The Woman She Left Behind by Tom Huggler

In the spring of 1862, widowed Rachel Barnum leaves three children with her farm’s hired man to search for her dying son, Dwight, a soldier in Michigan’s 2nd cavalry. Rachel’s decision to travel alone to Missouri, into the heart of darkness, is either a hero’s journey or a fool’s errand. Mounting obstacles lead to a large Rebel force entrenched on a Mississippi River island. Rachel fears her chances of finding Dwight in time to save him are shrinking each day she’s gone from her 10-year-old twin girls and another son, 16, who can’t abide the hired man. With time running out, Rachel faces an agonizing decision: abandon her firstborn to the ravages of the Civil War and go back to family and the man she loves? Or fight on against all odds?