Tuesday, March 27, 2012

The Last Great Campaign of the War Between the States

 I am reading Shrouds of Glory by Winston Groom, the author of Forest Gump, and a Civil War history buff. He got interested in the Atlanta to Nashville campaign, a riveting account of Confederate General John Bell Hood's audacious attempt to vanquish the Union on the western front during the final months of the war, and decided to write a book about it.

Groom's great-grandfather, like many of ours, fought in the war, and this sparked Groom's interest. As a child, he said he played with his ancestor's rusty cavalry sword. Like so many others, Fremont Sterling Thrower left college at age 17 to join the Confederate army. 

It was not until Groom found a box of papers that he realized his great-grandfather had fought Sherman's army for nearly three years. As Groom says, Sherman slowly "ground down the Confederate forces in the western theatre". The book is hard to put down, I recommend!  

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