Western Wars

1914. A boy enrols in the army, hoping to find peace in the great adventure of war. Handed a rifle, he discovers the grim reality: grey days distinguished only by the ever-present spectre of death. In the midst of horror, he finds close friendships, love and companionship. In an unexpected act of courage, he changes the course of history, bringing German and Brits to put down their weapons for a celebration of peace.

Laura Elliston and William Kindle are on the run - from the army and from every miscreant in the West eager to claim the $500 bounty for Laura's capture as their own. But the danger isn't just from those pursuing them. Laura and Kindle both have demons of their own and pasts that won't stay dead. Exhausted, scared, scarred, and surrounded by enemies, neither realizes the greatest danger is yet to come.

At the dawn of the 19th century, the great powers of Western Europe treated the United States like a disobedient child. America's complaints were ignored, until President James Madison declared a second war on Great Britain. British forces would descend on the United States, but America rallied and survived. With stunning detail on land and naval battles, the role Native Americans played in the hostilities, and the larger backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars, this is the story of the turning points of this strange conflict, which inspired Francis Scott Key to write "The Star-Spangled Banner".

In Dying to Learn, Michael Hunzeker develops a novel theory to explain how wartime militaries learn. He focuses on the Western Front, which witnessed three great-power armies struggle to cope with deadlock throughout the First World War. Through careful study of the British, French, and German experiences, the book provides a model that shows how a resolute focus on analysis, command, and training can help prepare modern militaries for adapting amidst high-intensity warfare in an age of revolutionary technological change.

The bloody barbarism of the Civil War scarred Morgan’s soul as well as his body. He sent so many soldiers to Hell and almost joined them when he was struck by a bullet from the sniper known as the Arkansas Traveler. The only man to ever survive the notorious Rebel’s sharpshooting skills, Morgan finds himself back in the assassin’s sights. But the ex-Confederate isn’t the only one gunning for Morgan.

For 12 years he rode as an officer of the United States Army. For one year he served as an apprentice warrior of the Apaches. Torn between two loyalties, Nathanial Barrington prays he has found the peace he sought for so long. By the side of Clarissa, his star-crossed mate, he marks his stake as a rancher on land no one else dares claim, deep in Apache territory. But Barrington’s respite is short-lived. For the Apache nation is caught between the pincers of the bluecoats from the north and the Mexicans from the south.

The year 1858 dawns bloodred in the untamed Southwest, even as in the East the country moves towards civil war. Leadership of the most warlike Apache tribe has passed to the great warrior chief Cochise, who burns to avenge the poisoning of an Indian child. Meanwhile, the U.S. Army is out to end Apache power with terror instead of treaties.

It is 1857. Under President James Buchanan, the battle lines for America’s coming conflagration are being violently drawn. As the burning questions of slavery scorches the nation, another savage war takes shape in the West. In the far-off New Mexico territory, blue-coated soldiers hurl a challenge against the implacable Mimbreno Apaches: surrender or die. And in the Indians’ ranks stands the brave called Sunny Bear - the powerful, blond-haired warrior and medicine man.

The story of Texas Ranger Zack Branson continues when he is reassigned to El Paso, Texas. He collaborates with his cousin, US Marshal Cal Branson, to try to control the rustling and banditry on the border between the US and Mexico. Zack and Cal chase a group of Mexican bandits across the Rio Grande River, confront them in a cantina at a small pueblo, and get involved in a shootout. While Cal is honeymooning, Zack and El Paso County Sheriff White go after cattle rustlers that were busted out of jail. Who will walk away and who will die is uncertain until the last shot is fired.

Michael Allen had watched his father charm his way in and out of so many different kinds of trouble, he’d all but stopped counting. Unctuous, yet honorable, Buford Allen embodied the spirit and passions of the West. But this time something was wrong. Why was his father so set on buying a ranch in Warhorse, Montana, of all places? And what was in the tattered suitcase hidden under the hotel bed?

