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A review by dmcke013
Battle Flag: The Nathaniel Starbuck Chronicles: Book Three by Bernard Cornwell
3.0
This is the third of the seemingly-abandoned series by Bernard Cornwell that is set during the American Civil War and that currently consists of four novels.
Set primarily around the second battle of Mannassas, this follows the usual Cornwell convention of having its hero as an outsider, who is fighting just as much against his own side/higher ups as against the enemy interleaved around real historical events - in short, what made the Sharpe series stand out so much. Just replace Richard Sharpe with Nathanial Starbucks, Harper with Truslow and Simmerson with Faulconer, and this could pretty much be one of the earlier Sharpe books.
With that in mind, and with the usual caveat that the setting just doesn't resonate as much with me (perhaps because we were never really taught anything about it in school) as does the Napoleonics Wars, I have to say that I found this the most enjoyable of the 3 Starbucks novels I have read relatively recently.
Set primarily around the second battle of Mannassas, this follows the usual Cornwell convention of having its hero as an outsider, who is fighting just as much against his own side/higher ups as against the enemy interleaved around real historical events - in short, what made the Sharpe series stand out so much. Just replace Richard Sharpe with Nathanial Starbucks, Harper with Truslow and Simmerson with Faulconer, and this could pretty much be one of the earlier Sharpe books.
With that in mind, and with the usual caveat that the setting just doesn't resonate as much with me (perhaps because we were never really taught anything about it in school) as does the Napoleonics Wars, I have to say that I found this the most enjoyable of the 3 Starbucks novels I have read relatively recently.