, of course, for the constellations above were moving ahead of the sun, and the light of day would dissolve the shadows and awaken the sleepers to movement, to life or to death, as it always did. But for now they slept and dreamed, and their peace, for all its deception, was no less real to them.”

[Dave Marsland · Rating 5 out of 5]

Astonishing. I've read a few books about the American Civil War and this one most certainly stands out. It took a while to get going, but it was worth the perseverance. Brilliantly constructed, historically accurate, it's an eloquent and impactful journey through the horrors of war.

[GG Stewart’s Bookhouse · Rating 4 out of 5]

While getting to know Bushrod Carter you find yourself at the Battle of Franklin, Tennessee, a hell on earth. A place where death and agony are rampant but among that you experience what makes us human and unique. What may seem as completely out of place is what helps us cope with what is going on around us. Camaraderie, humor, and love seem to be the way that the characters overcome the horror that war brings.
The history part of this book is well researched, bringing the characters emotions and the nightmarish imagery that only war can produce.

In the end you are left with an understanding of the life of a soldier at war, his struggles with making sense of what he’s feeling and seeing. His struggles to keep faith and hope and a great reminder of the blood shed, lives, and sacrifices that have been given for our freedom today.

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Growing up in the northwest, the Civil War / War Between the States/ War of Northern Aggression gets a brief mention, but classtime tended to focus on local history. Fur trade, Oregon trail, Native Americans. Since moving to the south, it has become more clear how very recent events like this war were, and everything seems related to it in some way. Most of the time, I get mistaken for a Southerner, but I always feel like I should know more about the history.

This book was selected for the December read for the On the Southern Literary Trail Group, one I joined intentionally to have greater exposure to southern lit. This piece of historical fiction serves two purposes - one more southern novel, but one that takes a very intimate and specific look at a small group of Confederate soldiers surrounding the events of the battle in Franklin, TN, in November 1864.

Most of the story circles around a rifleman named Bushrod Carter, although sometimes it goes off on tangents following other characters' backstories. My favorite bits of the book were between Bushrod and Anna, a girl helping out at a home the soldiers end up at for rest and recovery. You might be rolling your eyes and saying, "Oh, typical girl," but I'm not a war novel person most of the time. This would have never been something I would have picked up on my own to read, but I'm glad I did. It humanizes the events and the soldiers, it brings the situation to a very realistic place through descriptive and emotional writing, and makes some connections to the future (the present) that I was nodding along with, things I recognized in the southerners I know.

The most memorable moment for me is the author talking about the impact the war had on the women, after burying their dead, but also after welcoming home the men who hadn't died in battle.
"...This the women could not forgive. Much was taken, too little returned; distinctions blurred, and the hearts that might have lain like picked roses in the women's hands were buried forever under the stones of the dead.
So the women would not forgive. Their passion remained intact, carefully guarded and nurtured by the bitter knowledge of all they had lost, of all that had been stolen from them. For generations they vilified the Yankee race so the thief would have a face, a name, a mysterious country into which he had withdrawn and from which he might venture again...."

One Yankee slur in passing I'm including here so I can go research it:
"'Never fear,' said the Major. He smiled his broad smile, the corners of his mouth crinkling. 'The day ain't dawned I can't outrun a tribe of cheese-eaters.'"
Cheese-eaters? Ha!

Music is so frequently mentioned that I hunted down the songs explicitly mentioned and created a Spotify playlist. Annie Laurie is used throughout, a Scottish-origin ballad that seemed to comfort the soldiers, in fact they seemed to prefer it even as heading into battle, over a rousing march (much to one band-leader's chagrin!).

[Teresa · Rating 5 out of 5]

(Written when I first added the book:) Not normally the type of book I'd read, but my brother sent it home with my daughter for me to read when she was visiting him in September. It's set in the city where my brother now lives.

Now that I've finished it, I find that it certainly is the kind of book I'd read: beautiful, insightful prose; scenes and characters that stay with you; details that break your heart. (There's a scene detailing the 'journey' of a wasp that is amazing!)

The subtitle ("A Novel of the Civil War") is limiting. Though the futile, wasteful aftereffects of the battle are shown in horrific detail (it's a wonder all of the soldiers didn't go insane), it's much, much more than a novel of the Civil War. It's a story of true friendships, of persevering and of loving; and remaining human despite unimaginable pain and fear.

