The Young Sharpshooter at Antietam

Two Union sharpshooters. One foraging expedition that goes catastrophically wrong. And the bloodiest single day in American history waiting in the wings. Noel Curtis and Dennis O'Hara are young soldiers stationed at Harper's Ferry, and they're hungry in every sense. Dennis, with his irrepressible Irish humor, persuades his friend to wander away from camp in search of fresh provisions. Their expedition is full of mischief and camaraderie, a brief pocket of levity in a world gone dark with war. But when they stumble onto Confederate soldiers, the fun ends. Captured and thrust into the machinery of conflict, the two friends must find their way back to each other and to their unit before Antietam erupts around them. Tomlinson, writing in the early twentieth century, understood that war transforms boys into men with terrifying speed. This is a story about the cost of friendship under fire, the strange humor soldiers find in desperate moments, and the particular bravery required of those too young to fully understand what they're fighting for. The historical details are precise, the characters vivid, and the stakes visceral. For readers who want to understand the Civil War through the eyes of those who lived it.