Richard Cleave and Maury Stafford each suspect Judith Cary of a preference for the other—but while that makes Richard resolve to keep Maury alive as they both fight for their native Virginia, Maury decides to do his best to ruin Richard’s army career. Who will come out alive and more importantly, who does Judith want to come out alive?
The Long Roll is, well, long. I suppose it’s about as long as Dickens’ Bleak House or Martin Chuzzlewit and that, my friends, is long.
It’s pretty blood-and-gutsy and also has a significant amount of profanity, besides being long—and potentially a little confusing, I would think, for someone not fairly familiar with the outlines of the War Between the States. I rate it 17+, though a younger teen who loves long slow wartime stories (if there be such a person) might also enjoy it.
Jump straight to the end for a brief summary and ebook link, or read on through for the details.
The Plot [spoiler alert!]
The Long Roll’s plot is a simple one: Richard loves Judith, but thinks she loves Maury, so he tries to help Maury, Maury loves Judith and knows she loves Richard, so he ruins Richard (delivers a changed order, in fact, and obtains his disgraced discharge from the army). There are other characters of course and some of them have some mildly interesting stories of their own. However the plot is not, and is not meant to be, deviously intricate. Nor are the characters splendidly likeable. Though this may sound negative, it is in fact in my opinion a masterly achievement. In a book focusing on a war, it was inevitable that there would be long passages that would not directly advance the plot—whole chapters hinging on who moved where, on vivid battle descriptions, or on the tiny details and random incidents that authors love to use as emotional sword points when dealing with a huge subject like war. When such a book has a thrilling plot, or wonderful characters, the reader frequently becomes a touch impatient with lengthy description and heart-rending trivialities. You just want to get back to what Richard and Judith and Maury thought and felt and said. But if somehow the balance can be kept—and Johnston keeps it largely by cool-headed brevity and a cautious lack of humor in the story sections—between characters that are real and relatable, but not so enjoyable that you can’t stand being away from them, characters that are in trouble but not always dangling off a cliff, then the reader doesn’t mind a long excursion up and down the Shenandoah, or following the silly shenanigans of Steve the would-be deserter. It helps, of course, if the excursion is well written, innovative in descriptive language, and fairly clear in the way it follows the too easily confusing meanders of an army. In short, with the intensity of the story sections toned down while the originality of expression in the descriptive sections is dialed up, the whole book maintains interest instead of being a see-saw.
One other thing Johnston did to ameliorate the way a war novel generally loses either its characters or the war was to conjure up a pretty vast host of secondary characters, helping the plot along in tiny ways, but doing good service in presenting excuses to be at whatever battle she wanted to be.
I would be remiss if I didn’t also mention Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson as one of the characters. Without disliking the book’s presentation of Jackson I was a little surprised by it, as making him more bizarre in a rough-and-rugged way than I would have thought was fair to the historical figure. It’s a criticism that I discovered was not unique to myself, with Jackson’s widow actually writing an article pointing out the inaccuracies of Johnston’s fictional Jackson. Given how close to the actual time period Johnston was writing, it’s a pity she didn’t do her due diligence a little better—but it is fiction, and as a well-written and captivating war story, I’m not going to knock it too hard for a treatment of Jackson that was on the whole sympathetic, if also significantly overstrained. (I have a suspicion that Johnston likes overstrained, rough and tumble characters, and let that flavor her Jackson.)
All that said, you’re probably wondering what the plot actually is. After all, I ended my very brief summary above with Richard’s disgraced discharge from the army. And that, actually, is more or less where the book ends; there’s heavy foreshadowing that he’ll be reinstated, but it doesn’t actually happen. More about that in the section on style below.
The Long Roll, in terms of story arc, is more a story of Thomas Jackson than anything else, following his triumphs and exploits and ending with his death. He did have an exciting career, and while Johnston can’t really take credit for that it was a great choice of stage for the fictional characters’ smaller dramas.
6/10
The Point
For the most part The Long Roll is just a fascinating way to learn about the battles of the first few years during the War Between the States. It’s decidedly sympathetic to the South (therefore I cannot bring myself to say the Civil War right now), and I think gives a very fair idea of the average southerner’s motivations for war. There’s virtually no attempt to portray the North’s perspective, which makes perfect sense given the fact that almost all the story takes place in the south with southern characters. The subject is a nuanced one for sure but what’s interesting about this book is the way the author sustained a mid-war perspective; you mostly feel as though history ends where the book ends and the war could be still going on today.
Like most war books, The Long Roll uses profanity fairly liberally. In a way that was necessary in order for Johnston to do justice to Jackson’s frequent rebukes; she did (in my opinion) a little less justice to the impact that made on the average soldier. In general Jackson’s morality is portrayed fairly well but his Christianity i.e. his trust in God, is given less prominence, and the Christianity of the army as a whole even less.
I am not sufficiently well versed in the technical details of the War Between the States’ battles to judge how accurate Johnston was, but I can take that for granted and she certainly made them come alive.
8/10
The Style
A feature of Johnston’s style—not so much in her other works, but in The Long Roll—is her tendency to use a character’s opinion about what another character is likely to do as fact. For example, Judith’s father voices the opinion that Richard won’t marry her after he’s been discharged even if she wants to, and that’s all that we get on that subject; the next time the characters surface it’s evident that he was right. This happens several times, setting a pattern which allowed Johnston to use foreshadowing in the same way; there are unresolved threads even after you’ve flipped the last page, but you’re not left unsatisfied. Up until then, whatever was foreshadowed has come to pass, so presumably the trend will continue. Since Jackson leaves an order for Richard’s case to be reopened, and since Maury Stafford was begged by a dying “prodigal son” of a soldier to take home a letter asking for forgiveness, it’s clear that Maury is going to confess and Richard will be honorably exonerated and restored to command, and there’s not only no need to spell it out, it actually feels like it’d be a waste of time. For a book that’s as long as The Long Roll (and it does full justice to its title!) the story is kept remarkably brief, and it feels like things happen in a paragraph that most authors would love to devote a chapter to—all so that Johnson can get back to Jackson and the army as fast as possible. It’s the opposite of what I’m used to in war novels and worked really well.
Partly because of this super-condensed approach to the story, the main characters seem dreadfully intense. You only get a peep at them when they’re wound up. As I expressed earlier, I think that worked well for keeping interest at an even level throughout the book—but it does mean that they basically never say anything funny (well, except in the way that intensity is sometimes funny, I believe I did laugh at Judith a few times, which was probably cruel of me).
Throughout, Johnston wastes very little time in explanation and mostly devotes herself to painting vivid pictures of the army’s movements. It would get repetitive except that she excels in picking out new nuances with each battle. The Long Roll (which by the way is the name of the drumroll played when joining battle), is an apt title in this sense too, as the prose rolls on and on, carrying you with it.
7/10
Conclusion
7/10
With just enough of a plot on the side to qualify as historical fiction, it’s the wartime setting that really shines in The Long Roll. The book follows Jackson’s career in the Army of Northern Virginia and makes his marches and battles come alive. Johnston’s portrayal of Jackson himself, however, was less successful, if the testimonies of his widow and other survivors are to be believed. On the other hand, her ability to capture a wartime spirit is impressive and splendidly sustained all through. If you’re ready to hear some stirring drums on a rainy day (maybe a few rainy days), The Long Roll is the book for you.
You can download an ebook version of The Long Roll at Project Gutenberg: https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/22066
You may also be interested in these other book reviews:
Geneva D 
What do you think?