Words from a grizzled war veteran makes Tom wonder whether his ideas of war are more romantic than realistic. As he marches off with his friends to battle with the Yankees, he remembers the harsh illumination he'd been given from a soldier with experience. Watching friends and comrades die in a volley of gun- and cannon-fire on blood-soaked ground teaches the foursome the truth of war. Will hell, hunger, cold, fatigue, fear and resignation be the only comrades they have left?
This novel was a very long time in coming but was probably inevitable. Like many Southerners of my generation, my childhood was steeped in family stories of ancestors' activities during the War of Northern Aggression.