Purchase
Lyons Press
September 2012
On Sale: September 18, 2012
432 pages
ISBN: 0762780290
EAN: 9780762780297
Kindle: B0091VFPWM
Hardcover / e-Book
Add to Wish List
Non-Fiction History
As the United States prosecuted a bloody campaign to pacify
its newly won Philippines territory at the turn of the
nineteenth century, a secret mission of mercy went terribly
wrong. The result was a prisoner-of-war crisis, the likes of
which our nation had never encountered before. The epic
struggle for survival that followed was not only a test of
the human will to live, but a crucible for heroes. And yet,
what was touted as a heroic rescue operation extended a war
by almost two years and cost the lives of thousands.
In April 1899, Admiral George Dewey dispatched the USS
Yorktown to liberate a detachment of Spanish soldiers under
siege by Filipino rebels. To reconnoiter enemy defenses, one
of the Yorktown’s armed cutters—manned by a crew of fifteen
sailors—was sent toward shore. And then it happened. Defying
orders, Lieutenant James C. Gillmore Jr. recklessly pushed
upriver into heavy jungle—and headlong into an ambush that
would kill four of his men. The survivors were dragged
across mountains and through dense jungle from one pestilent
prison to the next along what Gillmore called “a veritable
Devil’s Causeway.” Their captivity and the torturous expedition sent to recover
them, recalled today as one of the greatest marches in US
Army history, features a tightly hewn cast of
characters—including a frail yet determined teenaged sailor
and his hardened seafaring mates; battle-tested veterans of
the Civil War and the Indian Wars; and a fiery revolutionary
commander who gave orders to bury wounded Americans alive. A
sweeping military epic drawing on international primary
sources, The Devil’s Causeway tells their extraordinary
story in its entirety for the first time.
Comments
No comments posted.
Registered users may leave comments.
Log in or register now!
| 
© 2003-2024 off-the-edge.net
all rights reserved Privacy Policy