Across the River: 4 (The Books of Furnass)

In the summer of 1863 Judson Walker a captain of Morgans Raiders and Jonathan Reid a young engineer come to Furnass to appropriate two of Colin Lyles steam-powered road engines. The purpose is to outfit the engines with iron plate and the newly developed Gatlin Guns and with Morgan deliver the war engines to General Lees army in Central Pennsylvania. Amid Walkers growing involvement with Lyles wife Libby deserting soldiers and Reids own agenda Walker learns Morgan isnt coming. The novel reaches its climax with Lyle trying to sabotage the war engines. Walker must decide between Libby and duty toward his men the war and individual human values.The Books of Furnass tell the story of a fictitious mill town ten miles from Pittsburgh in southwestern Pennsylvania. At the heart of the series is the Furnass Towers Trilogy about the efforts of men and women to maintain their lives and the life of the town in the face of the mill closings. In addition to contemporary life the series chronicles the town when it was just an outpost after the French and Indian War...the town as it grew around an iron furnace in the wilderness...as it became an industrial center from the time of the American Civil War to the Vietnam War. And the series tells the story of the Lyle family who were involved with the town from its founding to its struggles to survive after the mills went away.