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Often called the Second Civil War, Reconstruction was a painful period of civil unrest, violence, and bloodshed. At the center were the agents of the Freedmen’s Bureau, Northerners dedicated to the education and uplifting of former slaves.
This Violent Land tells the story of South Carolina Freedmen’s Bureau agent Major William Stone, a Civil War veteran struggling to uphold new civil rights legislation for freed slaves amidst pressures for a return to the antebellum South. Many, including the Ku Klux Klan, are determined to keep blacks from voting or educating their children. Quaker teacher Mary Taylor is equally determined to teach black children — and to marry William Stone, while also shaping his political future.
Johnson’s story is based on William Stone’s Civil War and Freedmen’s Bureau journals, possessed by the family of Robert Johnson’s wife, Suzanne, herself a descendant of Stone. Johnson weaves together these journals with other exhaustive research and his own narrative fiction, inferring and adding what might have happened, to create a vivid, colorful drama about people trying to carry on during those violent years.
Many of the themes in this story are familiar in our world today — disputed elections, military-enforced democracy, local violence, and social instability. Though the setting is over a hundred years old, This Violent Land is more timely than it might at first appear.
"Robert Johnson has rescued William Stone from historical obscurity, capturing the essence of the Reconstruction era in South
Carolina and breathing life into little-known historical figures in the process."
— Dr. Lou Falkner Williams, Reconstruction historian, Kansas State University
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Living in the Carolinas gave Johnson an entirely new and more balanced perspective on relations and attitudes between the North and South. When a family member discovered a priceless collection of William Stone’s Civil War and Reconstruction-era diaries, Bob’s love of history compelled him to seize the opportunity and write William Stone’s story.
Johnson holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from Harvard University and a Master of Business Administration from Western New England College. He received numerous awards and honors during his business career and has been listed in Who’s Who in America for more than thirty years.
Bob and Suzanne have four daughters and four grandchildren, all of whom now live in the South. Bob enjoys boating, brewing ale, co-editing his community newspaper, and spending time with his family.