Robert Hicks: The Widow of the South [2006] trade paperback

If God was watching that Indian summer afternoon of November 30, 1864, some say he would have been looking at the continent of America, in the central part of a state called Tennessee, at a little town called Franklin - where a terrible battle was about to begin. Within a few short hours nearly 10,000 men would be dead, and the lives of many others changed utterly; none more so than Carrie McGavock who would find her home taken over by the Confederate Army and turned into a field hospital. On the field of battle, a seasoned Southern soldier, Zachariah Cashwell, would drop his gun and charge forward into Yankee territory holding only the flag of his company's colours. In the pain-filled days and weeks that followed, both would find a form of mutual healing that neither thought possible. In an extraordinary debut novel, based on a true story, Robert Hicks paints an unforgettable portrait of a woman who, through love and loss, found a cause. Known throughout the country as the Widow of the South, Carrie McGavock gave her heart first to a stranger, then to a tract of hallowed ground, becoming in the process a symbol of a nation's soul.