Synopsis
William Watson lives in a world in which the American Revolution failed. Thirty years later, North America is split into British, French, Spanish, and Russian colonies. Now, William is dishonored. Unmasked as an embezzler, nearly penniless and without a job, he sees no alternative but to join the British Army. He enlists in the King’s Own Virginians, the regiment of American riflemen formed to eject the French from New Orleans and St. Louis. Before they can fight the French, the Virginians must cross a thousand miles of roadless wilderness. The Virginians expel the French from North America, but William’s adventures and misadventures have only begun. He survives the war, but battle is only one of the hardships he faces. His personal account of the day-to-day travail of British Army life, and the camaraderie that made it bearable, is the heart of his story. He is a survivor, and ultimately his fortitude pays off.
About the Author
Lenny learned about the Revolutionary War in elementary school. He was taught that, while difficult, an American victory over the British was inevitable. It took a visit to Washington's Crossing State Park, Pennsylvania, in the early 1980s, to learn how desperate the American cause was at the end of 1776 and how close the revolution was to collapsing. This raised an obvious question: what if Americans had lost? He conceived of telling that story as the autobiography of an old man named William Watson who had lived through the failed revolution and its aftermath as a young boy. His idea lay dormant for over two decades until he retired in 2008 and had time to develop William Watson's story. He enrolled in the Great Smokies Writing Program (GSWP) where he discovered that before he could interest readers in his story, he had to learn how to write fiction - a very different skill from writing the hundreds of technical reports he'd authored during his career. With the help of GSWP and his fellow authors in the Appalachian Roundtable, he learned enough to write this book. Lenny earned a PhD in chemical engineering from Purdue University in 1969, then pursued a forty-year industrial career that focused on environmental issues, most notably climate change. He was an author on the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Third and Fourth Assessment Reports, and was recognized as contributing to that organization's winning half the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize - Al Gore won the other half. Lenny and his wife Danny (Danielle) have lived in Asheville, North Carolina, since 2001. They have hiked the full length of the Appalachian Trail, most of the high mountains east of the Mississippi, and trails in Australia, Canada, Europe, and New Zealand. Lenny was President of Carolina Mountain Club, the oldest and largest hiking and trail-maintaining club in western North Carolina. He also held a variety of volunteer leadership positions in the Appalachian Trail Conservancy. Lenny passed away in 2016 after a courageous battle with cancer.
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