"It is 1865. Jesse Wilder has survived the horrors of Shiloh, the hell of a Yankee prison camp, and the shame of volunteering for the Union army of the West - the only way to escape certain death in the camp. Now the war is over and he has come home to Tennessee. But the word of his "treachery" has preceded him and Jesse finds himself shunned by his neighbors, and worse, disinherited by his late father. Like so many disillusioned survivors of the old Confederacy, Jesse drifts west. In El Paso he meets Cullen Floyd, a Mississippian who runs weapons across the border to the Juáristas in Mexico. Cullen needs another gun against the marauding Apaches and murderous bandidos; Jesse needs a job. In Mexico, they meet Father Alberto Garza, a defrocked priest leading a poorly armed band of peasants against the trained mercenaries of the Emperor Maximilian. Inspired by the justice of the Juáristas' cause, Jesse and Cullen agree to train Father Garza's ragged troops. Bitter Trumpet is the stirring tale of a man scarred by the horrors of war who finds himself drawn into yet another desperate conflict. It is a story of adventure, courage, and friendship, set in a time when dramatic changes were altering the destiny of Mexico and the United States"--