Road to Vicksburg

This is the fourth book in Michael Ruffini's Civil War series. It's late May of 1863 and the Confederacy is still assessing Robert E. Lee's great victory over the Army of the Potomac during the battle of Chancellorsville. While Lee is being hailed as a military genius, the South mourns the loss of Stonewall Jackson along with some thirteen thousand casualties that the South cannot easily replace. In the West, General Grant crossed the Mississippi, burned the town of Jackson and the...
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This is the fourth book in Michael Ruffini's Civil War series. It's late May of 1863 and the Confederacy is still assessing Robert E. Lee's great victory over the Army of the Potomac during the battle of Chancellorsville. While Lee is being hailed as a military genius, the South mourns the loss of Stonewall Jackson along with some thirteen thousand casualties that the South cannot easily replace. In the West, General Grant crossed the Mississippi, burned the town of Jackson and the railroad junction there, and laid siege to the town of Vicksburg. General Joseph E. Johnson is put in command of the Western army and called for troops from all over the South to build an army to stop Grant and raise the siege of Vicksburg, but the Confederate Government has few troops to send. Captain Rufus Randall, Confederate States Army commands a company that includes ten sharpshooters armed with the long-range Whitworth rifle. He is sent west to help break the siege by suppressing artillery fire using the long-range rifles. Along with a company of military engineers, they travel by train to the point where the western line is broken at Corinth, Mississippi. There they are discovered and attacked by Federal troops. Facing superior numbers, Randall saves what he can and heads overland to Jackson. He finds he is not welcome there and is arrested, caught up in the political machinations between Johnson's staff and the War Department. He is rescued by Confederate spy and war profiteer, Lilly Raintree, and receives orders to assist her in smuggling needed medical supplies arriving by boat along the Mississippi. He succeeds in getting the supplies but must again face superior Federal numbers to get them back to Richmond.