From the Ranks by Capt. Charles King, U. S. A.

No writer is better than Charles King—at the point when this novel was published a captain, but eventually a general—at bringing the reader more vividly and realistically into the life of a U. S. Army soldier during the wars with the plains Indians of the American West. Because of his personal experience of those wars, he not only gets the historical details correct, but also the settings, moods, and day-to-day life, including the personal, romantic, and family life of the soldier living on those far-flung military posts along the western frontier.

And the personal lives of the wives and lovers of those soldiers, too. For therein lies the secret of Mr. King’s novels: the romances and emotional entanglements of life on a Western military base in the 19th century are the main focus of his stories, even in the midst of the various Indian wars and outbreaks which inevitably intruded upon those affairs, and which to the historian no doubt seem more important.

From the Ranks brings together three different men—a long-lost son, a man afflicted by a case of love at first sight, and an officer who ruins his life and reputation with ungentlemanly conduct—into one sweeping story about the choices we make in life and the repercussions that ensue.