More than 100,000 Copies Sold in the Civil War Battle
SeriesFollowing the defeat of Confederate forces at Chattanooga in
November 1863, the battered Rebel army retreats to winter quarters at
Dalton, Georgia. The following May, a large Union army led by Gen.
William Tecumseh Sherman leaves Chattanooga and northern Georgia camps
and marches south to Atlanta and ultimately arrives at the coastal city
of Savannah, laying waste to the territory through which it passes. If
Sherman is successful, Georgia will be divided and Confederate supply
lines will be disrupted even more than they already are.Cory Brannon,
who is bitter over the failure of the Confederate army at Chattanooga,
takes part in a series of battles as the Army of Tennessee retreats
slowly toward Atlanta during May and early June. By the end of August,
Atlanta is lost and the Confederate retreat continues.Meanwhile, the
Brannon family farm in Culpeper County, Virginia, is now behind enemy
lines. Titus is fighting in the Shenandoah Valley with Mosby's Rangers,
the great Ebersole plantation house at Mountain Laurel is in ruins, and
Henry has been removed as sheriff of Culpeper County. To everyone's
surprise, Cordelia is courted by one of the Union officers. She hates
the Yankees but is unable to hate this Yankee in particular, much to her
dismay. When Henry kills a Union deserter who attacks Cordelia, he flees
to the Confederate lines in Tennessee and arrives in time to participate
in Gen. John Bell Hood's disastrous campaign.At the same time, Cory is
trapped in Savannah, surrounded by Sherman's marauding hordes. The Union
army lays siege to the city, much as it had at Vicksburg. When Gen.
William Hardee realizes that defending the city is hopeless, he abandons
Savannah and heads toward the Carolinas, hoping for the chance to fight
another day in another place. Sherman's March to the Sea is now
complete, and despair grips the Confederacy.Fractured and defeated at
every turn, the nation asks itself how much longer it can continue to
fight.
