Secrets, Spirits, Scandal, and a Nation Watching
When Marine Corps Lieutenant James N. Sutton died in a brawl in 1907, his mother, his sister and his ghost all challenged the Navy's suicide verdict. By 1909, Rosa Sutton's crusade to save her son's soul from the stigma of a mortal sin had become a national sensation. Marine combat hero Judge Advocate Henry Leonard would prove the perfect foil for Mrs. Sutton.
But soon newspapers across America weighed in on "one of the most remarkable inquiries of its kind" in the history of the Navy; millions of citizens now had a stake in Rosa's cause.
What really happened to "Jimmie" Sutton? For most people, that became less important than his mother's right to know.
This murder mystery, ghost story and courtroom drama is the true saga of an unprecedented conflict between democratic values and military justice in the age when the modern mass media was born. It is also a riveting tale of the power of the press a century ago, and of the lives of young officers whose private battles were often as challenging as their professional ones. After her son died under mysterious circumstances in 1907, Rosa Brant Sutton came 3000 miles from Portland, Oregon, to challenge the Navy's suicide finding. Inspired by her Catholic faith and several alleged postmortem visits from her beloved "Jimmie," she embarked on a crusade to save his soul from the stigma of a mortal sin? a sin that would keep him out of heaven.
Rosa's spiritual journey soon became a political one that would take her through the corridors of power in Washington, D.C., to a courtroom in Annapolis, and, finally, face-to-face with Jimmie's corpse in Arlington Cemetery. This book also explores the values of a proud and honorable Marine Corps forced into the center of public discourse by Rosa's uninhibited pursuit of justice. The Corps' brilliant judge advocate, Henry Leonard, already a combat hero at thirty-three, had a clever plan to challenge Mrs. Sutton, her renowned attorney, and America's relentless reporters when the naval inquiry opened in Annapolis in 1909.
By then, millions of Americans had a stake in this confrontation between a patriotic mother and her own government in a military forum. Rosa's story was irresistible to Progressive Era journalists and high-ranking military officials who joined with members of Congress in a search for verifiable truth that played out on a national stage.
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