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Walter Edmonds (1903 to 1998) was an American writer of historical fiction, both for adults and for children. He is remembered for his adult book, Drums Along the Mohawk, which was a best-seller at the same time as Gone With the Wind and was made into a successful movie of the same name. His children’s book that he is most remembered for is The Matchlock Gun, which won the Newbery Award in 1942 and is in the Plumfield Library (see my review). I have not exhaustively studied the question but I would guess that it is quite rare for an author to be highly successful in both adult and children’s literature. Two of his other children’s books, Two Logs Crossing and Tom Whipple, are both excellent and are also in the Plumfield Library (see my reviews).
Cadmus Henry is the title of the book reviewed here and also the name of the hero. Cadmus’s father was a doctor, deceased at the start of the novel, who was a good man. Cadmus lives with his mother and rich great-uncle on his plantation. At the start of the story, Cadmus, who is only 17 years old, volunteers to help in the headquarters of General Magruder in the Confederate army – as a clerk, since Cadmus has such good handwriting. Soon after, tired of this work, he volunteers to be an observer, which he thought meant a cavalry scout, but what was really an observer in a hot-air balloon! From this high point of view, he sees the war somewhat differently than do people on the ground. Friendship with two free African-American men who help operate the balloon also start changing his ideas of the war. When the balloon’s tether breaks and he sails away into the night, a series of events occurs, including contact with the Underground Railroad, that even more change him. In some ways, Cadmus Henry is reminiscent of High Spy by Robert Edmond Alter (see my review), since both books are about balloon scouts but from different sides of the Civil War.
The writing is gentle and descriptive. One really feels that one is there near Richmond, early in the Civil War, riding through the forests alongside the gently rolling streams. The feel of infantry struggling with marching and rain and mud is also clearly told to the reader. Near the end of the book, the author foreshadows what would be told about in a sequel, which was never written, probably on purpose. But these hints almost tell the story of the sequel, or at least let the reader imagine what might have happened next. And that is almost as good as actually reading it! A good school exercise with this book, combining Civil War history with literature, would be to have the student write a short story of “what might have happened next.” Cadmus Henry is appropriate for middle school and above.