The Widow of the South

Based on a true story, this debut novel follows Carrie McGavock, a Southern plantation woman who transforms her home into a hospital during the Civil War. The narrative opens in 1894 at Carnton Plantation, where an elderly Carrie tends the graves of nearly 1,500 soldiers buried on her land. When an old man appears among the graves—a soldier she encountered decades earlier—he asks if there is room for one more. The novel flashes back to 1864 and the Battle of Franklin, one of the bloodiest afternoons of the Civil War. As fierce fighting rages on Carrie's property, her plantation becomes a Confederate army hospital. Four generals lie dead on her back porch, and amputated limbs accumulate near the smokehouse. When a wounded soldier named Zachariah Cashwell arrives, he stirs emotions Carrie believed were long extinguished and inspires a passion as powerful as the war itself.