THOMASVILLE- Les Rolston, a 69-year old author from Rhode Island, looks to share his book, “Long Time Gone: Neighbors Divided by Civil War,” with Thomasville. 

A fast-paced story through the eyes of Confederate and Union soldiers, Rolston said that his book went into the parallel lives of Elisha Hunt Rhodes of the 2nd Rhode Island Regiment and James Rhodes Sheldon of the 50th Georgia Regiment. 

Both of them grew up in Pawtuxet Village as neighbors, fought on opposite sides of the war, never meeting each other in battle, but being on the same battlefield nearly a dozen times. 

“That’s it, they don’t meet at all during the war,” Rolston said. “But they come close 11 times and four times they were very close to each other.”

Ralston said he first became aware of the story of two boyhood friends while reading “All for the Union: The Civil War Diary and Letters of Elisha Hunt Rhodes” by Robert Hunt Rhodes.

He said that it took him 10 years to finish the project, changing publishers to his current publisher, Revival Waves of Glory, around 2020. 

“It was a 10 year project,” he said. “I finished it probably five or six years ago. I changed publishers twice, I’m now with a wonderful publishing company.”

Rolston said that he began to love history when he was a young child, because it felt like he grew up in very historic times. 

“It was a special time to be a 10 year old,” he said. “Kennedy had just gotten killed, the Beetles were just coming to America, big history was being made all around us. It was the centennial of the Civil War, so a lot of toys were based on that. It was a very cultural time for history, I thought, and I just got swept up in it.”

Writing his book, he said that he tried to always keep it visual and maintain the vibrancy of the scenes that the history he wrote about contained. 

“I try to be very visual,” he said. “One of my publishers, they said that my books are like watching a movie, that was the best compliment I ever got. I try to make my books very visual.”

Rolston said his interest in Thomasville was based on the history of Thomasville and its interesting connection to Pawtuxet Village, the birthplace of Rhode and Sheldon. 

Simeon Smith and Ed Remington, two of the founders of Thomasville, he explained, were from Pawtuxet Village as well.

A visit he took to Thomasville during a book tour in Panama City, Fla. also inspired him to promote his book in the area, enjoying the colorful downtown.

“Reminded me of a miniature San Francisco,” Rolston said. “All the storefronts were painted different colors and everything.”

Now writing his fifth book, Rolston said that he was very happy to have come this far with his publications, having gotten to meet so many families connected to the stories he shares. 

“It’s wonderful, the books are their own reward,” he said.

“A friend of mine, he’s an author, a well-known author, said to me one day, ‘well, how do you find all these stories?’” he said. “And I said to him, ‘they’re all around us.’”

Rolston said that he is currently talking to the Book Shelf in downtown Thomasville to promote his book and get it locally shelved.