The Devil's Causeway The True Story of America's First Prisoners of War in the Philippines, and the Heroic Expedition Sent to Their Rescue

Westfall, Matthew

ISBN 10: 0762780290 / ISBN 13: 9780762780297

Published by Lyons Press, 2012

About this Item

Signed by author on bookplate attached to front endpaper. First edition, first printing. Hard cover published by Lyons Press in 2012. Black covers with red lettering on spine. Spine is cocked some. Front endpaper has a gift inscription at top. Book is in very good condition. Dust jacket has slight creasing along top and bottom edges, and is in very good condition. Large 8vo, 417 pages, 1.6 lb.; Large 8vo 9" - 10" tall; 417 pages; Signed by Author. Seller Inventory # MSW16224

Bibliographic Details

Title: The Devil's Causeway The True Story of ...

Publisher: Lyons Press

Publication Date: 2012

Binding: Hardcover

Condition: Very Good

Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good

Signed: Signed by Author(s)

Edition: First Edition; First Printing.

About this title

Synopsis:

From the Inside Flap:

In 1899, a naval officer’s reckless grasp for glory triggered a real American Heart of Darkness—a rebel ambush, America’s first prisoners of war in the Philippines, their forced march through triple-canopy jungle and behind enemy lines, and one of the  greatest rescue missions in US Army history. As the United States prosecuted a bloody campaign to pacify its newly won Philippines territory at the turn of the nineteenth century, a secret mission of mercy went terribly wrong. The result was a prisoner-of-war crisis, the likes of which our nation had never encountered before. The epic struggle for survival that followed was not only a test of the human will to live but a crucible for heroes. And yet, what was touted as a heroic rescue operation extended a war by almost two years and cost the lives of thousands. In April 1899, Admiral George Dewey dispatched the USS Yorktown to liberate a detachment of Spanish soldiers under siege by Filipino rebels. To reconnoiter enemy defenses, one of the Yorktown’s armed cutters—manned by a crew of fifteen sailors—was sent toward shore. And then it happened. Defying orders, Lieutenant James C. Gillmore Jr. recklessly pushed upriver into heavy jungle—and headlong into an ambush that would kill four of his men. The survivors were dragged across mountains and through dense jungle from one pestilent prison to the next along what Gillmore called  "a veritable Devil’s Causeway."  Their captivity and the torturous expedition sent to recover them, recalled today as one of the greatest marches in US Army history, features a tightly hewn cast of characters—including a frail yet determined teenaged sailor and his hardened seafaring mates; battle-tested veterans of the Civil War and the Indian Wars; and a fiery revolutionary commander who gave orders to bury wounded Americans alive. A sweeping military epic drawing on international primary sources, The Devil’s Causeway tells their extraordinary story in its entirety for the first time.