The Red and the Blue

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The Red and Blue is based on a woman's Civil War journals.
Coming of age and meeting her first true love, a young runaway slave girl, helps her realize that she only feels complete in the arms of another woman. However, rogue Confederate soldiers murder her and her family after the Battle of Ball's Bluff in Leesburg, Virginia, on October 21, 1861. Perhaps inspired by revenge, Henrietta joins the Union Army and fights in some of the war's worst battles.

Her diaries follow her as she battles Rebel soldiers, relentless insects, malnutrition, lack of sanitary conditions (for a woman), lack of medical supplies, and inadequate clothing. She discovers an inner strength she never knew she had to quickly rise in rank when faced with a simple choice: kill or be killed. After becoming an officer, her company was overwhelmed by Confederate soldiers and put to Satan's Latrine (Libby Prison). There, she finds a Native American lady who becomes her life mate and rescues her.
 

Henrietta used a trust fund from her father, a Washington, D.C. attorney, to finish her service as a captain and practice law in a man's world. His son joined the Confederate Army.
Henrietta and Sarah lived together for nearly 50 years until their 1920s deaths.
 

I spent almost two years with Henrietta's brother's descendants to tell her tale and inspire young women worldwide.
Since same-sex partnerships are still taboo, the family merely required to change their names.