The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – BIG RED Kindle Edition by Matthew Gene Stephens

Episode Date: March 16, 2026

BIG RED Kindle Edition by Matthew Gene Stephens https://www.amazon.com/BIG-RED-Matthew-Gene-Stephens-ebook/dp/B0G39Z5YBQ Big Red, whose given name is Horatio Coonrod, is a teenaged boy in September 1864, the waning months of the War Between the States, in this historical novel that combines fictional characters and actual historical events and persons. He lives in the Florida Panhandle, in Jackson County, just east of Marianna, the county seat, as does his betrothed, Sue McKinnie. The times are desperate for the Confederacy but more so for Jackson County and the surrounding area, with a large force of battle-hardened Union veterans converging on Marianna. The Southern town is defended only by a few Confederate regulars, walking wounded, and citizens who make up a Home Guard, ranging in age from thirteen years to seventy-eight-a force half the size of the Union cavalry. The battle goes badly for the Southerners. Red was wounded, captured, and taken to the war’s most infamous Union prisoner of war camp in Elmira, New York, but he is protected and guided by the hand of the Lord as he makes his way back to his home, family, and the only girl he’s ever loved. He must then engage again in deadly combat in an attempt to regain what has been forcibly taken from him. Red is transformed by the devastating trials he endures on his 1,100-mile journey home. He realizes the unfortunate transformation he went through and his need to seek the redemptive grace the Lord makes available to those who seek it. Sue McKinnie also struggles during this time, not knowing whether her beloved is alive or not. She clings to hope when it seems there is none. Her trials are recounted, illustrating how the Lord buttresses her against utter hopelessness through her extremely strong and devout faith. Together, their story is a tale of hope, faith, and love triumphant.

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we're going to get into it with him and his book. But in the meantime, go to goodreads.com, Fortress, Chris Foss. LinkedIn.com, dot com, for chest, Chris Foss, YouTube.com, Fortresschuschus, and Facebook.com, Forcestchuschristus. He's the author of the latest book to come out called Big Red by Matthew Gene Stevens, who joins us in the show. It's a novel that came out November 21st, 2025.

Welcome to show, Matthew. How are you? Thank you very much. I'm doing well on yourself. Thank you. I'm doing excellent as well. Glad to have you on the show. Give us any websites, e-mails, dot com, social media. I don't have a website. My email address is my full name, Matthew Jean Stevens at yahoo.com. It's a small case, no skips or underlines or anything. No skipping, folks.

Give us a 30,000 overview what's inside your book, Big Red. I'm sorry? Give us a 30,000 overview. What's inside your book? The book is about this. teenager in the late war between the states era, September the 27th, 1864 is the opening site and scene of the book. And the Battle of Mariana was fought on that day. Mariana was the county seat of Jackson County, Florida still is, and it's also my place of birth. But the Union Army

had come up from Pensacola and come up through what is today pretty much Washington County and Western Panhandle and got to a little town called Campbellton and then from there it came southwest till they reached Mariana Florida and the general in command of general Alexander Asbeth was under the impression that he would be welcomed with open arms and instead of force of arms, which you wound up getting. But anyway, there were like over 700 Union cavalrymen with repeating carbines, and there were very few Confederate regulars, mostly walking wounded. Most of the regular Confederates had been, you know, set further north where the war was

more active. But there was several Home Guard units. In fact, my great-great-uncle, Cornelia Stevens, was a member of one of those units. And all in all, there was about 350 Confederate defenders to face the 700. And the Confederates were armed with antiquated weapons, like single-shot, muzzle loaders. And a good soldier with a muzzleloader could get off three shots a minute, whereas a soldier with a carbane could fire seven, nine, ten shots a minute. it. Oh, wow. That made a difference. It was short. It was a bad day for the southerner.

Oh, wow. In the book, Big Red, who his real name is Horatio Coonrod. And Coonrod was a family name. My great-great-grandmother was Stella Coonrod. But he gets wounded and is captured and is taken to Elmira prison in New York. And he's there till pretty much the war is over, which. from the time of the Battle of Mariana wasn't just, you know, months away, but it was a very

difficult time been the dead of winter. And if you're from North Florida, and you're having to spend the winter in the most lethal prisoner of war camp in the north that had a 25% mortality rate. Oh, wow.

And it's, you know, it's comparable to the Andersonville, which everybody that knows anything about the war between the states, is pretty much familiar with, but Elmira is not so much familiar, but it was just as lethal. Oh, yeah. So anyway, the majority of the book, there's a lot of action in it. On his journey home, he gets detoured and disappointed several times, and it takes him a while to get back.

