Prairie Dog Town — Karl A. Bacon

Prairie Dog Town continues the Civil War saga of Stanley Mitchell, a Union soldier who was left for dead at Shiloh and nursed back to health by a charitable Southern woman. It's a story of love, hate, vengeance, justice, sacrifice, survival, duty, honor, faith, and hope. LaVache, a brutal slave trader, has torn Stanley away from everyone he ever loved and taken him in chains to Vicksburg, Mississippi, where he is pressed into service on a Confederate riverboat. Neither slave nor free, neither Yankee nor Rebel, Stanley finds himself alone, like a man without family or country. His only solace is the occasional letters he exchanges with his beloved Anna, who is hundreds of miles away in Tennessee. Disaster strikes the riverboat and Stanley is freed. After spending several weeks at war-ravaged Hurricane Plantation, he returns to Vicksburg, hoping to travel northward, but the Federal army is closing in. Stanley finds lodging with a prominent citizen, Judge Adair, and his beautiful daughter-in-law, Olivia, a recent war widow. But LaVache has also taken up residence in the city. His sole purpose is to win the heart of the fair Olivia, and he will use any means to do it. The city is besieged. Stanley is forced to live with Olivia and her children in an earthen cave, under constant Federal bombardment. Food supplies run short. His work at a military hospital is both grueling and gruesome, causing Stanley to question his earlier conviction. Is he truly done with the war? Is the war done with him? Will he ever find his way home to Anna? Prairie Dog Town is the second novel of the Shiloh Trilogy. The first, Until Shiloh Comes, has been awarded several honors, including Winner of the National Indie Excellence Award for Historical Fiction and the Independent Publisher Bronze Medal for Best Adult Fiction E-Book.