[Tasha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, so superb. If you want an experience, pick this one up. The writing puts you right into events and the aftermath of a battle in the Civil War. I kept forgetting that this is historical fiction, it feels like a narrative non-fic read. The writing is so descriptive, yet not overdone, and some of the lines are highlight worthy...something I truly never slow down to savor. These characters will forever be a part of my life and I know that these people were real, not just hist fic characters. It's almost uncanny the way this author describes and writes, almost like he was there himself...perhaps he was??! I plan on reading Pelican Road and hope to be as immersed in the events as I was in this one.

[Shirley (stampartiste) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't understand how this book (and this author) are lying in such obscurity. Bahr wrote such a gripping story of young men called to serve in a battle they know they cannot win. It is the story of friendship, of war, and the intersection of the two. The story was so engrossing and so unpredictable that it literally took my breath away on several occasions. Bahr has written one of the best books I have ever read. He has the ability to draw the reader in and turn the narrative intensely personal. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. I am looking forward to reading the next two books in the trilogy.

[Tom Mathews · Rating 3 out of 5]

Surprisingly, I didn't find this book as compelling as I expected to. Perhaps it was that the story was more a character study and a comparative monograph on the difference between the reality and the perception of battle. One thing I did find interesting is that this novel about the Battle of Franklin takes place almost entirely before and after the battle. This brings to mind the expression 'fog of war' even though it isn't entirely apropos. Bahr apparently wanted to focus on the human cost of battle rather than on the actual fighting.

On the plus side, Bahr is exceptional when it comes to portraying characters, particularly what is going on inside their heads. Time spent reading this book will not be wasted.

[Carol Storm · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written very well, with fascinating attention to detail especially in the battle scenes. But the author has nothing new to say about the South, slavery, or the Civil War. The hero is an extraordinarily passive fellow who never seems to own his choices in life. The battlefield slaughter and the sufferings of the wounded are played up on every page, while the driving motive for the war (slavery and white supremacy, and the suffering they caused) are never even acknowledged.

[Theo Logos · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Battle of Franklin was one of most terrible infantry charges in the Civil War. Desperate and ill-advised, it was comparable to, if not greater than, the much more famous Picket's Charge at Gettysburg. Unlike Picket’s famous charge, the Confederates penetrated the Union line at several places, and engaged in fierce hand to hand combat that raged until after dark, when they were finally repulsed. The Black Flower tells the story of a few people who were caught up in this nearly unmatched catastrophe of war, and for the most part, tells it powerfully.

This is a novel that starts out powerfully, hits snags and loses its way in the middle, and manages to get back on track for a strong finish. It works best when dealing directly with the emotions and tangled thoughts of the young men about to charge into hell, across two miles of open field into an entrenched enemy, and when painting the nightmare of the battle's aftermath. It flounders somewhat when it delves into a male/female relationship that is cliché despite its nightmare setting. To its credit, it avoids an unforgivable romantic ending that would have cheapened and ruined a powerful story.

Bahr wisely avoids using much description of the battle itself. The first third of the book introduces us to the protagonist, Private Bushrod Carter and his friends as they are preparing to go into battle. Through their eyes, the author shows us how it must have been to be staring out across those two empty miles at the enemy's strongly entrench position, knowing from hard-earned experience just what a charges like that would mean. In short, effective strokes, he fleshes out these soldiers so that the reader is drawn into caring about their fate. He then breaks off and leaves them as they begin their charge across the field, about to engage the enemy. The story jumps to the night after the battle, and the shattered, nightmare carnage that was left in its wake. The rest of the book describes that night and the morning after. Bahr thus uses the most effective tool of any teller of tales of horror - he shows us the "monster" itself only in sideways glimpses, and leaves the rest to our imagination.

Bahr did a masterful job of capturing the spirit and feel of an earlier era — how they spoke, how they thought — without sacrificing readability. He paints powerful word portraits, such as this one:
“Well, Bushrod thought, the dead were dead. They were gone, and took with them their faces and voices and whether they drank coffee or not and whether they believed in infant baptism or not and who they liked and who they didn't - gone with all their years and all the baggage they carried...all flown up like blackbirds into that undiscovered country from whose bourn they would not return, not today nor tomorrow, nor the next day, forever and ever, amen -."
Bahr also makes fine use of symbolism that is all the more powerful because he leaves it ambiguous.

The books greatest failing is in the sub-plot that revolves around Simon Rope, an evil Confederate conscript. The author tried to use this as a devise to show another aspect of the horrors of war, but he misses the mark. He fails to make the character believable, and telegraphs the climax of this sub-plot far in advance for anyone who has read enough to be familiar with how cliches play out.

