Shoulder-Straps: A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862
New York, 1862. The Civil War bleeds into every corner of the city, but the theatergoers on Broadway would rather not notice. When reserved merchant Walter Lane Harding and his roguish journalist friend Tom Leslie stumble out of a play one night and witness something brutal in the streets, Harding's carefully ordered world cracks open. A woman from the city's underbelly has been struck down, and the men who should protect her have become her attackers. This single act of violence becomes a mirror reflecting the moral rot beneath the gaslit surface of polite society. As Harding grapples with what he has seen, Leslie's past collides with the present in the form of Dexter Ralston, a figure whose loyalties remain beautifully uncertain. Morford constructs a novel where honor and duty collide with the messy reality of a city and a nation at war with itself. The result is a forgotten gem of American literature: sharp social observation wrapped in a propulsive narrative, asking what peace actually costs when the fighting moves from the battlefield to the streets of home.
