Like many stories, this one began with a phone call. (Or maybe it was an email. I forget.)

Mike Ashley, an editor in England, wanted to assemble an anthology to capitalize on the popularity of the "Sharpe" television series, which was based on the novels by Bernard Cornwell. The book was to be called THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF SWORD AND HONOR (actually, SABRE AND SHOT to start). In a nice turnaround, Cornwell himself contributed the foreword to the anthology.

Mike had read my Joseph Fisher colonial mysteries. He wanted to include a few new American stories in the anthology. Mark Twain was already included. Why not me?

Naturally I was flattered and thrilled. What could I contribute with an American slant that touched on the Napoleonic War? Well... two ideas. One could be a tale of an American Marine fighting the Barbary Pirates. Nope, that would have fit the earlier sister book about naval battles. OK... how about something about the 60th American Rifles? They were former Americans who enlisted in Canada and fought in Europe. Sharpe had met a Tenneseean in the 60th in one novel.

Great! Go to.

Hmm... Research, research. After dubbing around in the library and on the Internet, I didn't have much on the 60th Rifles. Nothing uniquely American, anyway. But I did come across the 95th Rifles, and THEY had fought at the Battle of New Orleans. I asked Mike if that would fit. Yes, marvelously!

More research, now on the 95th. Thanks to the ever-brilliant and diligent folks at the Rye (New Hampshire) Public Library, I got a stack of books on the Battle of New Orleans (hereafter BONO). In fact, before I was done, I read four books on the battle alone and consulted a dozen others, plus asked a few questions of reenactors on e-lists. In all, it took me a month to research and write the story.

The funny part, of course, was that, with a little twisting, I could have ex-Americans battling Americans in America. My 95th Riflemen were the sons of Loyalists driven out of America to Canada during the Revolution. Now they get their revenge, sort of, by sniping Americans on their own turf. Yet things are never that simple...

No exaggeration, the BONO was one of the weirdest battles ever fought. First, it was the only big land battle of the War of 1812, which is called The American War in England. Second, it involved everyone you can think of and some you can't on both sides. And third, the battle was unnecessary, because a peace had been signed to end the war two weeks before the BONO took place. They only learned that about two weeks after.

Who was in it? Everyone. Jean Lafitte and his pirates. Highlanders in trews (tartan trousers). Tubby militiamen from New Orleans who'd never fired a gun. Andrew Jackson and raw recruits, some just boys. Mountainmen with squirrel rifles. Black freemen and black slaves. Black Redcoats from the West Indies. Cherokee and Choctaw Indians. And some 95th Riflemen.

So you had Indians killing Indians, Scotsmen killing Scotsmen, blacks killing blacks, Americans killing Americans.

The battle was horrible. The best generals in English service had turned down the assignment because it was a losing proposition. General Packenham was a mullethead who couldn't do much except advance and retreat. Finally, lacking any plan, he just threw his forces straight across a tabletop at the ditched and dyked line of Americans. The Americans couldn't even move their elbows, they were packed so tight. The English were slaughtered by a very-real and continuous sheet of flame. The sight was so unfair and sickening that eventually Americans turned away, some vowing never to go into battle again. The only real gain was at the farthest ends of the lines, and as the story relates, the British captured redoubts only to die. What a disaster. All it demonstrated was that Brits could die bravely.

It was the "Americans vs Americans" that got me going. And because these ex-Americans were getting old, they were due to retire. Yet they might not feel Canada was their home. So where to go? And, ironically, the only survivor, Walker, ends up dumped on the American shore, abandoned by the British Army because he's lost a leg. Which means he is now, like it or not, an American again. And, accepting that, he goes toward what he feels is home.

Once the story was sent in, I had some funny arguments with the copy editor. For one, I'd used the word "Dago" to describe Spaniards. Writers do it all the time. Turns out, this sharp editor pointed out, the term wasn't invented till late in the 1800s. Oh, says I, and changed it. The editor then insisted that I'd made up the 1st West Indian Regiment, because there were never black redcoats. Au contraire, mon ami. There were three or four regiments of blacks raised in the West Indies. While they never fought in Europe, they were used at the BONO and in the Caribbean and Central America, and I had the Osprey prints to prove it. Oh, said he. But the guy was good.

All in all, it was great fun and a great challenge to write and research something original based in history. And if I can help anyone on either side of the Atlantic understand the BONO and something of the American character, I've done my job. Which is, after all, what made American great.