The Fifth Skull: A Historical Novel of the Civil War and the American West

A new book by Civil War author and historian Terrell T. Garren is a compelling story of the Civil War, life as a prisoner of war, and one of the most bizarre of America's Indian wars. Garren, author of the regional best-seller, The Secret of War: A Dramatic History of Civil War Crime in Western North Carolina, and Moutain Myth: Unionism in Western North Carolina, "holds no punches" as he exposes abusive and barbaric acts committed by U.S. Army officers. He says, "This is a story that has long needed to be told." The story follows the lives of two seventeen-year-olds conscripted by Confederate authorities in the last year of the Civil War. The two are sent to Camp Vance in Morganton, North Carolina, as members of the Ninth Battalion, Confederate Junior Reserves. They and the other boys are without weapons or training when the camp is raided by Union soldiers. The two boys are captured and taken to the horrific Union prison at Camp Douglas in Chicago, Illinois. They endure the hardships of prison life until they are at the breaking point. Eventually they join the Union army's Galvanized Regiments to save themselves, and they end up on the western frontier where fate takes them to California. After serving on the plains and joining the regular army the two are assigned to duty as scouts during the Modoc War in northern California and southern Oregon. Always, they find themselves fighting for their very survival.