|
The rumor comes in a desperate whisper running up the great
river that drains the nation -- Napoleon Bonaparte intends
to take back from Spain not just New Orleans but the entire
Louisiana Territory stretching from the Gulf to British Canada,
from the Mississippi to the Rockies. If he succeeds the new
American democracy will be stymied and so will the way west
toward the dream of a continental nation. The year is 1801,
and EAGLE'S CRY, published third in The American Story series,
chronologically the first, plunges the reader into the battle
that results in the Louisiana Purchase.
This is a novel, built around scenes, using the figures
of history as characters, taking you inside their hearts and
dreams, fears and hopes, courage and steady hands as they
stand against huge odds for the heart of a continent and the
soul of democracy. The novel opens focused on the last forty-eight
hours of George Washington's life as the dying president reviews
the nation he has built.
It leaps ahead to 1800 as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison
as Secretary of State swing the nation in a new direction
-- away from incipient aristocracy and toward the modern common
man democracy we know today, each vote equal to the next,
Thomas Jefferson's "Second Revolution."
But immediately the dashing and desperate Aaron Burr tries
to steal the presidency before Jefferson can even take office.
No sooner has the country been wrested back from Burr than
Madison learns that Napoleon plans a French empire on the
Mississippi. Carried out, this will strangle the American
West, end continental dreams and surely shatter the new democracy.
Step by step in intricate and dangerous maneuvers, he makes
the most powerful man in the world see that if he takes Louisiana
he enters into a war that he cannot win -- the U.S. will ally
with the Royal Navy even if to do so is to return America
to the British yoke the Revolution had thrown off.
So EAGLE'S CRY gives
us the splendid story of common man democracy fixed and the
road to a continental nation opened at last. Young Meriwether
Lewis, clerk to President Jefferson and army captain, is ready
to lead his great expedition that further anchors the trend
toward continentalism.
Our main characters, interacting with a host of figures
like John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Robert Livingston and
Napoleon:
James Madison, Secretary of State, and the center of the
novel.
Dolley Madison through whom much of the story is told, able,
intelligent, deeply in love with her husband. Together the
Madisons make a great love story.
Meriwether Lewis, tough-minded and hard-handed but flummoxed
by women, who pushes his expedition through.
Thomas Jefferson, brilliant, enigmatic, puzzling but always
there when the chips are down.
Aaron Burr, clever, able, a devil with women but sly and
self-serving and finally a deadly enemy.
Andrew Jackson as fierce and violent youth, aiming for war
if Napoleon presses forward on the Mississippi.
Samuel Clark, fictional, freed slave whose story gives us
the horror and reality of slavery.
Danny Mobry, fictional, a beautiful young widow with special
connections in New Orleans whose love life is caught in national
crisis.
Action, conflict, maneuver, tension, fear, courage, gallantry
and warm-hearted love all ring loud and true in the emotions
and adventures and sharp dialogue of these carefully drawn
characters. Historical and fictional figures alike, we see
them limned as human beings caught in the hopes, dreams, fears,
ambitions, sorrows, triumphs that mark every human's life.
We see them as history come alive through vibrant people whose
feelings match our own as they plunge forward in great events.
Together they bring the young nation through its dark early
days of peril into a sunny future.
Click here to find
out how to puchase this book.
Click here for an exciting excerpt
from Eagle's Cry
|
