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[Algonquin Books, 2003, ISBN: 1565123565]

Brave Enemies, written by established novelist and respected poet Robert Morgan, is an intense, emotionally-charged story. It begins when sixteen-year-old Josie Summers is forced to escape her isolated farm near Charlotte when her stepfather rapes her. Disguised as a boy, Josie falls in with John Trethman, an itinerant Methodist pastor and song-leader. Of course the Rev discovers soon enough that Josie is a girl, and predictably falls in love with her. But the two are separated when Trethman is kidnapped by the British Legion to serve as chaplain. While seeking him, and still disguised, Josie falls in with a patriot militia band, headed for a climax at the battle of Cowpens. Eventually and after a lot of suffering John and Josie find each other again, both tempered by the war and ready to settle down to a new life in a new nation.

Banastre Tarleton is an important secondary character in the story, and that's good news and bad. The good is that he is portrayed as human, not a sadistic monster. The bad is that all the rumors (taking no prisoners, etc.) are passed on as fact, and we're given no reason to doubt them. About halfway through the novel, the kidnapped Rev. Trethman is taken to him and passes on this impression: "Though short, the colonel was a strong figure of a man, with an air of authority, confidence, and a face as pretty as a woman's. His uniform was bright and fine, and he wore an expensive sword. As was often reported, he was arrogant of manner. It was said he had squandered a fortune at Oxford and in London before he joined the dragoons. He was known to have a terrible temper. It was reported that he had executed his own soldiers with a sword or pistol."

Really? I've never read of such a report, though it certainly was not unheard-of for an officer, on any side in any war, to "execute" soldiers for just causes. If the author is implying that Ban might have done such out of temper, that's not execution but murder.

However, in their first conversation Tarleton acknowledges to the Rev that his men need more than bloody rhetoric; they need inspiration and reassurance that they are fighting for a just cause. This leads John to reconsider the Colonel as no mere cardboard villain: "He was a more considerate man, and a more varied man, than I would have thought. And he was wiser than the rumors had led me to believe."

"Varied" is right. A few days after their interview, Tarleton is bragging about "the thrill of the chase" and comparing the rebels to foxes in a hunt; chopping off heads with one swing of the sword is "capital sport." The horse-breaking story gets a detailed description, after which Ban says, "That's how we will deal with the rebels." But as the battle of Cowpens approaches Tarleton reveals doubts, unexpected sympathies, and downright exhaustion. He is deeply grieved by the loss of his own men, and honestly can't understand why the rebels keep fighting, making it impossible for the Brits to declare victory and go home. At one point he asks the Rev to pray for him, but a few nights later he sets John up with a hussy, apparently hoping to get a laugh out of the natural weaknesses of a man of the cloth.

This is a unique Tarleton-take, and has some virtues. It's hard to know quite what to make of the Colonel, but that may be the author's point: he's unpredictable by nature, and the war has made him unpredictably murderous as well.

It's worth noting that patriots are not built up at the expense of Tories and Brits -- everyone comes across as equally bad. Anyone who knows anything about the War, especially in the southern theater, knows that vigilante violence was a big part of it. Even so, it seems to me that the violence in the book is overdone; one would think that you couldn't turn a corner without running into a corpse hanging from a tree or a party of vigilantes with a bucket of hot tar.

Three-quarters of the book is narrated by Josie, and that's a good thing: her voice is less affected and more poetic than John's. Largely because of her, Brave Enemies is a well-told story with some beautiful passages and vivid writing. However, I can't see it doing much to create interest in the American Revolution itself. The focus is so tight there's little sense of context or of the issues involved. The major theme is the futility and brutality of war -- so any war will do. What's so special about this one?