Description from Goodreads:

George Washington Skipper was a man with secrets. He kept multiple wives in two states, spawned at least sixteen children, adopted three, spent four years in the Confederate Army, was shot twice and lived to eighty-five. Then there was one more thing and a hundred years later the family is still scandalized over it.

This fictionalized account of my ancestor’s remarkable life will probably get me struck from the Thanksgiving guest list, but those who aren’t related will be amazed and amused. Then again, are you sure we’re not related? Washington was born when John Quincy Adams was president and he died the week before the Titanic sank. During that long life he did some outrageous things. This account follows his early days in the Carolina low country, running from county to county avoiding the whipping post, through his Civil War battles, the misery of Reconstruction and his personal tragedies. In the Blood is based on fifteen years of genealogical research and punctuated with a little good clean fun.

Review:

When settling down to read a novel based on someone else’s genealogical history, there is always a niggling fear that it will be something like sitting through your neighbor’s vacation slide show, interesting to them but interminable to you. In the Blood is nothing like this. Being based on genealogical research, there is a certain amount of so-and-so beget so-and-so, who, despite being married to so-and-so beget so-and-so, but it is also a relatively fast-paced read based on a truly interesting character who also happens to find himself in gripping circumstances.

George Washington Skipper is amorous, to say the least, swept up in the Confederate spirit of the American Civil War, enlightened about the true doldrums of that (and probably every) war, discouraged by the perceived injustices of Reconstruction, and eventually the father of dozens of children by a variety of women, very few of whom he ever supported in any fashion. Ultimately, he is seen to be an even-minded good man, but he systematically wrongs woman after woman throughout the book. However, given the time in which he lived, it is, unfortunately, true that his actions may not have been as unusual as it seems to the modern reader.

For me, there was also a special thrill. As a member of ‘the 10th’ in the Confederate Army, Washington and his cohorts marched back and forth through middle Tennessee. This is home turf for me and it was really interesting to hear about the skirmishes that happened in towns I’ve lived in and around.

For those who have an interest in the Civil War and the life of the average man (ie, not the famous names of the times) In the Blood is a definite recommended read. I think there is a tendency to idealize the past, and this book provides a refreshingly realistic look at a difficult period in American History. Check it out.