This story is the true story of journey of my family from Germany to Texas in 1849. It is told from the perspective of my great-grandfather who was 15 years old at the time of the passage across the Atlantic.

I did not set out to write this book. I just wanted to see if I could find out who murdered my great-great grandfather and why. After 7 years of research stretching from the National Archives in Washington, D.C. to the Texas State Archives in Austin, Texas to dozens of monographs written by historians far more knowledgeable than myself. Out of those dozens of monographs, one stood out the most. It was entitled "The Feud that Wasn't" by Professor James M. Smallwood. Even though it only focused on the "Sutton-Taylor feud", it described in great detail a part of Texas History in which my family found itself embroiled. There is no doubt, that Northern and Southern sympathies will cloud some readers position on where the truth lies.