Long Journey Home: a Novel of the Post-Civil War Plains

by: Laurel Means

Published by: Academy Chicago Publishers

Reviewed by Kathy Perschmann

After the end of the Civil War, Henry Morton and his son return home to find his wife dead, his daughter Helen run off with a neighbor boy to get married; and his farmstead nearly in ruins. His two sons decide to go off on their own, Wilson to go work with his uncle in Pennsylvania, and William to go into town and work on the railroad.

Alone, Henry decides to go to take the tract of 160 acres of land in Todd County that he is entitled to as a veteran of the war, land newly wrested from the Indians who had lived there. He meets Agnes, a young bar maid at the tavern in Green Prairie. They have a baby girl. Henry struggles on his new land, and spends too much time and money in the nearby saloon. Left alone at the homestead, Agnes goes mad with grief and fever. She wanders off, nearly drowns, loses her baby, and is rescued by some kind travelers who then take her in.

Henry and Agnes travel separately, Henry to try to claim his land at the land office in St. Cloud. After her shawl is found in the river, Henry is suspected of murdering her! A clever group of thieves wanted his land, and had been conspiring all along to steal it from him. Will he succeed in clearing his name, and filing his claim on the land? Will he ever find Agnes?

Means has done an excellent job of describing the travails of life on the Minnesota plains after the Civil War, the dangers of Indian attacks, thieves, and nature.

Armchair Interviews says: This is the first of four novels, the next will be titled Whispers Through the House.