Even as Texas joins the union in 1845, Mexico threatens war over the disputed border, fearing further land grabs. Re-creating a forgotten war on a panoramic scale, Mike Blakely's novel features such figures as future presidents Zachary Taylor and Ulysses S. Grant, men eager to prove themselves in battle. Here too is Army laundress Sarah Bowman—later a frontier legend—and the infamous Mexican warlord, General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, who became president in his own land.