The Butcher's Cleaver (Novel)

by W. Patrick Lang

From the publisher:
The Devereuxs of Alexandria, Virginia were moderate people. The eldest son seemed the most moderate of all.

Claude Devereux wanted no part of secession. None of his family wanted Virginia to leave the Union. This family of bankers owned no slaves and believed slavery to be an institution to be rid of. The Devereux wanted to be left alone in their private world. Nevertheless, they found Virginia's decision to secede compelling and the Lincoln Administration's decision to "suppress rebellion" in the South to be unacceptable.

Family separation and exile from their home had been the inevitable result. Some family members sided with the Union, but the overwhelming majority "went South" into the 17th Virginia Infantry, the Alexandria Regiment. In the third year of the war, the crushing forces of greater manpower, the naval blockade and the world's largest industrial base were steadily driving the Confederacy to its knees. Desperate times demand desperate measures. In such times who could be better placed for action against disaster than a family of merchant bankers? In that year of Chancellorsville, Gettysburg and Vicksburg, something had to "be done". Some gateway leading out of the maze had to be found.

The Butcher's Cleaver, an epic novel of Confederate and Union intelligence in the American Civil War has now been published and is available for purchase.

This tale of war and espionage has been many years in creation. It is the product of a lifetime of experience in peace and war...

Its pages are filled with the people of the time; North, South, soldier, spy, slave, master, man, woman. and victim. This sweeping story of the struggle that lies at the heart of American history and identity is fiction in the tradition of Margaret Mitchell, Michael Shaara and John Le Carre.

W. Patrick Lang is a retired high level military intelligence officer, a life long student of the American Civil War and the Lincoln assassination. He is a widely published author and military consultant. His broad experience of combat and of the espionage world uniquely combine to give him special insight into the realities of such events across time. He lives with his wife in Alexandria, Virginia.

From CWBN:
This title was released last month but was accidentally omitted from November's listings.