JDR Hawkins – What Inspired Me to Write My Book

What Inspired Me to Write My Book

by JDR Hawkins

The way that I was inspired to write this book, which is the first book in what I’m calling the “Renegade “Series,” happened purely by chance. Or perhaps it was divine intervention! Several years ago, I won a trip to Gettysburg, so my son and I flew out and stayed on the campus of Gettysburg College. As soon as we arrived, we knew that it was an amazing place. We had never seen a Civil War battlefield before, and to see one of such magnitude was truly awe-inspiring. We hitched a ride on a tour bus, and rode around with a group of seniors for a while before deciding to jump off and go exploring on our own.

Once we distanced ourselves from the crowds and were able to take in our quiet surroundings, we became deeply affected by the profound feeling that came over us. We couldn’t help but be moved by that hallowed ground, where so many thousands of men fought and died. Seeing the unmarked graves and knowing that Abraham Lincoln had spoken there impressed us even more. Later on, we went on a ghost tour, and my son swears he saw one! I don’t doubt it, because Gettysburg is said to be one of the most haunted places in America. It’s no wonder, considering all of the horrors that took place there on July 1-3, 1863.

I have always been intrigued by the Civil War, and the Victorian era in general, but because I grew up in Iowa, I never understood how every Confederate soldier could fight for the preservation of slavery, which is what we were taught in school. So I took it upon myself to do some research, and I found out the truth. Slavery didn’t become an issue in the war until it was nearly half-over, and President Lincoln used slavery as leverage to take control of the South through economics. In other words, he took away the South’s free labor force to control the sale of cotton, which was the South’s main export.

From what I learned, I decided to write a novel about a typical Confederate soldier’s experiences in the War Between the States. My main character, David Summers, enlists with the cavalry, and because he is from the South, he brings his own horse, unlike the Northerners, who were provided mounts by the army. David is from a small farm in north Alabama, and his family doesn’t own slaves. In fact, only a fraction of the Southern population owned slaves when the war broke out, and some slave owners were black.

My story describes why David chooses to fight, and why most Southern men took up the cause, which was primarily to defend their homes once the “Yankees” started invading. The story begins in Morgan County, where some of my distant family members are from, and ends up at Gettysburg. A Beckoning Hellfire, the first book in the series, sprouted into two more sequels. And then I went back and wrote the prequel, which is A Beautiful Glittering Lie.

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