The Soldiers of Fortune — Lee Davis Willoughby

In 1855, the headlines screamed: "American Agents Foment War in Central America"

Thornton McClintock and Harry Drayberry, two footloose young Tennesseans headed for California, to, found themselves in the midst of someone else's shooting war. At the center of the action in battle-torn Nicaragua was one William Walker, a dwarfish man with a giant dream. He persuaded Thornton and Harry to stay on as his lieutenants and fight for riches and glory.

Another strong persuasion was the presence of the two beautiful daughters of the French envoy, a nobleman secretly a spy for Emperor Louis Napoleon. William Walker, who many called an agent of Yankee imperialism, soon drew down the wrath of the American government--and of the most powerful plutocrat in America, Cornelius Vanderbilt, whose stake in Central America was worth more than all the gold in California. For the young Tennesseans and their enigmatic leader, there lay ahead a bizarre and stormy destiny.