Despite its flaws, this is a powerful book, and deserves a place among other great novels of the Civil War that address war as it is rather than war as romance.

[Jonathan Briggs · Rating 5 out of 5]

The closest I've ever come to believing in ghosts was one year around Halloween when my dad and I visited Gettysburg at dusk. The sunset silhouetted spiky, spindly trees in the distance and shone a scorched orange light across an open battlefield, tinting the dried-out grass red, and there was ... something ... there. I was reminded of that feeling reading Howard Bahr's Civil War novel "The Black Flower." For a chapter, Bahr takes a break from the main narrative of his debut and leaps years ahead to a scene in which a woman revisits a battlefield and has much the same experience I did at Gettysburg. All that bloodshed, all that death has to fundamentally change the land it occurs on. Bahr's plotting is open to many such digressions. It's loose but not in the scatterbrained way of an unsure first novelist. Bahr keeps a steady hand on the tiller while allowing the story freedom to flow in unexpected directions, jumping forward and backward in time, following various characters for long stretches or maybe just a few paragraphs. One chapter is even told from the point of view of a blood-drunk wasp in a horror-show battlefield hospital. Bahr's approach allows for beautifully quiet moments of observation such as this: "For a time after they were gone, nothing moved in the silent afternoon. Then, high overhead, a single leaf turned loose its hold and rattled down through the branches. When it broke free of the bottom branch, it spun for an instant, descending. It settled on the fresh-mounded earth of the grave -- the first of many to come, autumn after autumn, forever." I like that. So much that I went back and reread it a couple of times. I backtracked a lot in "The Black Flower." It's a good book for backtracking.

[Franky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Howard Bahr’s The Black Flower is a well-researched, accurately depicted account of The Battle of Franklin. Set during The Civil War, the story focuses primarily on soldier Bushrod Carter and his friends’ involvement. Especially poignant about Bahr’s novel is the level of consciousness he gives to war and battle. He puts you right in the middle of the soldier’s thoughts as he progresses and marches towards battle, and then takes you to the aftermath, where he thinks and experiences the effects. The gruesome aspects of war are depicted, yet the author also focuses on the effect and inner turmoil of the individual. Some aspects of war are romanticized, but these are quickly contrasted with the emotional and physical toll of war, the aftermath of those directly in fight or those who are called on to help the victims. The Black Flower doesn’t go overboard with over the top war sequences, yet we feel--and experience--the devastation in a raw, almost too realistic, way.

While the novel shifts around in time, a good portion of it is devoted to the meeting between Bushrod and Anne, who is helping tend to the wounded in a makeshift hospital at the McGavocks’ home. The first part focuses on Bushrod’s team getting ready for battle, and then marching towards their destination. We follow their thoughts as they move onward, and then the narrative moves around a bit.

The Black Flower has a stream of conscious angle to its storytelling. We shift from time periods before, during and after the battle, from various character perspectives and places. Bahr also powerfully is able to use levels of consciousness to move to an almost “out of body” perspective (with characters looking at all angles of the war) and then back to real time. This adds to the blurred perspective, as line between life and death, the black flower, become intertwined. Bahr accurately depicts the fear and anxiety, hopelessness and uncertainty, yet courage and mettle all involved had to face both during and after the war.

If there is one knock, the book does get a little dogged down with melodrama at points. However, these moments are minimal.

The Black Flower is a compelling novel about The Civil War, one that illustrates what war does to the individual. Bahr also has such a lyrical way to his writing that make this a smooth read, giving each passage a poetic, powerful quality.

[Lori · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absorbing. Extraordinary. Beautiful. Yes, this book is beautiful in ways that perhaps a book about the Civil War shouldn't be. But, there is undeniable truth here. Soldiers about to face the enemy on a battlefield might share something humorous. An officer might daydream about a green-eyed girl, thinking of what he will say to her next time they meet, even if that day is so far distant it's barely thinkable, even knowing that day may never come. There will also be loss, painful and numbing. But oddly enough, there will be comforts, however small. Howard Bahr writes with authenticity and depth of feeling. I could almost believe that he traveled back in time, observed the Battle of Franklin, the chaos and the aftermath, then wrote his eyewitness account so that we would know what transpired there.

And so, I found this book to be a poignant reminder that war interrupts lives, steals dreams, and leaves its mark on those involved in ways wholly unexpected. I highly recommend this.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

SPOILERS ABOUND! Only for people who have read it and want to connect over a beautiful story.

