Witness to War: Hayden on the Frontier: BOOK TWO - (1785–1848) (Witness to War – The Hayden Carter Chronicles 2)

The drums of war are beating, and the nation Hayden once watched being born now begins to tear itself apart.

When the mysterious pull returns, Hayden is thrust into a new century, where the United States no longer faces a distant king, but an enemy within its own borders. Brother fights brother, neighbor turns against neighbor, and the promises of liberty and equality hang by a thread.

Thirteen years old and still searching for his place in history, Hayden finds himself in a country divided — a country on fire with passion, pain, and the desperate hope for freedom. The musket he carries is heavy, but not nearly as heavy as the questions weighing on his heart.

From the first thunder of cannon over Fort Sumter, Hayden is swept into the chaos of battle. The smoke is thick, the cries are deafening, and the cost of each step forward is written in blood upon the fields of Antietam and Gettysburg.

As he marches with Union soldiers, Hayden sees courage in unlikely places — young men standing their ground on ridgelines, fathers writing final letters by candlelight, and nurses who work tirelessly to mend the broken. The war is both noble and devastating, a clash of ideals and a harvest of sorrow.

Amidst this turmoil, Hayden encounters Maggie O’Leary again, now serving as a nurse. Her resilience and compassion shine even in the darkest field hospitals, reminding him that hope can survive even when surrounded by suffering.

He also befriends Samuel Green, a freedman who has chosen to take up arms for the Union. Samuel’s quiet determination to fight for a freedom he has only just been granted opens Hayden’s eyes to the unfinished work of the nation he thought he understood.

But the Civil War is not a story of simple heroes and villains. In the smoke and blood, Hayden meets Caleb Turner, a Confederate soldier not much older than himself, who fights not for slavery but for the land and family he loves. Hayden must wrestle with the painful reality that good people can stand on opposite sides of a terrible cause.

As the war drags on, Hayden begins to sense the unbearable weight carried by President Abraham Lincoln. He hears the president’s words of sorrow and resolve, and he realizes that leading a divided country may be the heaviest burden of all.

Each battle leaves its mark. Each face Hayden meets — soldiers, medics, mothers, children — etches itself into his memory. He cannot change their fates, but he can remember them, and perhaps in remembering, he can ensure that their stories are not lost to time.

The violence of the Civil War is raw and unrelenting. Hayden learns that history is not a story told in simple lines of right and wrong, but a tangled knot of ideals, fears, and human choices. Yet even in the midst of tragedy, he discovers flashes of kindness, bravery, and love.

The war tests Hayden in ways he never imagined. He must find the strength to stand with his fellow soldiers, the courage to face the horrors of combat, and the compassion to see the humanity in those the world has labeled as enemies.

As he journeys from battlefield to battlefield, Hayden struggles with fear and doubt. The boy who once marveled at the fight for independence now questions what it means to fight for freedom when the nation itself is so deeply fractured.

Hayden and the Civil War is not just a journey into America’s bloodiest conflict — it is a story of friendship, courage, and the search for meaning in the midst of chaos. Through Hayden’s eyes, we confront the questions that still echo today: What is freedom worth? What price do we pay for unity? And how do we carry forward the weight of history without being crushed beneath it?

Join Hayden as the pull of the past drags him once more across time, into a war that changed a nation and into lessons that will shape the man he is becoming.