Shadows of Conflict

In this third book of “Tales of the Sergeant Major,” the 18th U.S. Infantry’s senior enlisted man, Sergeant Major Thomas Barrett, stationed at Fort Hays, Kansas in 1888, continues with the struggles of training five misfit soldiers. It is a job no one asked him to do, which most considered no more than a fool’s errand, and that he, himself is unsure of his motivation. But he has persevered and his intense training has included something no other soldier has experienced: tales of those soldiers who came before them including accounts of guarding the bloody Smoky Hill Trail through Kansas to the Colorado gold fields in 1865, which is chronicled in book one “Warclouds on the High Plains,”, and the story of “Buffalo Soldiers” desperate battle with the mighty Southern Cheyenne in 1873, told in book two “Stones, Bullets and Blood.” This third book “Shadows of Conflict,” is more personal and presents an intense look at Barrett’s life and death struggles during the war. He finally comes face to face with his past, a past that was full of danger and conflict as he fought his way through the Civil War in the 1860s. A past that has haunted his dreams for nearly 30 years. Will he come to terms with his past or will his past overwhelm him?