Amazon.com description: Product Description: The Parting: A Story of West Point on the Eve of the Civil War is an award-winning historical novel and recipient of a Five Star ForeWord Clarion Book Review. It is a true and epic story told in flashback from the days leading up to the first major battle of the Civil War to the final year at the Academy for the Class of 1861, a microcosm of the nation.

The story is factually based, and the cadet characters and many other characters are real, and their relationships to one other are founded in fact. Pictured on the cover of the book are members of the class and best friends, John Pelham from Alabama, and Edmund Kirby from New York. The story unfolds with Pelham, Kirby, and their classmates enjoying the idyllic time of their final summer encampment, when chaperoned young ladies would grace the West Point Hotel in hopes of meeting the most eligible bachelors in the country. But soon the clouds of secession form. The Class of 1861 and the country witness the election of Lincoln, the country unraveling, another one forming, and make decisions that, after Fort Sumter, will pit friend against friend in the most devastating war ever fought by Americans. And complicating everything for Pelham is the young lady he met during summer encampment, the stunning Clara Bolton from Philadelphia.