The Civil War collapses from illusions of chivalry into bitter reality overnight. A Welsh immigrant to the Union and a veteran of Britain's distant wars, Major Abel Jones survives the battle's slaughter only to face the riddle of a different kind of massacre.Far from the cries and smoke of combat, forty murdered slaves hang at a crossroads. There is little concern for the lost lives, but political dangers worry the leadership on both sides. The blood may be upon Northern as well as Southern hands. In a country shocked by casualty lists and unready for emancipation, only one man, a plain-speaking officer with a limp and a troubled conscience, insists on justice.Ritual murders spur merciless cavalry raids. Political chicanery conceals midnight brutalities. Guerrilla ambushes lead to an underworld of runaway slaves. Desperate men and women make a heartbreaking attempt to build a "city on a hill" in the Mississippi backwoods. And a chain of death proves as relentless as war itself. Read Less