Blue and Gray Weekly, No. 30

Blue and Gray Weekly (Frank Tousey, March 3, 1905, No. 30)

This issue contains "Standing Their Ground; or, The Boys in Gray's Stubborn Fight" by Lieutenant Harry Lee, a Civil War serial following young Confederate officers Will Prentiss and Fred Randolph of the Virginia Grays cavalry unit. The story opens with combat: a skirmish leaves a Confederate private dead and the officers taking cover from Union entrenchments. Hungry, they approach a Maryland farmhouse owned by the deformed, misanthropic Jeremiah Hodgkins. He begrudgingly offers them stew despite denouncing war as destruction and chaos. As they prepare to eat, a beautiful young Northern woman screams a warning: the food is poisoned. She reveals herself as Colonel Clair's daughter, a Union sympathizer whose father lies wounded in an inner room. Hodgkins attempts to silence her violently. The narrative explores conflicting loyalties and treachery amid Civil War chaos.