Novels featuring real historical characters often fall into a fly-on-the-wall category in which a character innocent of actual existence is sent to saunter among the great. The latter are allowed to exist unbesmirched by the ordinary; the representatives of the ordinary, clutching domestic details and concerns to themselves, find no difficulty in distinguishing what is made to last, and appreciate the lofty with all the benefit of hindsight. Frank G. Slaughter's bluff account of the Stonewall Brigade [The Stonewall Brigade] sends a young doctor to Gettysburg with General Jackson. When he is not being 'struck by the stark planes' of Abraham Lincoln's face, or putting his 'finger on the crux' of a military campaign, the hero finds time to exhibit a great deal of honourable manliness. What with amputations, smallpox and falling in love, he manages—with rare diligence—to involve himself in nearly every contemporary dilemma.

Susannah...