Well, it certainly is a tragedy. I wonder if the author found a tintype in the grass somewhere in Tennessee, saw the three pudgy soldiers in the picture, and imagined the story behind it. Such a sweet detail. Winder drops it in the grass — you see why I think that about the author? When my husband John read that part, as he read aloud, since my voice had choked up, “and it fell in the grass,” I actually yelped. Aloud. No. Not Bushrod’s tintype of his pards. =(

John saw the foreshadowing; I did not.
“He’s gonna die.”
“How do you know!” I asked.
“He saw the 3 of them in the grave, the 2 were calling to him, the dropping of the tintype, he said it was the last time he saw her smile.”
“Dang.”

Someone needs to explain that epilogue to me.

I was smitten from the first paragraph with the author’s way of writing; it was like eating good food.

About a third of the way through, I thought about quitting. It was all so gruesome, and I thought, is this going to be another Kite Runner, just jacking you around with one horror after another? I’m glad I kept going. I was sold on Bushrod as a character, invested in his well-being, and curious about his outcome. Also, I just couldn’t stop.

It's the first I ever heard Northerners called "cheese-eaters." That made me pause. I guess Southerners didn't eat cheese! I ate Kraft slices as a child and thought cheddar was weird.

It’s a tragedy, but a noble one. I can’t even explain the feeling I have about this. Sad but so much goodness mixed in. The bond between those 3 young men and their determination to keep going, and then, in opposition, the question Anna never gets answered: why do men do these things? The deep look you get as the reader into the workings of each soul was like crack— I couldn’t stop.

I learned that conscription is not a good idea.

I read this around Memorial Day and was saddened by the thought that the country doesn’t consider these boys as fallen soldiers worthy of remembering. I remember the Confederate soldier, protecting his home against invaders, fighting for the right to make laws that served his own state. (I’m talking tariffs, not slavery.)

I didn’t even get through the first chapter before I felt the need to write my reaction. I was just getting to know Bushrod, a Confederate soldier about to meet the enemy in battle, standing with his gun, musing. He had fallen asleep standing up, dreaming of a big ham among other things, and had just woke. His musings are so beautiful and heart-wrenching. Here's one:

Ordinarily, Bushrod tried not to think too much in the time before a battle. Long ago he had learned to close his mind to speculation, fixing his eyes on the crossed straps or blanket roll of the man to his front or, if he was in the front rank (as he was now), the ground at his feet. He never, never, never looked up at the enemy, not since the first charge on the sunken road at Shiloh when the site of the bristling blue ranks and the waiting guns double-shotted with canister nearly froze his heart. When a fight was joined in earnest, Bushrod did not think at all. The roar of his own blood consumed all thought and drove him deep into the marrow dark, where he huddled in supplication while Another in his shape loaded and fired the musket, swung it at the heads of Strangers, and waited through the shambles. Only afterward—when the moral spark, having survived once more, crept upward and looked timidly about—did Bushrod dare to think again. He would look at his hands or at some humble element of earth—a rock, a cloud, a blade of grass—and gradually all the scattered atoms of his being would draw together like particles of quicksilver into one Bushrod Carter again. At such times, he could remember almost nothing of what he had done in the battle. The remembering came later, like magic lantern slides, at unexpected times and places, but most often as he was about to drift into sleep. Then he would watch as scene after scene unfolded, with himself at the center of each, and whatever of your and outrage and violence he'd missed before would return undiminished in fatal clarity and no effort of will would make it stop until it was played out to the end—Bushrod all the while telling himself That could not be me but knowing all the whole that it was.

There is a bit where the author tells us about Bushrod’s little clothbound book in which was a saying he liked, “Act well your part; there all the honor lies.” He’d always thought it was from Hamlet until he learned it was Alexander Pope, but he kept thinking of Hamlet encouraging him with those words. He’d read them again that night. “Thus it was that Bushrod Carter could look away toward the distant trees and feel no less a man for being afraid.”

I thought this was funny, said by the Major: My daddy once remarked that a wasp is the only creature that's born mad, and dies mad, and never is anything BUT mad his whole life long. The wasps in the story--we know about wasps, living in the country--tink, tink, tink. So ominous. So hopeless.

