by Karen Hesse
In 1861, very few Americans could have predicted that the Civil War would last four years and that 620,000 lives would be lost. In the course of those four years, North and South traded victories and defeats, but following General William Tecumseh Sherman’s marches in 1864 and 1865, the Confederacy collapsed and surrendered in April 1865. The nation was united once again, but the bitterness of civil war would last for generations to come. In the United States, the institution of racial slavery had ended forever, but racial equality would prove to be a long way off, both in the North and in the South.
For years, mariners complained about the treacherous waters off the coast of Delaware known as the Fenwick Island shoal. Situated six miles east of Fenwick Island, this dangerous sandbar caused many shipwrecks. In 1855, the newly established United States Lighthouse Board investigated complaints and deemed this area in need of a lighthouse to guide vessels safely to shore. Today, the lighthouse’s appearance remains very similar to when it was first built.
A blueprint of the Fenwick Island lighthouse details its unique construction: Two brick towers, instead of one, comprise the structure. The outer tower is conical, slanting inward as it ascends, and the inner tower is cylindrical. The interior and exterior tower walls measure seven inches thick and twenty-seven inches thick, respectively, making the lighthouse a secure fortress against even violent seas and storms.
The Fenwick Island lighthouse was first illuminated on August 1, 1859. The tower rises eighty-seven feet above ground, and its light is visible fifteen miles out to sea. Keepers and their families lived in the two-story house (right) located on the ocean side. The house’s most unique feature is its cisterns, located in the basement. These concrete tanks are made to hold rainwater, collected through gutters, providing occupants with fresh, clean water for drinking and bathing.
The interior of this lighthouse emphasizes the proximity of the keeper’s family quarters to the ocean. Girls’ daily responsibilities in a lighthouse dwelling required the same chores—sweeping, scrubbing, and laundry— as did homes on the mainland. Whether working or relaxing, girls tied their hair back with ribbons and wore long skirts, usually sewn from fabric purchased at general stores.
As shown in this 1911 log from Fenwick Island, keepers and their assistants continued to keep daily records of the weather the same way they did when the procedure began in the late 1850s.
In 1861, public schooling for children took place in small, one-room schoolhouses heated by wood-burning stoves. Teachers instructed all students in the same room, but provided varied lessons for different ages and abilities. Assistant teachers, usually former pupils, sometimes taught alongside them.
During the mid-1800s, ice skating was a favorite pastime among young girls and boys in cold northern climates. Skating took place on naturally frozen outdoor ponds, which put skaters at risk of falling through broken ice.
Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States in 1860. At the time there were well over three million slaves in the South. White Southerners did not want a President who opposed slavery, because their whole way of life—economic and social—depended on it. As a result, southern states seceded from the Union and formed their own government, known as the Confederate States of America.
In desperate attempts to evade their captors and escape to the free states, slaves used the Underground Railroad—a network of secret routes north. On January 1, 1863, President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation outlawed slavery and declared all slaves free. In actuality, however, this decree liberated few people because it did not apply to border states siding with the Union or to southern states already existing as part of the Confederacy.
Union boys’ reasons for enlisting in the Army ranged from seeking change and adventure in their mundane lives, to preserving the Union, to abolishing slavery in the South. The minimum age requirement for boys was eighteen, but soldiers in the North and South were often as young as twelve. A typical Union soldier’s uniform consisted of a navy four-button sack coat and navy wool pants.
This 1861 cartoon expresses the conflicting political sentiments of families living in the border states. Dissension over the abolition of slavery was so widespread that even members of the same family fought about it.
The Smyrna Times, a Delaware newspaper, announces the start of the Civil War following the Confederacy’s attack on Fort Sumter, South Carolina — a United States military stronghold—on April 12, 1861.
Adapted from a mid-nineteenth century cookbook, this recipe details an old-fashioned method for making pumpkin pie. The crust, also homemade, would have been made separately.
This modern map of the United States shows the slave states at the time of the Civil War.
This detail of the four border states shows the approximate location of Fenwick Island, Delaware.
