By ROWENA PLETT

Staff writer

Tabor College professor emeritus Max R. Terman has published a sequel to his 2009 historical novel, “Hiram’s Honor: Reliving Private Terman’s Civil War.”

The first novel and its sequel, “Hiram’s Hope: The Return of Isaiah,” although fictional, are based on the life of Terman’s great-uncle who fought in the Civil War.

Hiram’s Hope focuses on the struggles his great-uncle and other veterans endured after surviving the war. It tells how Union soldier Isaiah, left for dead at the Confederate prisoner-of-war camp at Andersonville, survives. However, after his release at the close of the war, two weeks after President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, he experiences another traumatic event onboard the over-loaded steamer, Sultana.

Terman weaves the story around this little-known tragedy that occurred during the last days of the Civil War. The story includes the moving of Lincoln’s body by train from Washington, District of Columbia, to Springfield, Illinois, for burial.

The 260-page novel was published in August and is available through major booksellers. It also is available at Hillsboro Public Library.

Terman has a Ph.D. in zoology. He taught biology and environmental science for 37 years at Tabor College. He retired in 2006. The author of four books and numerous articles lives in a solar earth-sheltered house south of Hillsboro on fifteen acres of restored prairie.