Here's an example of a peek into a soul, this one Bushrod's:
Bushrod could not remember when his army had last been arrayed like this, where he could see nearly all of it at once. It seemed an enormous living thing, breathing and moving, possessed of instinct and intelligence and malevolence all its own. Bushrod knew it was the sum of many parts, that those parts were individual men, each one the result of a complex personal history and each one convinced that he stood at the very center of the universe. But to look at it like this, to see the long lines flung out in diminishing perspective over the folds and wrinkles of the land – to see it thus, a vast patchwork quilt of color, all the faces and hands blurred by distance – then the individual was completely absorbed, lives were poured and blended into the one great Life, and Bushrod felt as he did when he contemplated the enormity of the stars. How else could we ever do this thing?

At the beginning of the battle, the three of them are wretchedly nervous, and Bushrod thinks what he thinks before every engagement: tomorrow at this time we'll be together at the river. He tells Virgil C. and Jack to stabilize them. I didn't know until the end that the river was perhaps a metaphor.

Here's what he wrote in his little clothbound book: Some times I do not think I will live to be very old—but should it be God's will for me and any come to me and ask how it was in the old War times, I will say—that there was really no victory, and no defeat. There were only brave men.

I miss Bushrod. I think of him often.

[Lynne · Rating 2 out of 5]

Boy oh boy .. I went into this book thinking I was going to love it! Historical fiction is my favorite genre though since joining good reads I do mix it up a lot more than I ever did in my younger years. However, this historical novel about the civil war just did not work for me. I was totally confused most of the time and could not really connect with the events or characters of the story.
I thought for sure it was just me… but then I looked at other one and two star ratings and felt okay I am not alone with my feelings of confusion! I read a lot and can stay focused on what I am reading but not with this story. Very disappointed 😢. Glad it is over.

[Bobby · Rating 5 out of 5]

After reading this story I'm convinced Mr. Bahr is a reincarnated Confederate soldier!! I found myself looking up and away from the novel often in order to make sure I was not sitting in a front bedroom of a plantation home in Franklin, Tn. His language, clothing and gear descriptions, cussin', the horrors of amputation, the hunger, etc. I could go on and on but I think the point is made. Bushrod carter is a Confederate infantryman from Mississippi who enlisted with all his acquaintances from the fictional town of Cumberland, and planned on heroically defeating the Strangers (Union) and head home heroes.
The Rider on the Death horse's appearances and the short excerpt about the cavalryman that meets up with Anna are both haunting and terribly tragic!

The thought that keeps him going is that after the battle, meaning tomorrow, is always in his plans. What he'll be looking at tomorrow...what he'll be eating tomorrow. This is how he deals with the terror of "today" and the immediate battle.
A ridiculously accurate portrayal of a short, bloody engagement in The War Between the States that I won't soon forget.

[TBV (on hiatus)]

Bushrod Carter(1) dreams that he is about to bite into a large slice of ham, when he wakes up still feeling very, very hungry. He had fallen asleep upright leaning on his musket. He probably wasn't the only one either to fall asleep upright or to dream of food.

He had on his person the soil of three Confederate states, at twenty-six a veteran of several battles. He never looked at the enemy, the "Strangers", nor did he think when engaged in battle. The remembering came later. And then there were also the "Departed"... The Departed who all looked alike in death, who were all equal in death, officer and ordinary soldier alike.

A Confederate officer looks at a house in Franklin and imagines that he has met a girl who lives in that house and that he is returning from the war. But, alas... another battle is imminent and his home is elsewhere. His immediate task: to commandeer the McGavock's house(2) for use as a field hospital in the forthcoming battle(3).

Howard Bahr captures in beautiful prose what the soldiers were thinking and dreaming of as they faced death and made do with deprivation. But he doesn't forget about the non-combatants. Caroline McGavock looks at the clock and takes comfort in the fact that the battle and the suffering cannot last forever.

Mr Bahr describes the men lining up for battle, their thoughts, their dread, the sounds: ”the clank and rattle of the ranks, the bristle of bayonets”, the sudden tolling of church bells, the drumming of the beat for battle, the military band incongruously playing Annie Laurie(4) and later the cacophony of the battle. There are also the smells of death, gunfire and of unwashed men. He records their camaraderie, their banter, cussing, and occasional laughter, their fear and sorrow. They think of what was, what might be and what will never be. He tells us about the battle and the ensuing chaos and aftermath, focusing on Bushrod Carter and his friends, but he refrains from romanticising or glorifying war.

The Black Flower serves as a poignant reminder of the futility of war, and is quite magnificent.

"They stood in silence, listening to their own heartbeats, understanding all at once that, whatever their experience, they had not exhausted the possibilities of horror."

