Mired in the Great Depression, the United States teeters on the brink of upheaval. And as the summer of 1932 approaches, a charismatic, rail-riding hobo leads twenty thousand desperate World War I veterans across the country to the steps of the U.S. Capitol to demand payment of their service compensation.
The tragic events depicted in this sweeping historical novel are unfolded through the eyes of eight Americans, all from widely different backgrounds, who survive the fighting in France in 1918 and come together again in July of 1932 to determine the nation's fate:
-- Herbert Hoover, the beleaguered president who fed millions of starving Europeans, only to be unfairly castigated at home for his indifference to hungry Americans.
-- Douglas MacArthur, the ambitious West Point general who is convinced that the protesting veterans are the vanguard of a vast communist conspiracy to take over the nation.
-- Pelham Glassford, the creatively gifted and compassionate police chief who champions the cause of the homeless veterans, only to be sabotaged by Administration officials.
-- Walter Waters, the troubled former medic who convinces his fellow Portland veterans to ride the rails across the country to confront Hoover and Congress.
-- Floyd Gibbons, the celebrated war correspondent who becomes the Headline Hunter, the nation's most famous radio broadcaster.
-- Joe Angelo, the diminutive Italian-American veteran who saves George Patton's life in France, only to be driven off in his greatest hour of need.
-- Ozzie Taylor, a private with the Harlem Hellfighters, the legendary African-American regiment that must fight with the French because of the Army's segregation.
-- Anna Raber, a Mennonite nurse who tends to American wounded in the trenches and joins the Bonus Marchers in Washington.
This timely epic leads the reader across a memorable panorama of unforgettable scenes: From the Boxer Rebellion in China to the Plain of West Point, the persecution of Mennonite conscientious objectors to the horrors of the Marne, and the Hoovervilles of the heartland to the pitiful Anacostia encampment in the bowels of the capital. Here is the shocking but little-known story of the political intrigue and government betrayal that culminated in the only pitched conflict ever waged between two American armies under the same flag.