And the things that I tried to bring out in the book were the value of faith, and loyalty. He was engaged to his betrothed, a girl named Sue McKinney back home in Jackson County. And so he thought of her. And, of course, he thought of his family. And he kept those thoughts in his mind. And that and his faith were what he relied on to get back. And also, there was like a, there's kind of a parallel narrative going on,

because Sue doesn't know what's happened to Big Red. And she doesn't get any word from him for months and months. And there's some reasons for that. He, you know, it's not that he couldn't write. He did write some, but the letters didn't reach it. But that's all covered in the book. Covered in the book, folks. You can pick it up wherever fine books are sold.

Now, is there any, you know, this sounds like it happens at some events that actually took place in history. Is this historical fiction where maybe it was based on something that you knew about or some sort of history? It is actually based on real events. The Battle of Mariana was the second largest battle of the war between the states in Florida. Only the Battle of Alusti over near Jacksonville was larger. Like I say, in the Battle of Mariana, there was around 700 Union soldiers. there was 350, 300 Confederates,

but there was not a whole lot of organized fighting going on in Florida. What happened mostly in Florida was raids on salt works and all that. Florida's probably largest contribution to the Confederacy was in foodstuffs and, like, beef and salt, because salt was what they used to preserve the beef. Oh, yeah. And they would boil the salt, water down on the coast and they'd boil it until the, until the Yankees come along, turn the pots over, and then they'd let the Yankees leave and just turn them back over and start it again.

Isn't that a while that they used to, you know, keep meat back in those days? Now, the story of the character, the protagonist in the book, is there any, is there any, how did you build that character and is it built on anybody in real life? The way the novel came about, my father is 93 years old and it lives two doors away from me. Oh, wow. And I moved there to help him with my mother when she was living. She had dementia for several years, and he needed help just in caring for her. And I had a flexible work schedule, so I was able to provide, you know, help and also take them to medical appointments.

doctor's appointments, things like that. And we live in Chattahoochia. That's about 50, 55, 60 miles west of Tallahassee. And I remember to get the most bang for the buck. We used to schedule our cardiology appointments 15 minutes apart so we could get the most out of a trip to Tallahassee. That's the way to do it. That's the way to do it.

So this is your first book you've ever written. Is that correct? Yes, sir. and I hope to do at least a trilogy, like I say, following Big Reds family, him and his family through the latter part of the 19th century into the 20th century. I want to show how it was for most of the families in the Panhandle in South Georgia, Florida State Hospital, when it became, when it was established in 18, what was 1877, and then on into the 19th. Florida State Hospital was like on the cutting edge of mental treatment. There was a lot of things that were probably first seen or heard

about around here in Chattahoochee. When I was in high school, there was over 7,000 patients. at the hospital. They had a staff of like 2,500 to 3,000 people. So most of the people in Chattahoochee are around Chattahoochee, their livelihood came from there. And a lot of them, you know, were like my family. They moved from Jackson County over here to be near the job. Oh. I mean, that's what you do. And then also, and bringing the story forward, the period of time after the war between the states, which, you know, people have heard the term reconstruction, that that applies to about the 10 years following the war. And it was a really turbulent time in this area.

Jackson County, the citizens did not want to secede before the war. In fact, they had instructed their delegates to the secession convention to vote against, it and the only reason they voted for it was because it'd be the only ones voting against it. Oh, wow. And I guess maybe that's part of why Asper thought he might get welcomed with open arms. But like I say, after the war, when the union attacked Mariana, there was 25% of the male population that was either killed, wounded, or captured in that battle. Wow.

And there was a lot of resentment and anger because of that. And so there were, let's just say that Jackson County went from being about the most peaceful crime-free counties in Florida before the war to having more than all the other counties combined afterwards. and it was a and so I like to document that in fact that time is also called the Jackson County War oh really yes there's a book there's a book entitled and I've researched I'm in the process of researching all of this and that'll be RVV in the second book and moving through with the same character and why did you land on the title big red and of course that's the given name well that's the that's the I guess the shorthand name of the character, but why Big Red?

I mentioned my father. He's been singing gospel music since before I can remember. And like I said, I've been having coffee with him every morning for several years. And so one morning, two or three, three, four years ago, I came over and sat down and he said, I want you to write a book. Okay. And this was like right out of the blue. Right out of the blue. What about? He said a song I wrote. It's called Big Red.

