The cover for the May 2026 release of A Soul on Trial features Mahan Hall at the USNA where the Inquiry took place. In 1909, it was called the Academic Building.

SECRETS, SPIRITS, SCANDAL AND A NATION WATCHING

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COMING MAY 20, 2026 the first paperback and e-book edition of A Soul on Trial: A Marine Corps Mystery at the Turn of the Twentieth Century. The second edition has been revised and updated with a new Prologue and Epilogue. This timeless story of the power of our First Amendment has never been more significant than it is today. A ghost story, murder mystery and courtroom drama, readers can play detective as they follow the multiple threads that lead towards the elusive truth. 

Available for pre-order now on multiple sites. Try bookshop.org to support independent bookstores.

A Scene with High Stakes:

The gates had closed at noon. On this clear September afternoon in 1909, the grounds of Arlington National Cemetery were almost deserted. But just off McKinley Drive in the southwest corner of the officers’ section, eight laborers raised a casket from lot 2102 and placed it in a horse-drawn Red Cross ambulance. Forty-nine year–old Rosa Sutton watched from a carriage nearby. A handsome, sturdy woman with large expressive eyes, she wore a black silk shirtwaist and skirt. Her thick gray hair was buried under a wide hat; a mourning veil partially covered her face. Rosa’s carriage followed the ambulance as it wound slowly across the cinder paths of the cemetery towards a majestic mansion overlooking the Potomac River. Her short frame trembled. A tear streamed down her left cheek.

For the first time in four years, Rosa was about to see her son.

Exhumations for autopsies are extremely rare, especially almost two years after a burial. But Jimmie Sutton’s remains were “in a remarkable state of preservation.” How did this happen? It took close to a decade of research to unearth the full story of this unparalleled mystery that confounded Americans from all walks of life for much of 1909.

A Soul on Trial is the true story of an unprecedented conflict between democratic values and military justice in the age when the modern mass media was born. It is also a 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, was the perfect foil for 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. In order to save her son’s reputation and defend her own sanity, Rosa ultimately turned to James Cardinal Gibbons, the highest official in the American Catholic Church, and Dr. James Hervey Hyslop, America’s foremost psychical researcher. Hyslop commissioned a detailed field study of her paranormal experiences as part of his research on whether or not the dead communicate with the living. With the press corps as a catalyst, these two men helped Rosa achieve an American brand of justice, as well as redemption both for Jimmie and for herself.

As H. Michael Gelfand wrote in the Journal of American History, A Soul on Trial explores “one of the most remarkable cases of a civilian challenging the power of the U.S. military in American history… [and it is] a testament to the power that one ordinary individual can wield when determined to seek justice.” Plus, “. . . it is narrative history at its finest.”

“I Wish I had a Girl” was playing on a bandstand when the inquiry opened. Get in the mood!  Here it is and some other songs from 1909.

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