Point Lookout, Maryland
January, 1865

Bayonet fixed, a grim Union soldier charged Tom Mahon as he tried to

help a wounded comrade on a Virginia battlefield. Trapped, Tom

sqeezed his eyes shut and braced himself to die. Seconds later when

nothing happened , Tom woke. He sighed with relief finding himself

back in his tent at Point Lookout Prison Camp. He had been part of a

group of captured Confederate soldiers transported there the day

before.

Tom stood and hugged the remnants of his threadbare Confederate

uniform to his body in a desperate attempt to keep warm. In all his

nineteen years, he'd never lived anywhere as miserable. Texas was

never like this.