Blessed Are the Peacemakers: Civil War in the Ozarks

Blessed Are the Peacemakers: Civil War in the Ozarks by Smith, Joe W.. paperback edition. ISBN: 9780971202726.

From a distance, fieldstone chimneys standing above the burned cabins look like tombstones. And the remote hills and hollows of the beautiful Ozark Mountains conceal murder and mayhem. Abandoned for a time by both armies after the battle of Pea Ridge, the beleaguered land is swept clean by various bands of bushwhackers and guerrillas. Two men struggle to survive: one young, one old. One crippled physically, the other emotionally. The first is white, a veteran of Civil War combat; the other is Indian, left behind on the Trail of Tears. One has lost two friends, and betrayed another into slavery. The other knows betrayal all too well. A beautiful young widow and her son, both wounded in their own way, are marked for death and stalked by an enemy who bears the name of the first murderer, Cain. Two men, both evil, band together with others of their kind like a bunch of outcast dogs. One feels only hatred, the other feels nothing at all. The state is set for adventure, revenge and romance in a land ravaged by war.