COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

      Copyright © 2013 by Sally Walker Brinkmann

      Published by Wildside Press LLC

      www.wildsidebooks.com

      DEDICATION

      To Victor J. Banis, my mentor

      ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

      I gratefully acknowledge the invaluable advice and guidance of Rob Reginald, my editor at Borgo Press. Many others commented on various drafts of the manuscript. I would like to thank in particular: Abbie Brown, Sandy Campbell, Bea Jakubowsky, Karen Randlev, Kate Shunney, Constance Dowrick (my daughter), and Lindsay Unger (my granddaughter); and the Martinsburg Writers’ Group and the Morgan County Writers’ Group. I am also grateful to Mauricio Burgos, Stephanie Burgos, and Michael Klingerman for their help in the use of the Spanish language and Mexican slang.

      PROLOGUE

      Near Unger, Virginia on January 2nd, 1862

      Corporal Jamison’s makeshift grave was already covered with a layer of snow by the time Dan Fields laid on the last rock. Dan made the sign of the cross, picked up his rifle and pack, and headed into the storm. Jamison had been his best friend. He was one of the many soldiers Jackson’s army had lost already, and not a shot had been fired. Fleetingly, Dan considered hightailing it for home. Born and raised on a rocky hill farm not five miles to the west, this was his country. He’d traveled this road many times taking produce down to Winchester.

      But General Jackson was headed for Bath and he had to rejoin the army.