It is the autumn of 1864 and the Confederate raider Palmetto is in Far Eastern waters, where an encounter with Malay pirates and an attack by hostile islanders have left her seriously undermanned.
Thomas Grover, Palmetto’s captain, must continue to elude the US warships hunting for his ship, while somehow finding a way of recruiting replacements for his crew. Failure to accomplish this will compel him to undertake a hazardous, return voyage to the American coast, where the overwhelming strength of the US blockading fleet awaits his beleaguered vessel.
It is May of 1863 and the Civil War in North America has entered its third year. Facing a range of enemy threats, southern commander General Robert E. Lee proposes an invasion of the northern states to supply his army, relieve pressure on other imperilled fronts and to seek decisive victory on enemy territory that could end the war. Irish immigrant Daniel Ryan serves with his comrades of a Georgian regiment as the campaign unfolds, with Lee's army manoeuvring northwards through Virginia and across the Potomac River into Maryland and Pennsylvania, moving towards a fateful encounter with the Union army around the market town of Gettysburg.
Martin Hicks lives in Fraserburgh in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. He began writing after a career in education and 'Mirage of Victory' is his sixth book, based on the experiences of Daniel Ryan in the American Civil War of 1861-65.
Other novels by the same author:
A Gathering of Soldiers
Hard Passage North
The Rappahannock Line
A Season for Killing
A Deepening Twilight
A Gathering of Soldiers relates the story of Daniel Ryan, an Irish immigrant who has begun a new life in Georgia just as the events leading up to the momentous civil war in America have begun to unfold. The book describes his experiences upon enlisting with a group of his peers, in a north Georgia militia company, following Abraham Lincoln's first summons for troops to invade the southern states.
The novel follows the progress of Ryan, and his volunteer comrades as they evolve into soldiers, from their first posting on garrison duty on the Savannah River estuary, before journeying to Virginia to take part in the manoeuvring and the bloody engagements of the peninsular campaign in the summer of 1862, all of which changes the lives and outlooks of the surviving boys forever.
Bond of Blood tells the story of two Irish brothers, each of whom makes the life-changing journey to the new world as the second half of the 19th century draws on. Thomas and Michael Casey are linked by blood, but find themselves on opposite sides of the US Civil War conflict.
Martin Hicks lives in Fraserburgh, Scotland and began writing after a career in education. He has published a series of US Civil War books, and 'Bond of Blood' is his eighth title.
By the same author:
A Gathering of Soldiers
Hard Passage North
The Rappahannock Line
Mirage of Victory
The Bitterest Enemy
A Season for Killing
A Deepening Twilight
It is August 1863 and the Confederate Navy Cruiser Palmetto escapes from Charleston harbour to resume her career as a raider, hunting the shipping of the United States. The succeeding months see her range the Atlantic Ocean before facing a wild passage of Cape Horn, as her Captain Thomas Grover steers his ship for the Orient, seeking ever more victims in his mission to cripple the overseas commerce of the enemy.
Martin Hicks lives in Fraserburgh in Aberdeenshire Scotland and began writing after a career in education. “An Instrument of War,” the sequel to “Palmetto,” is his tenth book, all of them set in the war of 1861-65. He is currently working on the third and final book of the “Palmetto” series.
Bond of Blood tells the story of two Irish brothers, each of whom makes the life-changing journey to the new world as the second half of the 19th century draws on. Thomas and Michael Casey are linked by blood, but find themselves on opposite sides of the US Civil War conflict.
Martin Hicks lives in Fraserburgh, Scotland and began writing after a career in education. He has published a series of US Civil War books, and 'Bond of Blood' is his eighth title.
By the same author:
A Gathering of Soldiers
Hard Passage North
The Rappahannock Line
Mirage of Victory
The Bitterest Enemy
A Season for Killing
A Deepening Twilight
A Gathering of Soldiers relates the story of Daniel Ryan, an Irish immigrant who has begun a new life in Georgia just as the events leading up to the momentous civil war in America have begun to unfold. The book describes his experiences upon enlisting with a group of his peers, in a north Georgia militia company, following Abraham Lincoln's first summons for troops to invade the southern states. The novel follows the progress of Ryan, and his volunteer comrades as they evolve into soldiers, from their first posting on garrison duty on the Savannah River estuary, before journeying to Virginia to take part in the manoeuvring and the bloody engagements of the peninsular campaign in the summer of 1862, all of which changes the lives and outlooks of the surviving boys forever.
It is the autumn of 1864 and the Confederate raider Palmetto is in Far Eastern waters, where an encounter with Malay pirates and an attack by hostile islanders have left her seriously undermanned.
Thomas Grover, Palmetto’s captain, must continue to elude the US warships hunting for his ship, while somehow finding a way of recruiting replacements for his crew. Failure to accomplish this will compel him to undertake a hazardous, return voyage to the American coast,
HARD PASSAGE NORTH continues the story of Irish immigrant Daniel Ryan, who has left his adopted Georgia home to serve in Robert E. Lee's Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. It is the summer of 1862 and, following the campaign to save their capital city of Richmond, Lee and his men are moving north to confront the threat posed by the Union army of General John Pope. The story follows the experiences of Ryan and his Ogeechee Volunteer Rifles as the campaign of Second Manassas follows its course, leading to the first invasion of Maryland and culminating in the war's bloodiest day on the banks of Antietam Creek. Ryan and his comrades experience shortage, hardship, hunger and disease as the campaign follows its course, testing the bonds of their loyalty and friendship to their farthest limits as General Lee bids for final victory.
It is the late summer of 1863 and the third year of the war in North America. In the wake of the defeat at Gettysburg, Robert E. Lee has returned, with his Confederate army, to Virginia. But a further crisis to the west, in the Tennessee theatre of the war, compels the general to detach a part of his army, to journey west to north Georgia in order to reinforce the beleaguered southern forces there. Daniel Ryan and his comrades of The Ogeechee Volunteer Rifles are among those making this journey, which leads them to a savage battlefield at Chickamauga Creek. There follows a dismal season of endurance and hardship, testing, as never before, the courage and resolve of the men of the Company B, who are called upon face an ordeal of blood and death, worse than any they have yet encountered.
It is May of 1863 and the Civil War in North America has entered its third year. Facing a range of enemy threats, southern commander General Robert E. Lee proposes an invasion of the northern states to supply his army, relieve pressure on other imperilled fronts and to seek decisive victory on enemy territory that could end the war. Irish immigrant Daniel Ryan serves with his comrades of a Georgian regiment as the campaign unfolds, with Lee's army manoeuvring northwards through Virginia and across the Potomac River into Maryland and Pennsylvania, moving towards a fateful encounter with the Union army around the market town of Gettysburg.
It is the autumn of 1852 and the British warship Spartan, commanded by James Rutherford, continues her mission for the East India Company, to destroy a criminal consortium led by the Scorpion, a Chinese criminal named Liang Ziu, who controls an alliance of ruthless pirates, complicit local rulers and corrupt western traders. Attack is followed by counter-attack, including an attempt on Rutherford’s own life, with treachery, extending to the higher echelons of the company, an additional threat, as the hunt for the Scorpion and his allies ranges across the Far Eastern Seas.
