R. E. Lee, Edmund Ruffin and Slavery

R. E. Lee, Edmund Ruffin and Slavery is a five-year-long, Historically-accurate, Fictional Novel Presenting Howard Ray White’s Story Connecting 1) the Family of General R. E. Lee, 2) the Family of Soil Scientist, Edmund Ruffin, 3) Richmond’s First African Baptist Church and 4) a Fictional, Loving and Capable Slave Family of Father, Mother and Four Teenage Boys, which Struggle to Keep Safe, Stay Together and Identify their True Friends.Howard Ray White, 81, is the co-founder of the Society of Independent Southern Historians, host of a local weekly TV history show, and a many-times published author. He is an authority on America’s colonial, revolutionary, western expansion and Civil War history. His most comprehensive work is his four-volume Bloodstains history series. Another noteworthy history book is titled, How Southern Families Made America. Envisioning an alternate history where Confederates successfully defend their independence, he wrote, The CSA Trilogy. Another helpful contribution to our understanding of who we are is presented in his Understanding Creation and Evolution. White’s new novel draws on a lifetime of experience.White’s story takes place near and in Richmond, Virginia during the four-year span of The War Between the States — a horrific conflict pitting the invading Federal forces of President Abraham Lincoln, Republican of Illinois, against the Seceded States’ defending forces of President Jefferson Davis, Democrat of Mississippi. Sadly, the conflict caused the death of one million people, each of whom would have lived far longer lives if Lincoln would have agreed to negotiate a settlement of North-South issues. A war most acute in Virginia, the lives of everyone near and in Richmond was heavily impacted: White and Colored, free and slave. In White’s novel the reader experiences, 1) the struggles of non-combatant White people and Colored people, 2) the ever-changing political strategies of the Lincoln Administration, 3) the escalating war against civilians imposed by the Federal military command, 4) the rising difficulty in finding enough to eat, 5) the struggles to survive rapidly spreading diseases, 6) the grief, hardship and poverty being inflicted upon the widows and children of the fallen, and 7) the post-war economic struggles of Virginians.