Long Remember is the first realistic novel about the Civil War. Originally published in the 1930s, and out of print sincer the 50s, this book received rave reviews from the NY Times Book Review, and was a main selection of the Literary Guild. It is the account of the Battle of Gettysburg, as viewed by a pacifist who comes to accept the nasty necessity of combat, and lives an intense and skewed romance along the way. MacKinley Kantor was born in Webster City, Iowa, on February 4, 1904. In 1934, he published Long Remember, which received numerous rave reviews and became his first bestseller. Ten years later, Kantor was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his novel Andersonville. He was one of the most well-known American writers during the 1950s and still remains one of the most respected Civil War authors to date. He died on October 11, 1977. 1. At Hanover Junction it was necessary for him to change trains. For a while he sat alone on the edge of a baggage truck, his luggage on the platform at his feet. He smoked and looked up at the sky. There was a moon somewhat past the full, but brown and serrated under the mackerel scales of thin clouds. At the far end of the platform a squad of loafers stood talking. Bale had avoided them purposely. The station itself was deserted except for a night agent who sat in his little den, clicking mysterious jabbers to a mute length of wire. Presently the agent came out of the station and moved across the hollow wooden platform, a bloody lantern in his hand. A clicking and a thud of metal marked his pause at the switch-post. He came back, carrying the vivid green lantern which he had replaced with the red. He spoke to Daniel Bale. "Looks like we might catch a little rain, maybe." "Shouldn't wonder," said Dan. The agent stood there, weaving the hissing green lantern back and forth. His shape seemed strangely lop-sided in the darkness. Bale bent his head slightly to bring the man's body into full silhouette against the soft, kerosene yellow of the station windows…The man had only one arm. "About this time, first part of June," said the agent, "we generally get a deal of rain around here." More abruptly than he had intended, Bale observed, "I see you're shy one wing." The agent's warm young voice gurgled. He spoke as one who is expecting pity and veneration to be lavished upon him, and who feels that they are wholly his due. "But," he concluded, "my wife don't mind a bit. She says she'd rather have me wanting a chunk of meat than not have me at all. And anyways, when you figure how it happened, I guess I'm not sorry. When I signed the roll I figured I might get killed, maybe. I tell you, friend, there's a good many better men than I be, lying down there by that crick this minute. Bet your boots." Bale watched a crumb of tobacco fall from his pipe and slide into the forest of his beard; it bounded from wiry hair to wiry hair, making its own tiny illumination as it went. He thought, Now it's coming, he's bound to ask, and I wish-- "You done a turn with the colors?" blurted the agent. "No." The green lantern jerked at the abruptness of the reply. When the agent spoke again, he was halting and apologetic. "Well, I always say that a man's first duty is to his family. Course I wasn't married till I come back…You're married, friend, I take it?" "No," Bale told him. He tapped the bowl of his pipe against the edge of the truck, and a host of red flakes sprayed into the darkness. "I don't hold with some of your notions. I am not in favor of this war, or any war. I'm sorry you've lost an arm, and sorry for most of those who are dead. But I don't intend to go to war, if that's what you wish to know." He became aware that the rails were checking and crunching under the squeeze of distant wheels. A whistle squawled half-heartedly beyond the black belt of trees. The agent cleared his throat and spat over his shoulder. "Well," he said, "some holds one way, some another. I don't mind saying there's plenty of Copperheads right in this county." "I'm no Copperhead." "No, no. I never said you was. Say, you don't need to be in no hurry to pick up your valise, friend. The train won't go for twenty minutes--the one heading west. This here one goes north." He went into the station, carrying the green-glass lantern with him. A plume of smoke wavered off from the open doorway. Bale could hear the man whistling, Now, Moses, what makes you so strange and forgetful …Steel was banging and frying and torturing itself, not far up the track. The engine rounded a curve and spread its buxom shaft of light down the cindered roadway. It came on like a hissing, malodorous animal, tiny freckles of orange showing through cracks and bolt-holes in a hundred places. The two coaches behind it were rickety, and illuminated by futile, brownish lamps. Dan jumped down from the truck and pushed his extension-case into the shadows where it seemed reasonably safe and out of the way. He walked away from the train as it gasped