Cover art by Peter Fiore.
A Forge Book
Hardcover August 2003
ISBN 0-765-30344-2
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A Forge Book
Paperback September 2009
ISBN 978-0765342553
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"Whatever place my name is destined to occupy in the golden book of the Republic I expect to engrave it there with the point of my sword."
--Richard Taylor, Major-General, C.S. Army
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RED RIVER Catalog copy:
"Nagle vividly depicts its hardships and dangers. The Civil War history is
accurate and colorful..." —Publishers Weekly
The port city of Galveston has been reclaimed by the Confederacy, and Jamie Russell's unit, the Valverde Battery, is sent to aid General Richard Taylor's army in defending Louisiana. While cotton and vital supplies move between Texas and the east on the Red River, the Federal navy attempts to tighten its stranglehold on the Confederacy by gaining control of this vital waterway that feeds into the Mississippi River.
Union General Nathaniel Banks has set his sights on the Red River, and sends an army from Federal-held New Orleans to attack General Taylor's forces along the Bayou Teche. Pushed back by overwhelming numbers, Jamie and the Confederate army retreat to the Red. There is no doubt that Banks will follow them, but first Jamie must cope with the loss of friends in the recent fighting, and the unexpected reappearance in his life of the beautiful, rich cotton smuggler, Mrs. Hawkland.
As the Federal army and navy begin to move up the Red River, Jamie and his compatriots try everything in their power to stop their inexorable advance. From blocking the river with a sunken luxury steamboat to digging canals to lower the water level, Confederate ingenuity plagues the Federals at every turn, but will it be enough to stop the large and powerful Federal forces from seizing control of the last Confederate lifeline? Jamie knows he is moving toward what may be the final confrontation for Taylor's army and the Valverde Battery.
RED RIVER Hardcover dust jacket text :
A Creole belle, mistress of a thousand slaves in the heart of Louisiana . . .
A Texan Confederate, grieving for lost friends and family as he battles the Yankee army . . .
A Navy carpenter who dreams of piloting a Federal gunboat . . .
Their lives entwine at Belle View Plantation, where the Red River flows into the Mississippi and the Civil War becomes a maelstrom.
P.G. Nagle, author of "some of the best fiction written about Texas history, " [Edward T. Cotham, Jr., author of Battle on the Bay: The Civil War Struggle
for Galveston], writes with power and poignancy of a strategically important, bloody campaign little chronicled but of great importance to both North and.
South. The Confederate victory at Galveston harbor at the dawning of 1863 is merely a prelude to bitter contest for control of the Mississippi and Red Rivers, which together form the Confederacy's most vital lifeline of supply and trade.
For the South, the Big Muddy and the Red River afford the only viable corridor for moving cotton they must trade for munitions, supplies, and much-needed funds from European allies. The Union seeks to cut off such external support to the South, and to hasten the end of a war that has already claimed tens of thousands of lives on both sides and which threatens to further debilitate a divided nation.
The Federal Navy sends a fleet of gunboats up the Red River in a daring attempt to sieze control of the waterway, while on land Sibley's Brigade of Texans join Confederate General Richard Taylor's defense of Louisiana's rich plantation country. Nagle tells the story of the struggle for dominance among the bayous and rivers of the Mississippi in an authoritative narrative both unflinching yet compassionate, adding yet another memorable chapter to the chronicle of the Civil War fought in the Far West.
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