Oh. Then he sang some of it and narrated part of it. So that's where the title Big Red came from. Wow. He had no idea about the story about how Big Red came to get the nickname. I had to come up with all of that. Oh, really? So it was based on a song. Wow. So what happened was Big Red didn't like his first name,

Horatio. Horatio Coonrod was in the name. So he just didn't like it. And so he told he was telling his betrothed, Sue McKinney, and she said, that's easy to solve. We'll just tell all of our friends to call you Big Red

because you're bigger and taller than anybody else, and you got the reddest hair around. So that's how he got his name. Big Redney's got red hair. So the good stuff there, good stuff there. Now, you've never written a book before. What What sort of techniques did you use?

And how did you learn to flesh out the characters and all that stuff? Like I said, I had to come up with the song that Daddy wrote is, I think it's a great song. But, you know, it's limited into the, as far as the time frame that it covers. So I had to come up with, you know, a world and people in that world to, you know. So I just kind of enjoy. it very much. It just let my imagination run wild, and I've always had a love of history. And so I thought this would fit in real well, and starting it at the Battle of Marianne and bringing it forward. Yeah. And what I like to do is in writing this book, I try to determine the general direction

I wanted to go in and then fill in the details as I go. And I would. And I would. I, I would, I think a good way to do that, you know, it used to be that reporters and journalists, they lived by the old adage, the five W questions. If you're writing a story, investigating a story or whatever, who, what, when, where, and why. And I would add to that, how. And if you cover all of those bases, I think you can come up with a complete story. Yeah, I mean, what a great first time and turning into a trilogy. It should be interesting to see.

Do you have an expected date that you're trying to get to for the second book? I can only say as soon as I can, but it's, I've got a lot of things going on, but I want to get seriously writing, you know, like right away, but it's going to take a little while. It took a little while for this. In fact, I had some downtime due to some. and medical procedures I went through. And so I spent a lot of my down time writing a book. There's a lot of great books that got rid during COVID.

It was a great time where, I mean, so many people wrote books during that time. It was crazy. You know, whatever works. What sort of process do you use to, you know, some authors will write an hour a day, some will write, yeah, they'll write this different offerings that they'll do in time. I would like to, like I said, it worked out to where I had a lot of time to, devote to it. And when you really get going in it, you look forward to getting back into it, because you think about it and you get excited about it. But I didn't have say, I'm going to sit down,

you know, and spend from 9 o'clock to 11 o'clock, three, four, five days a week doing this. I mean, I was not that rigid with it, but I just tried to do it as much and as often as I could. You have a love, I believe, for this county or city. You're in their county seat right now, I believe. Yeah, Jackson County, where Marianne is, is the county to the west of Gadsden County, which Chattahoochee is in. But like I said, I was raised in Chattahoochie. I went to school here, first grade through the 12th grade, grew up here. It was a great place to grow up.

Everybody knew everybody else. And, you know, we just, everybody kind of looked out for each other. And I've got, I've done a lot of things here. In the 70s, I was a police officer. Oh, really? Emergency medical technician, fireman, a volunteer fireman. And Daddy's loves it so much because when he moved over here, and he had grown up on the forum in Jackson County,

and he, when he moved over here, he got a job at Florida State Hospital, and that's where he met my mother. and they were married until she passed away in, let's see, 22, I believe, I mean, 21, September, no, February of 22. Yeah. And so do the characters come to you and talk to you? Do they kind of cajole you to write the book, or do you have to develop on your own? Some people have different ways their characters kind of come to life.

The two main characters, really, The only three characters, I guess you'd have to say there were three main characters. It was Red, and it was Slim. That's the protagonist. The song is about Red coming to our little town. That's in the song that Daddy wrote. And he envisioned Chattahoochee, and he envisioned Red coming into town and Meet Dunt was Slim on the back alley. and then they have a shootout.

And then Sue is the, as Red's betrothed, who, when he's gone, when he's taken away against his will after the Battle of Mariana, he doesn't see her for like over a year, doesn't know what's happening, she didn't know if he's still alive, and she just keeps holding out, hope against hope. And a lot of people, more or less telling her, you know, you need to kind of face up to facts here. We haven't heard anything. but her faith

I think the biggest thing that I wanted to come through in the book was the faith that she had that she would see Red again and Red went to a real metamorphosis through all of the trauma in today's terms

that he would probably been diagnosed with PTSD, and it really affected him because, you know, he'd never, you know, never had a real serious fight, you might say, before the Battle of Mariana, and he winds up killing several people. Oh, wow. And so on his journey home, a lot of the book is about how, you know, the Lord deals with him and convicts him of his need for redemption. And that's a big part of the story.

