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Novel by A.J. ConverseReviewed by Pennell Paugh
May 22, 2025 (San Diego) -- Long-time San Diego resident Al (A.J.) Converse has written a historical fiction novel about his great-grandfather’s experience serving in Company G of the Thirteenth Vermont Volunteers, Second Vermont Brigade in the Union Army that fought at Gettysburg, PA.
Converse details the way of life for the government’s soldiers during the Civil War. The food was inadequate. Though they had uniforms, the soldiers only had one set, which they wore daily. In addition to being scratchy, their wool pants were hot and their brogan boots fell apart as they walked.
Rarely having a chance to clean their uniforms, the men endured lice most of the time. Only when they stayed somewhere more than a couple of days did they get a chance to boil their clothes and gain some relief from the bugs.
Converse and his troop enlisted for nine months. They spent most of their time walking and camping 30 or so miles outside Washington, D.C.; probably to protect the capital city from attack. Only when called on to go to Pennsylvania did the men know they would be experiencing battle.
Vermonter spans emotions from fear to determination to win as Converse nears the battle site. The novel depicts the famous Gettysburg battle and gives a sense of its vastness.
Details of Converse and his troop during the battle actions are clear and moving. Converse’s troop fought valiantly, and to their relief they found Confederate soldiers raised their hands in surrender to the Union.
Though I have a distaste for battle scenes, Converse won me over. He wrote with such clarity and passion, with meaningful details, I felt breathless from the time Converse is told that his troop will be packing to go to battle until he returns to his farm and greets his sweetheart.
Below is an excerpt from the book:
“6:30 a.m., July 3, 1863 Gettysburg
"The field gun fire began early, about five a.m., hitting random spots beyond the stone wall, the very wall behind which Company G, of the Thirteenth Vermont Volunteers, Second Vermont Brigade, had spent part of the night in fitful sleep.
"Apparently, as a prelude to a morning attack, the Confederates commenced the targeting of the Union position hoping to terrorize the untested Vermonters. The barrage took a toll. It maimed horses as well as men. Solid cannonballs bounced erratically and explosive ones strewed shrapnel unpredictably.
"They took wagon wheel-sized divots out of the thick pasture grass and topsoil of the Pennsylvania farmland where they landed. They sheared off fence posts and men’s heads. The ones that exploded in flight blew shards everywhere sometimes hitting even the dug-in troops in blue.
"With no ditch or barricade safe, men plastered themselves to the ground, horses whinnied in panic. Some broke away from their owners and ran through the groups of groggy soldiers who had to dodge them as well as the cannon fire. The screams of maimed soldiers and animals spread over the field of battle. They blended with the smoke from rifles, muskets, cannon, and fires in a surreal predawn darkness.
"After events the day before, the men were no longer untested. The smell of death and decaying flesh pervaded the land. The stoic farm boys endured the attack with growing rage and determination to fight.”
Since 2012, Converse has published short stories in The Guilded Pen, an anthology produced by the San Diego Writers and Editors Guild.
His first novel, Bitch'n, a coming-of-age thriller, set in the 1959 beach town, Coronado, was published in 2012. In his second novel, Die Again, a college student's life changes when he catches a serial killer.
His novel Boston Boogie is an adventure thriller set in 1963 Boston. The Baja Moon influenced his fourth novel of the same name.
In 2016 he released News from the East, an action adventure set in 1974. In 2017 he completed Flagship, a novel based on his experience in the Vietnam War. In 2018 he released, Hornwinkle Hustle, a cold case thriller.
In 2019, Jack Blue was released that addressed some moral questions as Mo Harris solves a murder.
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