CALOOSAHATCHEE
By
Toby Benoit

The bloody clash of North and South changed the lives of many families forever.  This novel explores the aftermath of this violent time in our nations history through the eyes of a young confederate soldier who must learn a new way of life. 

Carter Holder can barely believe the news the messenger shouts out to the weary men.  The war is over, and it is time to gather whatever is left of strength and spirit and return to their families.  With thoughts of home keeping him sane throughout the war, Carter cannot wait to get back to his parents’ farm.  However, fate can be cruel.

When he arrives home he finds that his mother and father have been murdered and their property is in ruins.  His brother Seth is home now newly married and has valiantly started to rebuild.  Although Carter is welcomed and asked to stay, he feels another future awaits him.  He moves further south on a long and eventful journey along the waterways of the Florida frontier to a cattle ranch owned by his distant uncle, Jefferson Davis Floydd.  Along the banks of the Caloosahatchee River, Jefferson’s adopted daughter, Josephina, teaches Carter to be a “Cracker” cowboy and takes hold of his heart.  Life on the ranch provides Carter with the peace, love and happiness that he has been missing.  However, a corrupt Yankee tax agent’s plot to steal the ranch proves to be yet another battle the family must struggle through together.

The novel (of approximately one hundred-fifty pages) is written as historical fiction and allows the reader a glimpse of life in Florida during the reconstruction era of the nineteenth century.

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