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Forthcoming titles

(Book titles are subject to change)

A Royal Engineer in the Low Countries

A Cavalry Surgeon at Waterloo

With the Third Guards during the Peninsular War

The First and Last Campaigns of the Great War

Supernatural and Weird Fiction of Vincent O'Sullivan

Supernatural and Weird Fiction of Algernon Blackwood

Narratives of the Anglo-Zulu War

and many others

The Civil War Novels: 1

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The Civil War Novels: 1
Leonaur Original
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Author(s): Joseph A. Altsheler
Date Published: 2009/03
Page Count: 432
Softcover ISBN-13: 978-1-84677-607-6
Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-1-84677-608-3

An epic tale of the war between the States

This is volume one—incorporating the two novels The Guns of Bull Run & The Guns of Shiloh, the first and second novels of a series of eight adventures which follow the momentous events, campaigns and battles of the great American Civil War between the Northern and Southern states. The central characters of the story are Harry Kenton—an officer in the Confederate Army and his cousin Dick Mason a young officer in a similar position fighting within the Union ranks. The narrative of the whole war is charted through the action which embraces many actual players in the real conflict. Beginning with First Bull Run and climaxing at Appomattox each novel tells the story from an alternate perspective—from the ranks of the Blue and then the Grey as the saga unfolds. Altsheler wrote another Civil War novel, Before the Dawn, concerning the fall of Richmond told from a Confederate perspective. Although this story is not strictly part of the series Leonaur have offered it as part of its five volume, nine novel collection of the author’s Civil War adventures for collectors and readers in complementing designs and soft cover or hard cover.

They steamed the entire day without interruption. Now and then the river narrowed and they ran between high banks. The scenery became romantic and beautiful, but always wild. The river, deep at any time, was now swollen fifteen feet more by floods on its upper courses, and the water always lapped at the base of the forest.<br>
Dick and Pennington, standing side by side, saw the second sun set over their voyage, and it was as wild and lonely as the first. There was a yellow river again, and hills covered with a bare forest. Heavy grey clouds trooped across the sky, and the sun was lost among them before it sank behind the hills in the west.<br>
Dick and Pennington, wrapped in their blankets and overcoats, slept upon the deck that night, with scores of others strewed about them. They were awakened after eleven o'clock by a sputter of rifle shots. Dick sat up in a daze and heard a bullet hum by his ear. Then he heard a powerful voice shouting: "Down! Down, all of you! It's only some skirmishers in the woods!" Then a cannon on one of the armour clads thundered, and a shell ripped its way through the underbrush on the west bank. Many exclamations were uttered by the half-awakened lads.<br>
"What is it? Has an army attacked us?"<br>
"Are we before the fort and under fire?"<br>
"Take your foot off me, you big buffalo!"<br>
It was Colonel Winchester who had commanded them to keep down, but Dick, a staff officer, knew that it did not apply to him. Instead he sprang erect and assisted the senior officers in compelling the others to lie flat upon the decks. He saw several flashes of fire in the undergrowth, but he had logic enough to know that it could only be a small Southern band. Three or four more shells raked the woods, and then there was no reply.<br>
The boats steamed steadily on. Only one or two of the young soldiers had been hurt and they but lightly. All rolled themselves again in their blankets and coats and went back to sleep.<br>
The second awakening was about half way between midnight and dawn. Something cold was continually dropping on Dick's face and he awoke to find hundreds of sheeted and silent white forms lying motionless upon the deck. Snow was falling swiftly out of a dark sky, and the fleet was moving slowly. In the darkness and stillness the engines throbbed powerfully, and the night was lighted fitfully by the showers of sparks that gushed now and then from the smoke stacks.<br>
Dick thought of rising and brushing the snow from his blankets, but he was so warm inside them that he yawned once or twice and went to sleep again. When he awoke it was morning again, the snow had ceased and the men were brushing it from themselves and the decks. <br>
The young soldiers, as they ate breakfast, spoke of the rifle shots that had been fired at them the night before and, since little damage had been done, they appreciated the small spice of danger. The wildness and mystery of their situation appealed to them, too. They were like explorers, penetrating new regions.
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