A Drummer in Red

Dr. Saunders was born and raised near Boston, Massachusetts, and steeped in the history of that city - so crucial to the founding of the United States. Subsequently, he had the opportunity to live in four different European countries and travel extensively, both in Europe, and throughout the globe. Coming back to America after living in Europe for twenty-five years, he noticed an appalling lack of knowledge of our history, particularly in young people. He wrote the Young America series as a way of informing young people about our history and also promoting thought about the issues that caused dissension in those early days and are with us still.

Lewis Elliot and his mother, Stella, are forced to flee their Baltimore home for the modest farm of their cousins in Gloucester County, Virginia. They arrive just as the feared Lord Cornwallis and the hated Colonel Banastre Tarleton take up residence in Gloucester Point and across the York River in Yorktown. The war heats up as Cornwallis fortifies Yorktown and Tarleton begins foraging raids in Gloucester County.

Then, while Lewis and his cousins, Lloyd and Tetty, are off to Gloucester Courthouse to try to sell enough tobacco to provide for the family, Tarleton raids the farm and Stella receives a life-threatening injury.


Through battle, betrayal, unexpected alliances, interactions with the Marquis de Lafayette and General George Washington, and, apparently, by the Hand of God, Lewis and his cousins and friends take roles in the events leading to Cornwallis's surrender on October 19, 1781, after the last major battle of the Revolutionary War.