In the spring of 1861, nineteen-year-old Caleb Dillard leaves his bride of a few months to fight for the Confederacy with the Eighth Virginia Infantry Regiment, but his part of the war only lasts ten minutes as he and some of his comrades are captured near Fairfax Courthouse and put in the Old Capitol Prison. There he not only experiences hardship and camaraderie with his fellow soldiers, but also learns to play baseball, a game the Union soldiers brought with them during the war. Caleb's team plays the guards, other military teams,and even some local professional teams, including the Washington Nationals. Caleb's team rapidly improves, but then he becomes involved in a plot fostered by a wealthy war widow from Georgetown. Her schemes put him-and his family-in danger, and Caleb must make difficult choices while managing to survive. Diamond Duty will appeal to baseball fans and Civil War buffs alike, and readers will find the same warmth of characterization and steady pulse of events in this book that they found in Dan Verner's Beyond the Blue Horizon series.
