The place: Missionary Ridge, Tennessee.
The time: December 1864.
“The air split with the thunder of cannon fire. Shrill screams pierced through the thick veil of gun smoke and Howitzer exhaust that hung heavy over the land like a shroud of death.
Down at the base of the hill, a Union platoon pinned in the mud. Dug in deep shaking, cold dug into shallow trenches, their uniforms soaked through with fear and blood.
There was no safe route forward, and the only path to the ridge was a brutal uphill assault. Exposed to every squirrel hunting southerner’s barrel this side of the Mississippi.”
Then Bass Reeves went to work.
Who is Bass Reeves? Ask producer/director Mark Headley.
“He was one of the great heroes of the old West that made a difference,” Headley said.
But it’s James Shaffer who really knows and has now written about him.
It began when he was little; he loved the Lone Ranger.
“Who was the Lone Ranger?” Shaffer asked. “The guy was phenomenal in my mind as a child.”
Eventually the Lone Ranger led him to Bass Reeves, a real-life escaped slave who lived in the 1800s and became a U.S. deputy marshal in the Indian Territory before Oklahoma became a state.
“I found out he looked like me,” Shaffer said. “He was Black, I’m Black. That made him more interesting to me.”
Thus began a lifelong “friendship” with Reeves and that familiarity led to a movie script and now a newly published book called, “Freedom at Missionary Ridge.” The book is available through online outlets. It may also be found in libraries since it has an ISBN.
Shaffer said the story he tells is mostly fiction but built on bones of truth.
“I created a great deal of fiction around a few of his actual, historically reliable (accounts of) his exploits,” he said.
Really, there’s little available information about Reeves but Shaffer did his best to find out what he could.
“I talked to all the prominent Bass Reeves writers and novelists and even those people who play him primarily in their acting portrayals,” he said. “I also got the opportunity to actually speak to relatives of his who are still in Oklahoma. I got to speak to them and ask them questions about Bass and they were able to tell me what they remember.”
Shaffer found that Reeves was a complicated, smart man. He spoke seven languages, had a wife, children and lived a life sometimes ordinary and sometimes extraordinary. It was the relationships he had that Shaffer wanted to explore.
“It’s more than just about these guys (who) were bushwackers, train robbers, cattle rustlers and the guy goes out, hunts them down, kills a couple of them, arrests a few more and returns everybody’s stuff,” Shaffer said. “It’s deeper than that. This man had relationships. He had kids. He had a wife. He had parents. His wife had family. These stories were never really brought out.”
The book is based on a script about Bass Reeves that Shaffer had previously written. That script is not sitting around gathering dust. In fact, it is at least partially funded, which is a surprise and a pleasure to him.
“It was amazing,” Shaffer said. “I couldn’t believe it. 25% of a $3.1 million budget. It’s crazy. It was my second phone call from the networking that I was able to do at the American Film Market.”
That took place in November and is where many top filmmakers go to sell and buy work.
At least one actor of note, Larenz Tate, has expressed a serious interest in making the film. Other actors and agents have also expressed interest though casting isn’t the hard part, Shaffer said.
But back to the book.
Shaffer wrote a violent story. Is it hard to put yourself into a violent situation?
“For me it’s intense, fun fantasy,” he said. “You can be a gladiator through your writing. You can be skilled at weaponry in writing. With writing you can take yourself into other times and places, other countries. You can speak different languages. When you’re writing a scene, like a fight scene, you want the fight to be believable. You want the fight to be intense. You want people to enjoy the fight, like watching a prize fight. You want there to be ooh-ahh moments and then you want there to be moments of ‘Oh my God, we’re going to lose!’ and then there’s the strength. You see the strength in fighters. You see the strength in your hero character and you see that character can overcome even at his lowest point to where he’s almost ready to lose everything. He overcomes and he wins the battle. All of that is written into those scenes.”
Even with the violence, Shaffer believes this is a book anyone can read and enjoy.
“There is not a bunch of cussing,” he said. “I wouldn’t say a child could read it because there are a couple of cuss words but it’s not a filthy read.”
Find “Freedom at Missionary Ridge” here: bit.ly/4qtUchJ.