In 1876, a green second lieutenant named Crofton barely escapes Little Bighorn-where, before Crofton's startled eyes, Custer is killed by his own enraged men-only to find that his life's adventures have just begun. Over the next three years, curiosity, fate, and the schemes of others will take him halfway around the world, from a "whore's war" in Kansas to a rebellion in Cuba to the horrors of the Zulu war in East Africa. Along the way, he will encounter such figures as Grant, Sherman, and Hayes; get shot; find love; endure betrayal-and somehow, through the crucible of blood and fire, arrive at something that might be called wisdom.