How to Dodge a Cannonball

Set during the American Civil War, the novel follows Anders, a white boy from Liberty Valley, Illinois, through a series of defections, disguises, and doomed causes as he struggles to survive a conflict that devours everyone around him.

The story opens when Anders is seven years old. A curious child, he regularly perches at the window of the town's Black schoolhouse, eager to learn despite having no right to attend. His mother, Katrina, catches him there, pelts him with cookware, and drags him to the riverbank. She tells him he descends from a long line of soldiers whose service always ended in defeat and dispossession. She gives Anders his first taste of whiskey, then presses a branding iron into his forearm, searing a half star to mark the family legacy of "half-fulfilled dreams."

By 15, Anders has already defected once from the Union army to the Confederacy and now serves as a flag-twirler in General Lee's camp at Gettysburg. When General Pickett protests the planned infantry charge across open ground at Cemetery Ridge, Anders accidentally knocks him unconscious with his flagpole, and Lee orders Pickett tied to his horse for the attack. During the charge, Anders watches men die around him, including his friend Bryce, a bugle player whose legs are shattered by a cannonball. Anders drops his flag and runs. He strips off his Confederate uniform, takes a Union uniform from a dead Black soldier, and limps toward Union lines, committing his second act of treason.

Anders takes the name B. K. Jefferson from a letter in the dead soldier's pocket and infiltrates a Black regiment under Brigadier General Harrow's brigade. Corporal Tobias Gleason, a Black playwright and intellectual who claims descent from Thomas Jefferson, sees through the ruse but agrees to keep Anders's secret in exchange for his knowledge of Confederate cyphers. Gleason assembles his squad: Anders; Thomas, a cynical free-born Black man; Mole, a taciturn, formerly enslaved private; and Joaquin, secretly a Haitian revolutionary operative whose nickname translates to "The Reaper." Gleason's animating vision is "The American Future," a belief that the nation can fulfill its democratic promise for Black citizens.

When Gleason presents the cypher report to Harrow, the general burns it, refusing to trust Black intelligence. The squad is instead assigned to raid a gun factory in Tinpot, Pennsylvania, where they capture Slade Jefferson, a charismatic arms dealer who sells weapons to both sides. Slade dismisses the war's ideological stakes and urges Anders to prioritize survival.

Harrow announces the brigade will deploy to New York to suppress the 1863 Draft Riots and promotes Lieutenant Hobbes, who has taken credit for Gleason's raid, over Gleason. The corporal nearly shoots Hobbes, but Anders disarms him with a sleight-of-hand flag-twirling maneuver and talks him down. On the train, Gleason distributes copies of his play, The Living Abacus, a work of "Speculative Dramaturgy" set in an alternate future and featuring a talking steam-powered calculating machine. Anders sneaks into Slade's prison car and agrees to deliver a coded letter to Wendy Ross in Manhattan. He deciphers it and discovers Slade is arming the Sons of Columbia, Wendy's monarchist revolutionary group.

In burning New York, Anders breaks from firefighting, paralyzed by a fear of fire rooted in his childhood branding. A young Black bugler named Petey follows him, and Anders discovers that Petey is actually a woman named Patricia who has disguised herself as a male soldier. They agree to deliver Slade's letter together. Patricia applies white face powder and adopts the persona of "Polly," a haughty white woman, while Anders dons a stolen red coat to infiltrate The Governess, Wendy's headquarters. Wendy delivers a speech calling for a new American monarchy and performs masterful flag-twirling. Anders challenges her to F.L.A.G., a competitive flag-twirling duel, and wins by landing a dangerous maneuver he invented called the "Anders Revert." When Patricia finds Wendy alive, she takes Anders's revolver and shoots her dead.

Gleason learns his sister Betty has died and his theater has burned in the riots. He rewrites the ending of The Living Abacus: The original allows cautious hope; the revised version has the lead character executed and the machine declaring that "The American Future will never live in America." The play is performed in the theater's ruins before Black refugees. Mole delivers a stunning performance, but the hopeless new ending leaves the audience silent.

The brigade redeploys west to Fort Mojave in Nevada to fight Native tribes. On the train, Mole tells Anders his story: He was enslaved in a California gold mine, survived a deliberate cave-in, and dug himself out with his bare hands, earning his nickname. Slade blackmails Anders with knowledge of his double defection and forces both Anders and Patricia into servitude as his attendants. On a scouting patrol, Anders and Joaquin find Native women and children. Anders refuses to report their location, recognizing Harrow's campaign as genocide.

Over the following days, squad members approach Anders about deserting, each citing a mysterious partner and a shared rendezvous point. Anders realizes Gleason has orchestrated a mass defection. Nearly the entire company assembles at a river bend, and Gleason urges them to seek San Valentin, a monarchist city in Nevada. The caravan swells to regimental size as Gleason persuades pursuing Union companies to join rather than fight.

They arrive at San Valentin, a former Mexican fort ruled by Queen Columbia I, a teenage girl from the "West Hanover" dynasty, a family claiming descent from both the British crown and American Founding Fathers. Her chief adviser is Duke Ross. Gleason pledges the regiment's loyalty and is named Duke of Morale; Anders is knighted. He and Patricia reconcile and begin a relationship. When Gleason tasks Anders with investigating the city's former Confederates, Anders rides north and discovers enslaved Native prisoners forced to mine silver under armed guards, a scene that echoes Mole's California mine story.

In court, Gleason demands the execution of Slade, who has reinvented himself as a monarchist mining baron, and all mine operators. The queen issues a compromise: Keep existing enslaved laborers but import no more, with emancipation deferred. Gleason is devastated by this repetition of the half measures that have defined American history. Then McClellan's Union army surrounds the city, beginning a siege.

Gleason devises a plan to assassinate the queen during the intermission of his new play, The City That Defeated a Continental Superpower, and install her brother, Prince Polus, as a puppet who will abolish slavery. Anders, Joaquin, Patricia, and Mole pose as flag-twirlers for the strike. During the performance, Anders reaches for his concealed revolver but deliberately abandons the plan, choosing personal vengeance: He swings his flagpole and cracks Slade across the temple. Joaquin seizes the dropped gun and shoots the queen, Slade, and Duke Ross before guards bayonet him. Gleason installs the terrified prince on the throne and forces him to decree abolition and universal equality. Moments later, McClellan's bombardment shatters the palace.

Anders hooks his arm around Patricia's, and they flee through the city's sewer tunnel. When Patricia asks if any of it had a point, Anders offers no grand vision: "We don't need a big idea. They think we don't deserve to breathe. We still are. We're winning." They laugh through tears and keep moving. The novel closes with Anders's written testament. He rejects heroic sacrifice, declares America will never be worth dying for because the flag "eats heroism to protect and spread itself, and returns nothing," and states his intention to survive on stolen silver. "I'll be free," he writes.