Arouse and Beware

Book excerpt: This is the story of three strange companions who attain what seldom has been won by any escaping prisoners. Two Yankee soldiers escape from Belle Island, the Confederate Prison, in 1864. As they make their way northward to the Union lines on the Rapidan they are joined by a woman who is fleeing from Richmond. The hazards of their painful flight are tremendous as they travel by night on roads as ominous as the incredible future awaiting them. Starvation and feasting, the swift beat of love, the primitive encounter, the hot cry of triumph—these elements are combined in this bold and valiant tale of sacrifice and high devotion. Arouse and Beware, first published in 1936, was widely praised by the critics and became a best seller. Now with the success of MacKinlay Kantor's great novel, Andersonville, and the enormous interest in the Civil War period, it is being re-issued again to be enjoyed by a whole new generation of readers.