About the Author
Karen Hesse says about writing this book, “While researching in the 1911 New York Times, I came across a series of articles written about Ida Lewis. Ida Lewis kept the Lime Rock Light burning off the coast of Newport, Rhode Island, during and after the Civil War, taking over her father’s duties when he became too ill to serve. Ida Lewis never hesitated to go to sea in a storm, placing her own life in peril numerous times to rescue those who would otherwise have perished. She saved twenty-two people in her career as Lightkeeper. Yet she hated the attention her heroism brought. Ida Lewis saw herself as a Lightkeeper doing her job, nothing more, nothing less. Her story inspired me. To think of a female given such responsibility at that point in history! And the image of a light burning in the darkness of a Delaware night was so fitting when I looked at the darkness spreading over this country as the Civil War unfolded. Amelia Martin was created in Ida Lewis’s image, and in the image of the other female Lightkeepers who sacrificed and struggled to keep their Lights burning through some of this country’s darkest hours.”
Karen Hesse is one of the most distinguished children’s book authors in America today. Her acclaimed novels include Out of the Dust, winner of the 1998 Newbery Medal, the Scott O’Dell Award, and many other awards and honors; The Music of Dolphins, an ALA Best Book for Young Adults; and Just Juice. She lives with her family in southern Vermont.
Acknowledgments
This book could not have been written without the assistance of Gladys Kennery, Wayne Wheeler of the U.S. Lighthouse Society, Paul Pepper, Tracy Mack, Jean Feiwel, Bernice Millman, Zoe Moffitt, Martha Hodes, Liza Ketchum, Bob and Tink MacLean, Eileen Christelow, Kate, Rachel, and Randy Hesse, Ken Black, Florence Thomson, Dr. John Straus, The State of Delaware Public Archives, The Library of Congress, Tim Harrison, Lorinda White, and Richard Shuldiner of the Brooks Memorial Library.
Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to use the following:
Cover portrait by Tim O’Brien.
Cover background: “The Light at Fenwick Island” by William S. Dawson, Hockessin, Delaware.
Fenwick Island lighthouse, National Archives (RG Z6-LG-20-11).
Fenwick Island lighthouse, blueprints, National Archives.
Fenwick Island lighthouse and keeper’s house, Delaware Public Archives, Hall of Records, Dover, Delaware.
Interior of lighthouse, Culver Pictures, Long Island City, New York.
Weather journal of Fenwick Island lighthouse, National Archives.
Schoolroom, Culver Pictures, Long Island City, New York.
Ice skating, North Wind Picture Archives, Alfred, Maine.
Abraham Lincoln, Library of Congress (LC-B812-9773-X).
Slaves, Library of Congress.
Union soldier, Library of Congress.
Civil War cartoon, New York Public Library/Art Resource, New York, New York.
The Smyrna Times, Delaware Public Archives
Recipe for pumpkin pie filling, adapted from Early American Cookery: “The Good Housekeeper” by Sarah Josepha Hale, Dover Publications, Inc., Mineola, New York.
Maps by Heather Saunders/Scholastic.
Other books
in the Dear America series
Copyright
While the events described and some of the characters in this book may be based on actual historical events and real people, Amelia Martin is a fictional character, created by the author, and her diary and its epilogue are works of fiction.
This edition first printing, March 2011
Copyright © 1999 by Karen Hesse
Cover design by Elizabeth B. Parisi
Cover portrait by Tim O’Brien, © 2011 Scholastic Inc.
Cover background: The Light at Fenwick Island by William S. Dawson
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920.
SCHOLASTIC, DEAR AMERICA, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.
The Library of Congress has catalogued the earlier hardcover edition as follows:
ISBN 0-590-56733-0
Hesse, Karen.
A light in the storm: the Civil War diary of Amelia Martin / by Karen Hesse.
p. cm. — (Dear America)
Summary: In 1860 and 1861, while working in her father’s lighthouse on an island off the coast of Delaware, fifteen-year-old Amelia records in her diary how the Civil War is beginning to devastate her divided state.
1. Delaware —History—Civil War, 1861-1865 —Juvenile fiction. [1. Delaware —History — Civil War, 1861–1865 —Fiction. 2. United States —History—Civil War, 1861–1865 — Fiction.
3. Lighthouses —Fiction. 4. Islands —Fiction. 5. Slavery—Fiction. 6. Diaries —Fiction.]
I. Title. II. Series.
PZ7.H4364Li 1999
[Fic] —dc21 98-49204
CIP AC
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eISBN: 978-0-545-41561-3
