G. Clifton Wisler

A young Yankee drummer boy displays great courage when he's captured and sent to Andersonville Prison.

Eight years ago, forty-year-old Caulfield Blake was run out of the West Texas town of Simpson by a lynch mob. As sheriff, he'd been called on to carry out justice. But the War was ending and upholding the law was a tough kind of business. And when it meant hanging 'Colonel' Henry Simpson's son for killing an unpopular federal judge, the community-including Blake's own wife and children-wanted no part of him. Now Colonel Simpson wants to expand...

When his father dies and the family scatters, Erastus ('Rat') Hadley hires on as a hand to a local farmer. Rat is abused and tortured in his new home, but a depression is on and it's a tough time for a young man to be on his own. When Rat's loyal childhood friend Mitch Morris intervenes and the sheriff rescues Rat, his luck changes. Landing a job at last, Rat rides shotgun for the Western Stage Company out of Fort Worth. He quickly picks up a reputation...

As his family makes the long and difficult journey from Tennessee to their new home in Texas in 1852, twelve-year-old Jericho Wetherby, teased by his sister and brothers about his size, learns there are many ways to grow.

Following his father's example, sixteen-year old Willie Delamer joins the Second Texas Regiment and leaves his beloved Texas to fight for the Confederacy.