The Thirteenth Rainbow

"The Thirteenth Rainbow" is a novel set during the waning years of the American Civil War. It weaves together the stories of Daniel, an enslaved man who flees a harsh plantation hoping to take the blame off his wife Alaani who has just killed a brutal Mulatto overseer; Patrick, a young Irishman who has been shanghaied to America and later becomes an officer over part of the 5th U.S. Colored Cavalry; Iridiana, a beautiful young English doctor who, to escape the British prejudice against female doctors, travels to America to becomes almost by accident a battlefield doctor for Confederate troops led by the dashing "Gray Ghost of the Confederacy John Mosby; Uncle Coffin, an old blind man who communicates with animals who assist him as he helps runaway slaves head north; and many more characters both historical and composites. Even though fictionalized "The Thirteenth Rainbow" is meticulously researched using primary sources and actual battlefield examinations and pulls absolutely no punches in its depiction of the horrors of slavery and the brutality of a war fought with 19th Century weapons but with the medical knowledge and techniques of the 14th. In the final chapters it tells of the First Battle of Saltville (Virginia) and the next day massacre of almost 100 wounded Black soldiers and their White officers by vengeful townspeople and Confederate renegade soldiers. For all the horrors, however, it ends in a very positive and hopeful note.