Camp Ford -- Johnny D. Boggs

This book was published in hardcover by Five Star and reprinted by Leisure. It looks like a standard powder-burner, but it's not that at all. It's a historical novel told in retrospect by Winthrop McNaughton, who at age 99 is a special guest at the 1946 World Series between the Red Sox and the Cardinals. McNaughton has loved the game of baseball all his life, and once participated in a unique contest held at Camp Ford, a Confederate prison camp in East Texas. McNaughton tells the story of his early love of baseball and of his enlistment in the Union forces at age 16 after the death of his father.

And it's quite a story. McNaughton is captured after his first encounter with the enemy, in a battle that Boggs describes in horrifying detail. The prison camp isn't much safer than the battle. While the story has aspects of The Great Escape, Stalag 17, and even The Longest Yard, it's unique in its depiction of the cruel conditions of the prison camp. There's friendship, betrayal, death, even a little romance, not to mention baseball, and there are some surprises along the way.

The novel won a Spur Award, and it's worth looking for if you're looking for a solid piece of historical fiction. Just don't expect a powder-burner.