Two-Fisted Tales #31

In the heat of the Peninsular Campaign, General George M. McClellan drills his recruits with military precision, while a seasoned Union sergeant boasts of his unbroken luck in battle—claiming no bullet has ever touched him. As the campaign pushes forward through the Virginia countryside, the sergeant leads the troops through the chaos of combat at Richmond and beyond, his confidence unshaken—until the war’s true test comes not from the enemy, but from the quiet, relentless grip of fever.

In "Donelson!", Union forces under General Smith press a determined assault on Fort Donelson, facing fierce resistance from Rebel General Floyd and his Southern troops. As four ironclads close in on the Confederate stronghold, the clash tests the resolve of both sides in a battle that will echo through the war’s turning tide.

In a quiet moment amid the chaos of battle, a young soldier recalls the legend of General Ulysses S. Grant—once seen as a man of failure, a man who stumbled through life until war revealed his true calling. Flashbacks to his father, Jesse Grant, and his time as a West Point student, Frank, hint at a past far from the battlefield glory he would later earn.