In Uprising, Dean Urdahl has crafted a story about Minnesota s war within a war in the Minnesota River Valley during the autumn of 1862. His saga is enriched by unfolding . . . on an even broader background beginning with the bloody battle of Shiloh in the spring of 1862 and carrying his main character, Nathan Thomas, from there to Minnesota where he participates in an extraordinary number of adventures during the six-week ethnic earthquake variously known as the Sioux Uprising, the Dakota Conflict, and the Dakota War. In casting Nathan as his central figure and relating him to the two theaters of conflict during the great battles of Second Manassas, Antietam, Corinth, and others in the East . . . he adds meaning and depth to the power of his story.