Synopsis "The Gold Soldier: Book Three"
Petr Valory cannot recover from the gold fever madness of the California Gold Rush. Because of gold, his father murdered, his mother and sister both disappeared, Petr joins forces with a suicidal Army captain, Stephen Vincent, and together they determine to die gloriously in battle. The American Civil War of 1862-1863 affords ample opportunity for heroic death. A bit of gold allows them to join a regiment already fighting in the field, the 49th Ohio. Together they fight at Stones River, Chickamauga, and Missionary Ridge where Stephen is killed and Petr achieves immortality carrying the banner of the 49th Ohio first to the top of Missionary Ridge. Instead of death he becomes an unwilling hero. Wounded, he is sent to Washington City where he is to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor from President Lincoln. On the way, he searches the backwaters of the Delaware River and finds his real mother, Tamaris, the Pipe Woman, and finally that mystery of his life is solved. In Washington, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton wants to use him as a poster boy to increase enlistments. Lincoln promises Peter, after the war is over, he will personally go west and resolve the Indian problem. Petr decides to return home to California to create a monument of the truth about what really happened to the Valory family. There he will encounter the beautiful and mysterious Elysia Starrett who reminds him of his sister, Annabel--if she had lived.
