Voy Ernst Althaus Dark Blue Down South

Annotation

Dark Blue Down South is a historical novel about the Germans of the Central Texas Hill Country and other Texans who chose to fight for the North in the Civil War. The Texas Germans organized several companies of infantry and started for the Mexican border expecting to sail from Mexico to the North to join a Northern Army. They were intercepted by a Texas Cavalry unit near the Rio Grande River where a fight occurred. A small number of Germans survived the battle, and the execution of prisoners that followed the battle, and crossed into Mexico. These men managed to get to New Orleans, which had just fallen to the North, and joined the United States First Texas Cavalry which was being created from Texans who had chosen to fight for the North. This novel places two young men in this situation, has them hide from the Confederate conscription, flee to the Mexican border with the German infantry, make the voyage to New Orleans, join the U.S. First Texas Cavalry and then fight with that Northern unit for the remaining three years of the Civil War