Notes:
(1) Bushrod Carter was born in Cumberland, Mississippi in 1838

(2) The Widow of the South is about Carrie McGavock at the time when her home was a field hospital.
The McGavocks donated part of their property for the re-interment of dead soldiers. Carnton Plantation House in Franklin, Mississippi, is now a museum.

(3) This was the Battle of Franklin, Tennessee, on 30 November, 1864, which was a major turning point in the American Civil War. Almost 10,000 soldiers were killed on that single day.

(4) Annie Laurie*
”Maxwelton braes are bonnie
Where early falls the dew
And it was there that Annie Laurie
Gave me her promise true

Gave me her promise true
Which never forgot will be
And for bonnie Annie Laurie
I would lay me down and die.

Her brow is like the snowdrift
Her neck is like the swans
Her face it is the fairest
That ever the sun shone on.

That ever the sun shone on
And dark blue is her eye
And for bonnie Annie Laurie
I would lay me down and die.

Like dew on the gowan lying
Is the fall of her fairy feet
And like the winds in summer sighing
Her voice is low and sweet.

Her voice is low and sweet
And she's all the world to me
And for bonnie Annie Laurie
I'd lay me down and die”

*a modern translation based on an eighteenth century song by Scots composer William Douglas
(http://www.theradiodept.com/lyrics-a/...)

[Jordan · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite of Bahr’s three Civil War novels. A moving, brutal story told across two days at Franklin, Tennessee, which was one of those battles that can't fail to impress on one the sheer waste of modern war.

The novel begins with Bushrod Carter, a young man in a Mississippi infantry regiment, falling in for the assault on the Yankee lines at Franklin. This assault was larger in scale and crossed more open terrain than the more famous “Pickett’s Charge” at Gettysburg, and ended no less savagely, with several whole brigades funneled into an angle in the defenses and destroyed by massed rifle fire and double canister. Bahr gives us a good look at Carter and his lifelong friends Jack Bishop and Virgil C Johnson as they lounge in the field, gear up for the attack, and march forward as the band plays the wildly inappropriate “Annie Laurie.” Even before they reach musket range, tragedy strikes.

The novel leaps ahead to the aftermath. Night has fallen over Franklin and the McGavock house, chosen as a field hospital, is awash in the maimed and dying. Anna Hereford, a visiting cousin, works herself to exhaustion in the shambles of the battle. During the long, long night that follows, she meets the wounded Bushrod—who has been recovered from several layers deep in the dead piled in the abandoned Yankee trenches—and they slowly get to know, understand, and change each other. Together they pass through challenges and threats—the bitter presence of an inept comrade, the violence of an evil deserter—and look for Bushrod’s fallen comrades.

There isn't much plot per se, but that's not what The Black Flower is about. It's an extended meditation on death and loss and the myriad ways people deal with them. The relationships between all the characters are very well drawn, and you hurt for the characters when they lose someone. The main story, of Bushrod and Anna, is beautiful and heartbreaking, but Bahr includes numerous interludes of equal beauty and power—a dreamlike encounter with Nathan Bedford Forrest, memories of a beloved but long dead cousin, the psychotic break of a band leader who believes himself to be the Archbishop of Canterbury, a flash forward to the genesis of the Lost Cause in the souls of defiant Southern women, even the plight of a wasp awoken from its late fall hibernation.

The book is also, surprisingly, very funny, both in the jocularity of Bushrod and his fellow soldiers, in their affectionate ribbing, and in the understated, wry gallows humor, laced with irony, at which Southerners still excel. There is also a pinch of aching romantic longing, but Bahr avoids the sentimentalism typical of Civil War love stories.

This is the first of Bahr’s Civil War novels but the last one I read. The others, in order, are The Year of Jubilo and The Judas Field, both of which feature characters from Cumberland, Mississippi, and both of which feature the Battle of Franklin as seminal moments for their protagonists. I'm interested to reread them now in light of the first of the trio.

Highly recommended.

Addendum: The McGavock house is a real place—Bahr was meticulously accurate in his depiction of the battle—and something like 1500 Confederate dead are still buried on the property. This is apparently the inspiration for Robert Hicks’s novel The Widow of the South, which came out about ten years after The Black Flower and also features the Battle of Franklin and the McGavock family. I haven't read that novel, which is popular and well-regarded, but it'd have to be a heck of a novel to be better than this one.

Addendum II: First read in October of 2017. Listened to the audiobook in June 2020. For a sample—not from the audiobook, but read by Bahr himself—check out this short reading.