Byway to Danger

By Sandra Merville Hart

Description:

Everyone in Richmond has secrets. Especially the spies.

Meg Brooks, widow, didn't stop spying for the Union when her job at the Pinkerton National Detective Agency ended, especially now that she lives in the Confederate capital. Her job at the Yancey bakery provides many opportunities to discover vital information about the Confederacy to pass on to her Union contact. She prefers to work alone, yet the strong, silent baker earns her respect and tugs at her heart.

Cade Yancey knows the beautiful widow is a spy when he hires her only because his fellow Unionist spies know of her activities. Meg sure didn't tell him. He's glad she knows how to keep her mouth shut, for he has hidden his dangerous activities from even his closest friends. The more his feelings for the courageous woman grow, the greater his determination to protect her by guarding his secrets. Her own investigations place her in enough peril.

As danger escalates, Meg realizes her choice to work alone isn't a wise one. Can she trust Cade with details from her past not even her family knows?

Book Takeaway:

Courageous men--and women (read my novel A Musket in My Hands to find out more)--fought in the Civil War. Other men and women lived a different kind of courage by spying and taking part in the Underground Railroad. This book highlights lesser-known heroes.

Why the author wrote this book:

Spying took place in many cities and towns in both the North and South during the Civil War. Northern spies in Richmond, Virginia, the Confederate capital, and Southern spies in Washington DC, the Union capital, inspired the Spies of the Civil War Series.

In addition, this book shows that the Underground Railroad was active in Virginia. It was especially dangerous for all involved for stations inside Richmond--like the one in our story--during the war.

Many spies were never discovered. Extreme measures were taken to hide spying activities. Only three or four people in a spy network might know an individual’s true identity. Some spies were imprisoned and some were hung. Some individuals confined their spying to a single event, such as a battle. Others created elaborate cyphers to send messages. The longer a person engaged in spying, the greater the risk of getting caught.

How many spies were never caught and took their secrets to the grave? How many swore their children and grandchildren to secrecy before revealing their spying activities during the Civil War?

We will never know.