Review
"Nagle takes us into the character's hearts as well as into the horror of America's worst self-inflicted disaster. We eagerly await her next work!" --W. Michael Gear and Kathleen O'Neal Gear, authors of People of the Owl, on Galveston
“Lively, compelling historical fiction.” --Kirkus Reviews
“The tragic Red River Buffalo War of 1874 was 10 years in the future when Texan and Louisianan troops dueled Union forces along the Red with foot-sloggers, cavalry, artillery and gunboats. P.G. Nagle’s chronicling of this bitter debacle is strengthened by her sharp detail and believable characters, both of which elevate this book into the ranks of such Civil War novels as Mary Johnston’s Cease Firing and MacKinlay Kantor’s Long Remember.”--True West
“Nagle tells an engrossing tale of combat, personal growth and romantic intrigue.”--New Mexican
From the Inside Flap
A Creole belle, mistress of a thousand slaves in the heart of Louisiana . . .
A Texan Confederate, grieving for lost friends and family as he battles the Yankee army . . .
A Union carpenter in the Navy who dreams of piloting a Federal gunboat . . .
Their lives entwine at Belle View Plantation, where the Red River flows into the Mississippi and the Civil War becomes a maelstrom.
P. G. Nagle, "author of some of the best fiction written about Texas history" (Edward T. Cotham, Jr., author of
Battle on the Bay: The Civil War Struggle for Galveston), writes with power and poignancy of a bloody campaign little chronicled but of great strategic to both North and South. The Confederate victory at Galveston harbor at the dawning of 1863 is merely a prelude to a bitter contest for control of the Mississippi and Red Rivers, which together form the Confederacy's most vital lifeline of supply and trade.
For the South, the Mississippi and the Red River afford the only viable corridor for moving the cotton it must trade for munitions, supplies, and much-needed funds from European allies. The Union seeks to cut off such external support to the South and to hasten the end of a war that has already claimed tens of thousands of lives on both sides and that threatens to further debilitate a divided nation.
The Federal Navy sends a fleet of gunboats up the Red River in a daring attempt to seize control of the waterway, while on land Sibley's Brigade of Texans joins Confederate General Richard Taylor's defense of Louisiana's rich plantation country. Nagle tells the story of the struggle for dominance among the bayous and rivers of the Mississippi basin in an authoritative narrative both unflinching and compassionate, adding yet another memorable chapter to the chronicle of the Civil War fought in the Far West.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
