John William De Forest John William De Forest ( May 31 , 1826 – July 17 , 1906 ) was an American soldier and writer of realistic fiction , best known for his Civil War novel " Miss Ravenel ' s Conversion from Secession to Loyalty " . Early life and career . De Forest was born in Seymour , Connecticut , ( then called Humphreysville ) , the son of a prosperous cotton manufacturer . He did not attend college , but instead pursued independent studies , mainly abroad , where he was a student in Latin , and became a fluent speaker of French , Italian , and Spanish . While yet a youth , he spent four years traveling in Europe , and two years in the Levant , residing chiefly in Syria . In 1850 , he again visited Europe , making extensive tours through Great Britain , France , Italy , Germany , Greece , and Asia Minor . From that time , he wrote short stories for periodicals , having already authored several books . One of his earliest works , " The History of the Indians of Connecticut , from the Earliest known Period to 1850 " , shows his interest in history . Written from 1847 to 1850 , " The History of the Indians of Connecticut " is critical of the settlers treatment of the Pequots and of King Phillip ' s War , which is somewhat surprising given the early date of the scholarship . The non - fictional work also foreshadows De Forest ' s later fiction in its subject , realism , and occasional violence . The honorary degree of A . M . was conferred upon him by Amherst College in 1859 . Civil War . With the advent of the American Civil War , De Forest returned to the United States . As a captain in the Union Army , he organized a company from New Haven , the 12th Connecticut Volunteers . He served constantly in the field until January 1865 , taking an active part under Maj . Gen . Godfrey Weitzel ' s command in the southwestern states , and under Philip Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley . Graphic descriptions of battle scenes in Louisiana , and of Sheridan ' s battles in the valley of the Shenandoah , were published in " Harper ' s Monthly " during the war by Major De Forest , who was present on all the occasions thus mentioned , and though experiencing forty - six days under fire , received but one trifling wound . De Forest mustered out from the volunteer army in 1865 with the brevet rank of major . Postbellum . After being mustered out of the army with the rest of the Veteran Reserve Corps of which he was the adjutant general , De Forest transferred to the Bureau of Refugees , Freedmen and Abandoned Lands ( more commonly known as the " Freedmen ' s Bureau " and was appointed Assistant Commissioner in charge of the post in Greenville , South Carolina . His experiences there , published in magazines of the period and eventually in collected form as " A Union Officer in the Reconstruction " ( 1948 , new edition LSUP 1999 ) shed light on the conditions in the South during the Reconstruction . His magazine articles of his time in the army were also collected published posthumously as " A Volunteer ' s Adventures " ( 1946 , new edition LSUP 2001 ) . In 1867 , De Forest published his most significant novel , " Miss Ravenel ' s Conversion from Secession to Loyalty " . William Dean Howells praised him as a " realist before realism was named , " but most early critics argued that the Romantic elements of De Forest ' s plot mixed poorly with the admirable realism of the battle scenes , and the novel fell through with the audience in 1867 . Reeditions in 1939 and 1956 reintroduced De Forest as an author , but the full range of his experimentalísm in this early novel has still not been fully understood . In " Miss Ravenel ' s Conversion " , De Forest tried to come to grips with writing experiences De Forest himself had , and which did not fit any of the idealist and romantic patterns that war literature had followed so far . Consequently , there are a number of scenes that portray war with a graphic sense of bloody reality ( f . i . the siege of Port Hudson ) , but there are also burlesque and comical passages , as well as reflective moments . Writing for " The Nation " a year later , De Forest called for a more general movement in American literature toward realism ; the essay ' s title , " The Great American Novel , " is generally credited as being the first known use of the term . He died in New Haven , Connecticut , of heart disease . Writing . De Forest wrote essays , a few poems , and about fifty short stories , numerous military sketches , and book reviews , most of which were anonymous . In 1873 , he contributed to " The Atlantic Monthly " a short serial story entitled " The Lauson Tragedy . " His published books include :