Manassas - The Civil War Battle Series Vol. 1

Manassas, by James Reasoner, is the first novel in The Civil War Battles series based on the Brannon family of Culpeper County, Virginia. This initial volume describes the mood in the South prior to the outbreak of hostilities and follows one of the Brannon sons into the army and onto the scene of the first major battle of the war.

As the Civil War sweeps across the country, it finds the most wayfaring member of the Brannon family of Culpeper County, Virginia, working as a wharf rat at the Mississippi River port of New Madrid, Missouri. Caught up in a bar fight he tried to avoid, Cory Brannon is rescued by Capt. Zeke Farrell of the riverboat Missouri Zephyr. Later, when a small party of men attempts to burn the boat, Cory sounds a timely warning and finds himself the newest member of the crew. The Zephyr makes the journey from New Madrid to New Orleans in late 1861.