MANSE: One Man's War - a biography based on the life and legend of Manson Sherrill Jolly who served as a Confederate Cavalry scout in the Carolinas and Virginia during the Civil War.
But is was not until The War ended and Manse returned to his farm in the Anderson District of South Carolina that he became famous as a Confederate Hero – and infamous as an Outlaw.
A controversial contradiction:
Manse Jolly:
Avenging Angel of a lost cause.
Bearer of the Banner of Southern Honor
Manse Jolly:
Deranged Renegade. Unrelenting Killer of Union Soldiers – after The War was over.
"MANSE brings to life a complex man, and evokes the years of turmoil called Reconstruction, when the South was occupied by the U.S. Army. It is a sincere attempt to understand the Southern angst that gave birth to Secession, matured on the bloody battled fields of a nation divided against itself, and persists to this day, in the hearts and minds of many."
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Wilton Earle was born in South Carolina and graduated from the University of Georgia. For twelve years he worked in Latin America as a newspaper, radio and television journalist. For more than twenty years he has been a script-consultant to motion picture producers and directors in Europe, the United States and Latin America. He is the author of fifteen books.
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"In MANSE Wilton Earle has brilliantly reconstructed Reconstruction. He has unwound the spool of American history and replayed it as an even-toned, remoreseless narrative - an enthralling web of warped heroism, stolen gold, revenge, greed and deceit. Earle writes in a functional, graphic style that evades cliches. It reaches its peak when sentences are cast like lines of a poem to convey the bludgeoning delirium of Manse's mind. His dialogue is particularly effective, varying from the guardedly genteel to the foully forthright. It is dialogue that scorches and furrows the memory." - Abraxas Literary Quarterly, London
"MANSE is based on historical fact. Manson S. Jolly was a Confederate Scout whose postwar career was marked with controversy. A hero to some...a villain to others...his plight is both believeable and tragic...There's plenty of action and the story moves quickly. Earle's characters avoid the setereotypical." - Charles Sermon, The Columbia State
"MANSE is a page turner. Earle has taken a solid skeleton of meticulously researched fact and fleshed it out with his own extrapolations to create a powerfully exciting book...His description of Manse Jolly's mental deterioration is masterful." - Kathryn Smith The Anderson Independent
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