Evelyn, I too have my copy. I first read this many years ago, along with a series by Manley Wade Welman about a Southern lad, Weldon...trying to remember now...Buckner? He rode with Mosby. These were very interesting books and I hungered for more than there were in the series.

The Keith book was sort of like that, except the hero, Jeff Bussey, was a Unionist kid who falls in love with a young rebel beauty name of Lucy Washbourne. I always thought that was special since that's an old maternal family name. But all of them were New England Yankees as far as I know.

Researched in the 1940s, Keith interviewed something like 20 or more veterans of Pea Ridge, all members of the 1st and 2nd Cherokee Mounted Rifles CSA, which gave the story a feeling of supreme authenticity.

Really loved that story, and even commented on it a couple of years ago on this board. I think. For anybody who wants a great read, that would be it. The fact that it was a Newberry Medal winner in the late 1950s shouldn't hold anyone back on account of it was written as a young person's book. Today, those young readers would be considered college level.

If you want to check it out, it was published by Thomas Y. Crowell Co., NY, 1957. Keith, an Okla. newspaper man, wrote about Will Rogers, sports and other interesting topics.

Pax,

Mike