Beyond the Rio Gila
In 1844, seventeen-year-old Moses Cole leaves home when his pa lays him out with a number two shovel, walks from the Shenandoah farmstead to Pennsylvania and stumbles into the First Dragoons as an underage recruit. So begins the story’s geographical arc which carries the reader from Virginia to San Diego and back through the journey of Private Moses Cole. Its emotional arc includes loss, gain, and hard lessons as Moses Cole comes-of-age in the five-year interval of leaving and returning to his soul mate back home.
The novel’s historical backbone is the Army of the West and the march of the Mormon Battalion from Council Bluffs to San Diego in 1846 to 1847 during the Mexican-American War.
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All photography provided by Jared Chambers
