Called to War: Dawn of the Mormon Battalion
by Sherman L. Fleek
Called to War is a sweeping epic historical novel of history---war, politics, religion and westward expansion of the 1840s. This book is volume 1 in a series.
It is a compelling drama of a family caught in the midst of great historical turmoil where they would face the dilemma of military service, religious obedience, individual desires of love, or family unity in the backdrop of war and the upheavals of pioneer life and all its dangers.
Called to War is where history, war, family ideals and pageantry of the West abound with the likes of frontiersman Kit Carson, explorer John C. Fremont, President James K. Polk, Senator Sam Houston, General Stephen Kearny, Mormon apostles John Taylor and Brigham Young, besides slave bounty-hunters, a steamboat wreck, pioneers, soldiers, and Indian warriors as the Barlow's experience this vast western drama.
Crossing the Iowa plains in 1846, the Barlow family, recent British converts to the Mormon faith, struggle to become pioneers while trying to maintain their class values of English landed-gentry amongst dynamics of their new life in the new world.
Eighteen-year-olds Arthur and York Barlow, identical twins outwardly but very different in mind and temperament, face the difficult choice of serving in war as the Mormons leaders require, or remain steadfast to personal values of not serving in war instilled by their handsome, well-bred English widowed mother, Victoria Barlow.
Victoria also confronts the choice to unite her family or choose love from among two suitors; one actively seeks her hand and the other, a church leader, she secretly desires. The climax is when Victoria Barlow is cast adrift in the midst of the great Mormon exodus while her sons feud and separate on their own journeys of military service.
Author Sherman L. Fleek, a retired Army lieutenant colonel, is a military historian and a published author with a MA in history and BA in English. He currently serves as the command historian of the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York.
570 pages
Published: 2010
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