Primary Characters

LEAD MALE ROLE:

In 1861, William Fletcher of Beaumont, Texas was a naive nineteen year old, born of a poor farm family. At news of Ft. Sumter and secession, there was great energy brewing toward patriotic fervor in all the counties of the eastern portion of Texas. As with so many young boys throughout history, he eagerly volunteered for army service in order to experience the great adventure which at best was perceived to be a short lived undertaking. Along with overflowing enthusiasm, five other young men, some boyhood friends, become a nineteenth century version of The Three Musketeers.

Trained as a backwoodsman by an old Indian fighter, Bill is quickly chosen for more dangerous army assignments where he can best use such skills honed through his frontier life. Throughout the war, relationships are formed in the fiery crucible of combat with both the stronger and more weak of Company F, most particularly Johnny Crutcher, a young drummer boy to whose mother he has pledged his protection.

Though tough in presence, Bill has a warm and sensitive heart, always first to the fight, yet, caring greatly for those of his immediate circle. At first ecstatic over the unfolding frolic offered by a first time away from home trip to Virginia and General Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, he soon evolves through an arc of hell, as the frightening reality of death by graphic and horrible terms, reveals the true nature of war. Through this revelation, Bill naturally begins to focus on Julianna, his childhood neighbor and confidant. As the nightmare of combat unfolds, he and Julianna search for meaning to the whirlwind in which they have now become so enmeshed.

With four years of war, William Fletcher represents the quintessential American. Bravery against horrific circumstance, honor to the soldier's code of country, duty and loyalty toward his comrades and the Southern way of life. These warrior traits contrast greatly to his tender, yearning desire to find meaning to his life through Julianna, though rarely do they meet. Fearless in battle, tender in relationships, William Fletcher is an unassuming man boy who rose to the occasion when called to defend his country.

The naivete of youth has for all time offered willing canon fodder to those who would wage war. William Fletcher and his wartime family of friends tempered in the crucible of combat, are in reality, universal soldiers, the same from ancient times or our own in today's war. Only the fury of combat can so bind the human spirit.

By his life's end he had become one of the wealthiest men in Texas, still a quiet honorable man, though tortured by his war.

LEAD FEMALE ROLE: Julianna Long

The teenage daughter of a well to do farmer, Julianna Long leaves no doubt early on of her infatuation with William Fletcher, nor he with her. Four years of war wrought with infrequent meetings, oddly, offers conflict in their relationship, not between them, but against the time in which they live. Binding themselves together through the sharing of a world turned upside down and a growing attraction, they soon are inseparable if only by hearts yearning for the full circle of lives made complete by the sharing of adversity and burning passion for each other. A growing need for each others shelter in the storm of life, they become to each other, purpose.

LEAD SUPPORTING ROLE DRUMMER BOY: Johnny Crutcher

Johnny's mother, a devoted Christian woman, has taught young Johnny of her love for music and religion, which consequently offers him the opportunity to volunteer as a drummer boy through all the excitement of those early days of the war, though without a mother's, blessing, due to his tender age of thirteen. Bill intervenes as they depart, pledging to protect him throughout with his own life if need be. As battles ensue Johnny, ever philosophic, tends toward the peacemaker, mending frays between the various personalities who have formed a close knit group around Bill. Finding solace in a small Bible his mother had given him as they left, Johnny earns the nickname, preacher, always finding applicable scripture for each predicament in which the group finds itself.

SUPPORTING ROLE-SOLDIER: Archie Vaughn

A boyhood friend, Archie Vaughn, 18, follows Bill in the call to arms. More a town boy, he is somewhat less able in the rough and tumble life of a soldier, though dedicated. Nevertheless, Archie and Bill experience together all the extremes of young lives thrust into the bizarre circumstance of hell on earth, which was this war. That any could have survived is miraculous.

SUPPORTING ROLE-SOLDIER: Wild Bill O Quinn

Wild Bill O Quinn, 20, a young man always pushing the limits of whatever is at hand, from stealing fruit from a second floor window with a fish hook, to mooning Yankees. An early personification of what would later be in the 1880s, a Wild West cowboy. A prankster always ready for a fight regardless of with whom, Wild Bill is always in high gear racing from one entanglement to the next. A stark contrast to the quiet, sometimes smoldering personality of William Fletcher, they nevertheless, become close friends through the common binding and stresses of war.

SUPPORTING ROLE-SOLDIER: Levi Miller

Beginning the war as a slave accompanying his owner to Virginia, Levi Miller, 19, soon shows his wit, desire and ability as a soldier. Through testing under fire he is accepted as an equal and joins in the camaraderie of Bill's, circle of friends. Contrary to popular belief, there were many black Confederates under arms. Though Levi Miller was in fact a member of The Texas Brigade, he was not historically in Bill's company, yet, achieved a Confederate pension post war and was buried an elderly man, with full Confederate military honors.

SUPPORTING ROLE-SOLDIER: Luther Clap ( Fiddler )