Needing redemption. You know, those battlefields, there was somebody who lived in my neighborhood in California when I was a kid, and he loved to go out to the battlefields and collect like bullets and mementos and I think dog tags or something like that, if he could find him, identification and stuff. And he had a collection of the lead bullets, I think they were. Yeah. They used on the battlefield. And, you know, he had some that were.

still new looking and intact that he'd found. And then there were some that clearly had passed through someone. And they would, he showed me that basically when they would hit something like a bone or, you know, probably a body or whatever, they would smash and then expand outward. And so what would be a bullet would hit and they would just kind of, I don't know, melt this the right word, but they would just kind of crush. but they would leave a bigger hole out the backside than what would enter. And you would show those to us, those bullets that had did that.

And we were just like, yeah, that's not going to end. Well, pretty much the standard rifle, which was a rifle musket during the war between the states, was a 58 caliber, either infield or Springfield. And they fired what's called a mini ball, which you described, the bottom of the, of the, bullet is hollow. And that's why it would expand when it hit. And it would expand like from 0.58 caliber to a lot larger, maybe 7580 caliber. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah, this is, and you're just like, let's going to blow everything out the backside. So that doesn't look like fun at all. It was a, it was a crazy time. It was a crazy war. It was a very sad war. Yeah, very sad. A lot of

of people died. And it was interesting how, how, I don't know, it was a strange time for us, but I guess we have some interesting things going on nowadays. And in the future book for him, do you see him involved with, I guess, rebuilding the South, things of that nature, or do you have any sort of ideas behind the story yet? I'm kicking around a lot of ideas in my head. Red and pretty much all of his neighbors, just like my family. At that time, they were, it was, they were all farmers. It was very rural area and pretty much what they did. And what the hospital at Chattahitia did, it gave a lot of people a way to leave the farm

and get into a less uncomfortable working environment, I guess you would say, because It gets hot out in a peanut field or a watermelon field or whatever. I've loaded a lot of watermelons and I've hooned peanuts. That'll do it. Yeah. Lots of interesting stuff there. What do you hope people come away with when they read the book? What do you hope is the lessons that they learn?

I try to, see, I've got a little notes here where I tried to, the spiritual and emotional aspects of the book are very meaningful. I like for people to come away, you know, with the value of faith and not giving up and the value of love for, you know, especially between the husbands and wives of people who are betrothed. Those are all extremely important. And I just like for people to come away thinking, you know, that if, you know, that if, you know, if you are determined into the power of prayer, the power of faith, the loyalty that you have to other people, especially family members and all. If you pursue those ideals, my own life, I have dealt with a lot of different things that I didn't think that I was going to get through. And I have learned that the power of prayer, not only my prayer, but the prayer of other people for me,

and perseverance and just trying to do the right thing. And it will, I think, eventually turn out like it or not to. And that's the story of life. That's the story that people love, you know, rising the phoenix from the fire, the story of the emergence of hope and triumph over adversity. And certainly, you know, some of those challenging times. I mean, back then you lived in carts or you rode in carts to go play. places and it's very slow and and I can't imagine being in a prison where I had a 25%

death rate. That's not a good ratio man. You know, the average low temperature was like from the mid to high teens to the mid to upper 20s during the winter up there. And the federal government had a policy that they only gave each, you know, the federal government prisoner one blanket. Wow. And there was, some of them were sleeping in tents and, you know, it was, it was a bad time to be a prisoner of war anywhere.

Yeah. Yeah. The south, the north, wherever. But, but if you're, if you're from North Florida and then you suddenly have to spend a winter and shivering in the cold of New York, it's going to be that much worse, I think. Oh, yeah. It's been wonderful to have you on the show, and we'll look forward to the future book that's coming out in the trilogy of Big Red. Thank you very much for coming on, Matthew.

Thank you very much for having me. Thank you. And thanks for us for tuning in. Order a Big Red, wherever you can find it by Matthew Gene Stevens. Thanks for amounts for tuning in. Go to Goodreads.com, Fortess, Chris Foss, LinkedIn.com, dot, LinkedIn.com, Christch, Chris Foss, Juan, the TikTok, and all those crazy places on the internet. Be good, to each other. Stay safe.

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