Inherited Courage

About the Book

Lee Payne sat alone on a park bench, gripping the worn leather journal to his chest and facing the Lady in the Harbor. President Grover Cleveland had dedicated her on a blustery autumn day last year. Lee thought of the immigrants but, above all, of the Irish street urchin called Malachi O’Malley and the lofty promise the president had made that we would not neglect one of them. Just a few years ago, Lee’s family had been willing to fight although it had not been necessary in their environment prior to the war. Certain things had spawned the whole idea—the responsibility for family, farm, and freedom. For that, they gave all. And when it was over, Lee had inherited that same courage and his fair portion of the righteous desire to protect and preserve in his own generation. He wiped the sweat from his face and contemplated what he was about to do. But did he really want to taint the pages of the beautiful piece of leather with so disdainful a narrative because he was obsessed with certain intentions? He leaned back on the park bench, his face toward the sun, and clutched his journal as if it were some treasured manuscript ready for the publisher’s consent. It was his—a contrasting life story unfolding with a proper portion of fear and confidence, of despair and hope, and of defeat and victory. And so he would add to the story as it unfolded—the good and the bad and the hope for a bright tomorrow—not only for himself but also to those he knew would need him most.

About the Author

Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. (Psalm 73:24-25) Jane Bennett Gaddy is a true daughter of the South. Born in the Mississippi Delta in 1940, a mere seventy-five years after the close of the War Between the States, she writes with passion about her forebears who fought and died in the heat of battle and the family that was left behind to endure the aftermath. Her stories are fiction for who can know all the little nuances of a life, much less the poignant details that Jane Gaddy showers upon her readers. She holds vigil over the history of the South, the facts irrefutable. And to authenticate the family side of her novels are the letters her great-great grandfather and his sons wrote home while they were at war, the letters back to the fighting men from her great-great grandmother, likely strewn and blood-bespattered across the peach orchard, the wheat field, and the railroad cut of the Gettysburg Battlefield where the Clark men found their final resting place on July 1 and 3, 1863. Gaddy is the author of House Not Made With Hands, a poignant memoir that first sparked the writing of her historical fiction series that presently consists of six novels—The Mississippi Boys published in 2008; Isaac’s House, 2011; JOAB, 2013; Rachel, After the Darkness, 2014, To Love Again, 2016; and Inherited Courage, 2018. She holds a Ph.D. in Religion; administers a course in American Literature and English Composition for external studies students of Bethany Divinity College and Seminary in Alabama; and she edits manuscripts and assists her clients all the way to the publisher. She is a proud member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy through Captain Thomas Goode (T.G.) Clark, Company F, 42nd Mississippi Infantry Regiment, Joseph Davis Brigade, A.P. Hill Corps, Henry Heth Division, Army of Northern Virginia, General Robert E. Lee, Commander. Her genealogy extends to Lieutenant Jonathan Clark of Christian County, Kentucky, who fought in the Kentucky militia in the Revolutionary War.