These are the stories of struggles for survival by two members of the same family, though 100 years apart and in two very different wars. One takes place during our country’s Civil War of 1861-1865 and follows the life of 17-year-old Union infantryman William Smith of the 13th Regiment of Indiana Volunteers, who was captured and survived captivity at the infamous Andersonville Confederate Prison in Georgia. The other story takes place 100 years later and over 8,700 miles away in Vietnam with William Smith’s great-grandson, 25-year-old First Lieutenant Hubert Buchanan, shot down, captured, and surviving six and a half years in North Vietnam prisons.
The Battle Behind Bars: Navy and Marine POWs in the Vietnam War (The U.S. Navy and The Vietnam War)
The unconventional nature of the war and the unforgiving environment of Southeast Asia inflicted special hardships on the Vietnam-era POWs, whether they spent captivity in the jungles of the South, or the jails of the North. This book describes their experiences – the similarities and the differences – and how
