Two Bullets for Sergeant Franks

In 1864, a drought caused a small lake to recede. What lay at the bottom of the lake sent hundreds of Union soldiers to the small town of Gladeville, Tennessee. In 1861, The men of Gladeville joined the Confederate Army. Union soldiers had taken all of their food and live stock. Among the Gladeville men were two brothers, George and John Cluck. George was nineteen. John was eighteen. Only old men, women, and children remained. Victoria and Candis were betrothed to George and John. Every day, Victoria and Candis went to the Gladeville Church to wait for George and John to return. As the months passed, their hope dimmed but their love grew. Based on fact, fiction, and a local legend, Two Bullets for Sergeant Franks is the story of a Sergeant that held the men together for battle. It is the story of true events from the Confederate archives of George and John's military careers. It is the story of two women who waited for them to return. It is the story of the dead Union soldiers found in the receded lake.

Sarah Jane Singer was born in the year 1919. She lives in the small town of Lebanon, Tennessee. Sarah Jane grew up amid stories of the Civil War and the brave men who left their homes to fight in the Confederate Army.

One story intrigued her. The story was of a small lake that held the bodies of more than one hundred Union soldiers. The soldiers had been murdered and placed in cloth bags. The bodies were discovered, in 1864, when a drought caused the water to recede. Union soldiers came from the Union held city of Nashville to retrieve the bodies. They threatened to murder everyone in the town.

Sarah Jane was never able to verify the story but she heard it many times.

Two Bullets for Sergeant Franks is a collection of short stories she has woven together into a facinating tale of love and revenge. Part of the story is fact. George and John Cluck are real brothers who fought in the Civil War. They were captured at the battle of Lookout Mountain and taken to the Rock Island prison where they died. They died at the prison. George was twenty-one. John was twenty.