t is the spring of 1861 and the serenity of Smith County, Mississippi has been shattered by Abraham Lincoln's declaration of war on the South. Young and old are taking up arms and marching off to war. But not ten year-old Frank Russell. Although he is eager to enlist in the Confederate army, he is not allowed. He is too young, too skinny, too weak. After all he's just "Shanks," the baby of the Russell family.
War has a way of taking things away from a person, mercilessly. And this war takes from Frank a mighty sum. It's nabbed his Pa and older brother. It has robbed Frank of a simpler way of life, food, his boyhood. And gone are his idealistic dreams of heroic battles and hard fought victories. Now all that replaces those images are questions:
War has a way of taking things away from a person, mercilessly. And this war takes from Frank a mighty sum. It's nabbed his Pa and older brother. It has robbed Frank of a simpler way of life, food, his boyhood. And gone are his idealistic dreams of heroic battles and hard fought victories. Now all that replaces those images are questions: