The Life and Times of Moses Stephens: An American Frontier Saga

Before America was a nation, it was a battlefield.

Moses comes of age in the backcountry of the Carolinas during the American Revolution. He fights in the brutal Southern campaign and stands in the smoke at Kings Mountain, where neighbors hunt neighbors through the trees and smoke where neighbor fights neighbor and loyalty is measured in blood. There, he discovers that victory does not settle a man's conscience.

Years later, he fights again - this time in the forests of Ohio during the War of 1812, facing Shawnee warriors allied with British regulars. The republic he helped secure is still fragile, still violent, still unfinished.

But the hardest battles are not fought in uniform.

On the Missouri frontier, far from courts and capitals, law is carried out by men who claim to defend order. A rope is thrown over a beam. A decision is made. And Moses realizes that responsibility does not disappear simply because another man pulls the knot tight.

As tensions rise between Missouri and Kansas over slavery, communities divide. Scripture is quoted. Freedom is defended. Farms burn. Old soldiers take sides. The country he fought to build begins to fracture again.

This is not the story of a flawless hero.

It is the story of a man who serves his country in three defining conflicts - the Revolution in the Carolinas, the War of 1812 in Ohio, and the gathering storm along the western frontier - and who slowly comes to understand that obedience to order is not the same as justice.

Spare, restrained, and morally serious, this novel explores:

• The lingering cost of war

• The burden of frontier justice

• Faith versus the pursuit of happiness

• The personal consequences of building a nation through violence