Our First Civil War

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Two then-unrelated young Pennsylvanians, John Noel and Daan Kiel, come of age during the years leading up to the Civil War. Ancestors of the two men having left France and Holland, respectively, because of the turmoil of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars come to America as strident pacifists. Initially held back by this heritage, the two ultimately enlist in the Union Army. After being wounded at Drewry's Bluff, John is captured at Cold Harbor. He escapes, but after an eventful odyssey through war-torn Virginia, he is recaptured and imprisoned at Castle Thunder in Richmond. There he meets Daan who had been captured by Mosby's Raiders. The two bond and escape the prison just as the Confederate capital is beginning to fall. John and Daan trek southward to rejoin the Union Army. Both are there, in uniform, as Lee surrenders at Appomattox. After the war the two veterans ponder issues unsettled by the war and consider the likelihood of other Civil Wars. This engaging story was inspired by the lives of two actual Civil War soldiers. Within an uncommonly deep and rich historical framework, the novel explores the anxieties of wartime, life's tough choices and war's lasting scars.