Theodore Winthrop wrote five books, traveled throughout the world, and served in the Civil War before his death in 1861 at the age of thirty-two. The first Union officer killed in the war, Winthrop died just as his literary career was being launched. All five of his full-length books were published posthumously between 1861 and 1863, and all went through multiple editions. Beginning with the publication of Cecil Dreeme in 1861, Ticknor and Fields sold thousands of Winthrop's novels to a wartime northern reading public that eagerly consumed Winthrop's tales, appreciating their romantic excitement and rousing adventure. In part the popularity of his books was a consequence of the mythology that sprouted almost immediately around the felled Union officer, a mythology willingly accepted by Northerners who held him up as an admirable combination of wealth, family, education, and literary talent. Yet, just as rapidly as Winthrop's star rose at the beginning of...