Follow Jamey Doan an Iowa farm boy, skilled with the rifle his gunsmith father made for him. He is thrown into the maelstrom of the Civil War in the west along the Mississippi River. His enemy at times is his family, a Mississippi cousin and uncle fighting for the Confederacy. His first battle is the little known northern most battle of the Civil War Athens Missouri. He battles his way down river to Vicksburg, fighting as a sniper and skirmisher in the Western Rifles. Jamey grasps the meaning of war and fights ferociously. He becomes a man of war but is still a boy when he finds love and the mysteries of women. This author leaves his readers anxiously awaiting the sequel which will follow, starting at Vicksburg, where this volume stops, as the Union Army moves south.