The Adventures of Sidney Sawyer: The Ace of Hearts

By David M. Smeltz

History comes alive as master storyteller David M. Smeltz spins a rollicking tale of antebellum America as it rushes toward Civil War. Every American cherishes Mark Twain's cast of ruddy-faced happy rascals who grew up on the muddy Mississippi in the innocent decade of the 1840's. Now, every one of these brats is of military age, and as the nation divides sides are chosen, knives are drawn, and friend is set against friend. Tom's gang is back with a vengeance- Huck Finn, Joe Harper, Amy Lawrence, and don't forget Amy's rival for Tom's affections, sunny, pigtailed little Becky Thatcher. With a bellyful of bark-juice and an axe to grind, ancient General Sidney Sawyer scribbles the first installment of his sordid memoirs. You know Sidney, Tom's nasty little snitch and sissy of a brother. Little Sidney learns that revenge is a tasty dish as he frees himself from the bullying of brother Tom Sawyer's gang. And he learns a grand lesson about himself- he is one dangerous son of a bitch! Growing like a colt, Sid is tall, broad-shouldered, handsome, and every inch the young Missouri gentlemen, except Sidney ain't no gentlemen. Blossoming into a full-grown cad, rake, and amorist he learns the joys of horizontal refreshments from "Professor" Roseasharen, a sassy slave wench with broad hips and pouting lips. He pays his tuition in peppermints and shares his new carnal knowledge up and down the Mississippi. Galloping slave gals is one thing but when caught in the crinolines of the tipsy Amy Lawrence, our boy reckons it's time to take a wife. With Amy's sunhat over his courting tackle and her pap's double barrel in his face, Sawyer's proposal loses some of its romance. On his honeymoon Sidney abandons his bride, and with the deadly jayhawker Huck Finn and Finn's black daddy Jim Watson, he battles bushwhackers with pistols and knives through the streets of St. Louis. And what the hell was Huckleberry doing on the honeymoon?In a hissing scandal, Tom is appointed to West Point but disappears down the Mississippi leaving poor Becky in a family way. Judge Thatcher is outraged, Becky is banished, Aunt Polly swoons, and a gleeful Sid poaches Tom's place at the Academy. Every inch the soldier, except for the honor part, Sawyer clashes with the deadly slave-master, Cadet Calhoun Brassard, as the Corps of Cadets divides North and South. Brassard and Sawyer savage each other in a wild horserace, slash at vicious saber play, and meet with pistols at dawn in a brutal duel that earns Sidney his first unworthy laurels in a lifetime of fraudulent glory. Surviving through treachery with a pistol ball in his breast, Cadet Sawyer becomes West Point's own ACE OF HEARTS.In the best history lesson this side of living it, General Sawyer weaves his spell and tells his tale in this, the first of eight packets of his outrageous memoirs. They are THE ADVENTURES OF SIDNEY SAWYER.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1482032961
• ISBN13: 9781482032963
• Release Date: February 2013
• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 294 Pages
• Weight: 0.86 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.0" x 0.7" x 5.0"