At the battle of Gettysburg, a twenty year old Confederate officer, Major John Stewart Hard, raised his sword to signal the 7th SC infantry, the lead regiment directing the advance of Longstreet's Corps. Marching in disciplined order, they entered into a violent maelstrom of the battle's second day, in which thousands upon thousands of Blue and Gray soldiers would lose their lives. Somewhere behind the advancing line of Confederates, a man by the name of Aleck stood by, perhaps holding the reins of John Hard's horse. Aleck, an enslaved African accompanied John throughout the war, serving him as trusted companion, cook, washer, and stable man. Hundreds of miles away, in Graniteville, South Carolina, Emma Hard, a 15-year-old girl on the edge of her womanhood grasped her older brother John's latest letter, describing the invasion of Pennsylvania by Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. Emma may have trembled as she read John's prediction that a great battle would soon be fought that might decide the outcome of the war. In Bound Together, the author utilizes a rich trove of family history in the form of letters and journals of his ancestors to explore the Civil War and Reconstruction from the unique perspective of these three: John, Aleck, and Emma.
