Rich Man's War Poor Man's Fight

 Author's Summary

Rich Man's War - Poor Man's Fight, is the story of two Scot - Irish families who left Ireland for the promise of a better life in America. While accurately set in time and place, this is not a battle by battle account of Civil War history. It is the story of a determined people who were pressed into a war by a country who spurned their kind and used them as pawns so their wealthy sons could be kept out of harm's way. One family, a young man who hoped to use his family trade as a sword smith entered through the port of New York in 1862. New York was in the midst of the conscription riots as Abraham Lincoln's cabinet desperately fought to fill the ranks of an Army to hold the Union together. A second family left Dublin for New Orleans. They arrived as organizers tried to convince young Irish men that the South's fight for independence from the federal government is a struggle that the Irish should understand. Fate brings the young men together on opposing sides of a Virginia battlefield where they collapse in exhaustion and come to realize the irony of their meeting and the cruel circumstances that brought them together as enemies.

MWSA Review

Daniel Thompson's novel, Rich Man's War - Poor Man's Fight, focuses on a different aspect of the Civil War era -- the role of the Irish immigrant. William Brannan arrives in New York in 1862. Two families come to the United States chasing private dreams only to find the country caught up in an ugly national argument. 

Original, unique, and well-delivered, this author's talent is only beginning to emerge. I look forward to a large body of work from him. 

Reviewed by: Joyce Faulkner (2012)