Author: Luke Jackson
Publisher: Zany Books
ISBN: 978-1441477736

Click Here To Purchase The Wrong Choice: (Le Choix Erroné)

I believe it is safe to say every person at some point in his life has found himself in trouble by doing what he thought was right.  The road to hell is paved by good intentions is a well known saying that most of us agree with due to out own experiences.  In the book, The Wrong Choice, our hero finds himself in the middle of the brutal Civil War due to his own misguided choice.

Jean-Pierre Mercier is a college student in Canada when he finds himself persuaded to leave it all and spy for the Confederate army.  He is a French Canadian and like many of his neighbors believe Québec should be free of its English oppressors.  When he is given a faulty promise that the Confederates will help the Québécois if they win the war, he agrees to become a spy.

Masquerading as a newspaper reporter, he is thrown into army life and witnesses first hand the horrors of war at Bull Run.  Traumatized by the horror of it all, he follows a deserter into the Kentucky hills, but soon returns to his mission.  He spends the next few years following the war, doing some spying but mostly learning the horror of the conflict.  Is this what he wanted for Québec, blood and death all for the chance to be free?

This book provides a wonderful account of the average solider in the Civil War.  They were under the command of men who often didn’t know much more what was to come than the average solider and the days of the troops were filled with orders then counter orders.  It was often a bloody, disorganized mess, a fact that is lost in the retelling in schools.  History recounts the causes and the battles but forgets the Everyman.  The average soldier lived in horrible conditions with many lacking proper shoes and food.  They were taken into fights unprepared and had to watch as their brothers and friends died en masse, never knowing if they might be next.  While war is portrayed as filled with honor and glory, the reality is quite different.  As we follow Jean-Pierre in his trips with the troops, we see through his eyes, the eyes of a third party to the war itself, the terror and butchery.  It is a fascinating read because it gives a unique and truthful look at the war we thought we knew.

Click Here To Purchase The Wrong Choice: (Le Choix Erroné)