Rifles for Watie

What would summer be without getting a chance to read a good book? In my opinion it wouldn't be a fulfilled summer without reading at least one great book so the past couple days I decided to read a book I hadn't read since before my mission. Before I could read it I had to find it. I ended up crawling all over in the attic digging through all the boxes I had packed up with all the stuff I'd accumulated over the first 19 years of my life in order to find this amazing book. Once I finally found it (in the last box left in the attic of course) I realized just how many times I had read it growing up since the number was recorded with tally marks on the inside cover of the book, 12 times before the mission. After being read that many times its not wonder that pages 184- 213 are completely free of the binding and fall out anytime you casually pick the book up. Also the cover is so worn you can barely read the back of the book to know what the story is about, lucky for me I don't need to read the synopses to know what Rifles for Watie is about!

Anyways, after having read a book that many times you'd think it would be hard to get 'into' the story but the 13th time around was the best yet. I stayed up really late last night (early this morning) to finish the book because I didn't want to put it down and sleep! Maybe I'm just crazy but I think anyone who enjoys historical fiction would be the same way with this book.

Rifles for Watie and I met when I was in the 5th grade and my teacher, Mr Bayles, read it to our class. For anyone interested in a pretty easy but very enjoyable story of a young boy who joins the Kansas Volunteers of the Union Army at the start of the Civil war and ends up being and infantryman, a Cavalry man and eventual a Union scout/spy and in the process of being out on scout for the Union is enlisted into the Confederate Army and serves under Colonel Stand Watie in his Cherokee Mounted Rifles for 18 months before making a harrowing 125 mile escape back to Union lines with the whole confederate army after him, I highly encourage you to look into Rifles for Watie. Oh and did I mention that I have a huge crush on Miss Lucy Washbourne? You'll have to read the book to understand but just remember, I already spoke for her!