John Brown's Body Summary

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Raw soldiers of North and South met at Bull Run under the directionof Generals McDowell, Johnston, and Beauregard. Congressmenand their ladies drove out from Washington to watch the Unionvictory. While they watched, the Union lines broke and retreated inpanic. A movement to negotiate with the Confederacy for peace gotunderway in the North. Lincoln was alarmed, but he remainedsteadfast.Jack Ellyat was discharged from service after Bull Run. Later hejoined the Illinois volunteers in Chicago and became known as “BullRun Jack.” Near Pittsburg Landing, in Tennessee, he lost his headand ran during a surprise attack. He was captured but escapedagain during a night march. Hungry and weary, Jack arrived at theVilas farm, where he stayed in hiding and fell in love with MeloraVilas. At last he left the farm to seek the courage he had lost nearPittsburg Landing, but not before he had made Melora pregnant. Hewas recaptured soon afterward.Meanwhile Clay Wingate returned to Georgia on leave. At WingateHall, the war seemed far away, for the successful running of theUnion blockade of Southern ports made luxuries still available. LucyWeatherby, a Virginian whose sweetheart had been killed at BullRun, attended a dance at Wingate Hall and replaced Sally Dupré inClay’s affections. Spade, a slave on the nearby Zachary plantation,escaped that same night.New Orleans was captured. Davis and Lincoln began to bow underthe burdens of the war. McClellan began his Peninsular campaign.Lee inflicted defeat after defeat on the Army of the Potomac. JackEllyat was sent to a prison in the deep South. The fortunes of theUnion were at their lowest ebb after the Confederate victory at theSecond Battle of Manassas, and the spirit of John Brown wasgenerally invoked by editors and preachers. Lincoln issued theEmancipation Proclamation. In the meantime, Spade made his waynorth and swam across a river to freedom, but when he arrived in theland of the free he was railroaded into a labor gang. McClellan wasrelieved by Burnside, who, in turn, was relieved by Hooker, ascommander of the Army of the Potomac. Jack Ellyat, sick, wasreturned to the North in an exchange of prisoners of war.
Slowly the Confederacy began to feel the effects of the blockadeand the terrible costs of war. Clay Wingate thought of his nextleave—and of Lucy Weatherby. Jack Ellyat spent the dark winter of1862-1863 convalescing at his home in the cold Connecticut hills.He had been assigned to the Army of the Potomac as soon as hisrecovery was complete. In Tennessee, Melora Vilas gave birth to ababy boy.Grant and Sherman led the Union forces to victory in the West;Vicksburg was surrounded. Hunger and anti-inflation riots broke outin Richmond. America, meanwhile, was expanding. New industriessprang up in the North, and the West was being developed. InRichmond, Shippy, a Union spy posing as a peddler, promisedSophy, a servant at the Pollard Hotel, that he would bring her someperfume from the North. Sophy knew that Clay Wingate and LucyWeatherby had stayed together in the hotel. Luke Breckinridge,Sophy’s rebel suitor, was a member of a patrol that stopped Shippyto search him. When they found incriminating papers in his boots,Luke gloated, for he was jealous of Shippy.Stonewall Jackson was killed by his own pickets, and Lee, desperatefor provisions, invaded the North. Jack Ellyat was in the Union armythat converged on Gettysburg and was wounded during a battlethere. After three days of bloody fighting at Gettysburg, Lee fell backto Virginia. Then Vicksburg surrendered. Nearly defeated, the Southcontinued to fight doggedly. Sheridan marched through theShenandoah Valley and left it bare and burned. Petersburg wasbesieged. Luke, along with thousands of other rebel troops, desertedthe Confederate Army, and, when he headed back toward his homein the mountains, took Sophy with him. Melora and her father, JohnVilas, traveled from place to place in search of Jack Ellyat; theybecame a legend in both armies. General Sherman captured Atlantaand marched on to the sea. During Sherman’s march, Wingate Hallcaught fire accidentally and burned to the ground. Clay Wingate waswounded in a rearguard action in Virginia. The war came to an endwhen Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox.Spade, who had gone from the labor gang into the Union Army andhad been wounded at the Petersburg crater, hired out as a farmlaborer in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. Clay Wingate returned
Page 1: Jack Ellyat, a Connecticut youth, h
Page 5: independent mountaineer; Jake Diefe

John Brown's Body Summary

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