Captain Henry: 2½ Insurrections, 2 Wars, 1¼ Centuries and a Story of Love
I.M. Aiken's 2026 novel
This book will not be (is not) what I expected. It is the book I wrote following 20 years of experience and years of research on my own family.
No doubt when the marketing and publicity team at Catalyst Press get caught up and write a “one-pager”, it will be better than I’ve done. We’ll get a proper cover, ISBN numbers, marketing stuff and all of the things. When done, I’ll replace this page.
The novel follows three main characters and three related themes. Because years ago, I drafted a novel that accidentally foreshadowed 2026.
2026 Issues in CAPTAIN HENRY:
Posse Comitatus discussions in the news
The arrest of Don Lemon under anti-KKK laws of the early 1870s
The present U.S. War with Iran
The vilification of American heroes and the pardoning of those who harmed/killed them
Active and aggressive efforts to disenfranchise American voters (paralleling efforts from the 1870s)
The return of discriminatory rules within the U.S. Department of Defense
The dreadful experience of knowing that your long military career shall involve one, or two, or three forever wars. I still have one friend (of 30 years) stationed in the Middle East and I can’t help but feel part of me is with her now.
I wrote a novel that I thought would be enjoyed by 3 history buffs and 5 genealogy types.
For Now:
NEW NOVEL DUE SEPTEMBER 2026
Captain Henry
I.M. Aiken’s 2026 novel CAPTAIN HENRY explores the intersection between the anti-KKK days of the Reconstruction, the Spanish American War, the Iraq War, U.S. Military policy, and current events. It is also a love story between two heroes.
Henry McDonald
Aiken’s genealogy research introduced her to great grandfather Captain Henry McDonald who served as a young soldier in the U.S. Army in America’s south during our attempts at post Civil War Reconstruction. The U.S. Government tasked Henry and his comrades to arrest KKK members and bring them to justice under various anti-KKK laws passed between 1869 and 1873. One of these anti-KKK laws was used in 2026 to arrest a queer black reporter (Don Lemon). Henry’s time in the south came to a close as the U.S. government gave up efforts to ensure voting rights, landowning rights, and other rights provided to all U.S. citizens. Southern leaders, so annoyed at the army for patrolling on domestic soil, they created the Posse Comitatus Act.
Familiar terms in 2026?
Iraq 2006
Aiken serviced as a civilian subject matter expert and was a member of the United States Army in Iraq from 01DEC2005 until mid-November 2006. Aiken revisited and revised her journals, then incorporated them in this novel. Aiken used these journals to document her growing understanding of the civil war that broke out while she was in Iraq. Throughout these entries she explore the history of region, of the differences between Sunni and Shi’a, and America’s confused role there.
Used now in fiction, they document the arc of the second major character, LT Sarah Ann Musgrave while she undertakes her second tour in Iraq. This character, often called “Sam” due to the initials, beseeches the readers of her journals to not engage Iran in a war. In Sam’s experience of Iraq, she understood that Iran was engaged in proxy conflicts with the US through its various groups.
Sam begs: “Do not go to war withIran.” Words written by Aiken 20 years ago while listening to mortars and gunfire nightly.
The Dedication
Quoting directly from the manuscript:
I am writing this dedication on the sixth of January 2022, one year after a violent insurrection at the United States Capital. Those in public service, including the military, swear to uphold the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. This novel is dedicated to all of those who have taken, then upheld, this oath.
Brian D. Sicknick, Capitol Police
Jeffery Smith, Metropolitan Police
Howard S Liebengood, Capitol Police
Gunther Hashida, Metropolitan Police
Kyle DeFreytag, Metropolitan Police
The insurrectionists wounded about one hundred and fifty police officers on that January day, fourteen days prior to the inauguration of the next president.
Additionally, I’d like to honor Elizabeth C. MacDonough…
Aiken had no idea that these facts would be controversial in the years that followed.
A Story of Love
Aiken’s characters Sarah Ann Musgrave and Brighid Doran are queer, lovers, and their love story arcs through most of Aiken’s novels. Sam (Sarah) enlisted in the U.S. Army while Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell stood as policy and served for a decade under this rule. Don’t-Ask-Don’t-Tell provide the reader an adversary and highlights failures in policies/laws that discriminate people based on false perceptions of group/population stereotypes.
Keywords for the publisher’s marketing team
Spanish American War, Reconstruction, Civil War, U.S. Army, U.S. Military, U.S. History, Iraq War, Iran War, Posse Comitatus, Liturature, Islam, Sunni, Shia, January 6th