Eight-year-old Benjamin Franklin “B .F.” Windes decides to abandon home and trail his father’s path. Thus begins a trip of constant struggle with disease, severe weather, hardship, Indian attack, and death on his lone journey across much of what is now the United States. B. F. spends the next 11 years in gold rush towns in California - first as a barber, then as a physician’s assistant - before departing for the Caribbean at age 19, where he becomes a blockade runner during the American Civil War.

Betty Zane is the story of the first settlers in the Ohio Valley, and their fight for survival during the Revolutionary war. The British have organized and incited the various eastern tribes to attack American 'Rebels' in this lesser known theater of the war.

Did you know George Armstrong Custer survived the Battle of the Little Big Horn and became a gunslinging knight - errant in the West - aided by a troupe of Chinese acrobats, cancan-dancing girls, a rebel-flag eye-patch-wearing Southern gambler, and a multilingual Crow Indian scout? H. W. Crocker's rollicking, witty, adventurous new novel Armstrong is an alternative history like you've never before heard.

Even at 17 years old, Carson Ryan knows enough about cow herding to realize the crew he's with is about the worst ever. They're taking the long way around to the Montana prairies, and they're seriously undermanned. While rounding up strays, Ryan hears gunshots ring across the range. Suspecting an Indian attack, he gallops straight into a US Army raid instead. The outfit he's with is nothing but a bunch of murdering cattle rustlers, and the law thinks he's one of them. Tied up, thrown in jail, and tried by a court that's more interested in hanging a man than learning the truth, Carson has only two options: escape or die trying.

The abolitionist legacies of Orville Brown and his son, Spencer, live on in this historic and daring 19th-century account. Journeying apart from each other, but with similar passion, Orville and Spencer's stories span virtually every major abolitionist event: from the battles of Bleeding Kansas and the establishment of the free-soil movement to the river wars of Memphis, Vicksburg, and Shiloh. Listeners will follow Orville west as he strikes out for Kansas Territory to help ensure its entry as a free state.

Amid the aftermath of the Civil War, Georgie O'Rourke, the last surviving member of her family, decides her only choice is to leave her beloved state of Tennessee by answering a mail-order bride advertisement. With only a few items of rag, like clothing, she travels the Southwest Trail by covered wagon to meet up with her groom in Texas. Captain Parker Eastman, formally of the Confederate Army, travels from his cattle ranch to the Southwest Trail to intercept a woman his mother hired as a companion. He soon finds out that Georgie traveled to Texas to become his wife.

A brutal siege. A forgotten heroine. A war-torn romance. And a historian determined to uncover the truth. Untold millions who saw Band of Brothers can finally know the whole story of what happened to American soldiers and civilians in Bastogne during that arduous Winter of 1944/45. In the television version of Band of Brothers, a passing reference is made to an African nurse assisting in an aid station in Bastogne. When military historian Martin King watched the episode, he had to know who that woman was; thus began a multi-year odyssey.

After his surrender to the Royal Navy, Napoleon became the object of massive English public interest. He would live out his last years on the island of St. Helena without ever admitting to being a prisoner. This close study of Napoleon in captivity attempts to reconstruct an authentic portrait of the fallen emperor by examining contemporary documents and records of public opinion.

There was more to the Civil War than famous, glorified generals - much more. In this well-researched historical novel, you will see how the terrible Civil War affected the folks on the home front, too. The story is Civil War fiction. This history is real. The Civil War South in 1863 is desperate and dangerous. For Joe, a 12-year-old boy suddenly alone and 600 miles from home, it's a nightmare come true. But for this rascal of a boy, it's also the adventure of a lifetime.

In Kansas and Missouri, the War Between the States started long before Fort Sumter and continued on throughout the war. Some say it is still being fought. My first book in this series, Under a Bloody Flag, deals with that early conflict. Shortly after Kansas was admitted to the Union as a free state, these two states and the nation as a whole were plunging into a declared war. Too much had happened for either side to see a peaceful way to solve sectional differences.