Joseph Alexander Altsheler was born on April 29, 1862, in Three Springs, Kentucky. In 1888, he became a reporter, then editor at a newspaper in Louisville, then began working for New York World in 1892 as a Hawaiian correspondent. In 1888, he married Sarah Boles and they had one son. Because of a shortage of stories, Altsheler began writing children's stories for a magazine. Eventually, he began writing short stories and novels in 1895, completing nearly one hundred of them including six series. There were eight books in his Civil War series. While visiting Germany, World War I broke out and the family became stranded there. A perilous journey home took a toll on his health and he died on June 5, 1919, at the age of 57, in New York City. The Star of Gettysburg is a complete romance, but it is also one of the series dealing with the Civil War. The story centers about the young Southern hero, Harry Kenton, and his friends.