For Bonnie Annie Laurie,
I'd lay me down & die
I have read this set three times, portions four and five. Howard Bahr's "trilogy" -- The Black Flower , The Year of Jubilo , and The Judas Field -- are to Civil War* fiction as Shelby Foote is to Civil War nonfiction. These are intense books filled with historical accuracy, emotion, and a deep regional sensitivity matched by few other Southern authors. All but those obsessed with the American Civil War, Reconstruction, and the origins of the Lost Cause myth will do well to stick to The Black Flower , but your mileage may vary. The writing is consistently good, all three have fine story lines, and each addresses different aspects of history and human nature. But let's stick to the first book here. Bahr, one-time curator of Rowan Oak (William Faulkner's home) at the University of Mississippi, claims to have read all existing faculty minutes at the University, and indeed the epigraph to The Black Flower includes the following: " J. Bishop, B.P. Carte