Robert Hicks (1) (1951–2022)

Rabck from BookstoGive; second book I've read about the battle of Franklin and Carnton Plantation. Carrie's house was requisitioned as a field hospital for the bloodiest battle yet in the Civil War. A Southern bred plantation wife, Carrie & her Creole servant, Mariah, along with others, tend to the overwhelming amount of wounded that filled every nook and cranny in the house & finally spill out into the yard. They become "her boys". She writes letters to their kin, and many write to her looking for their kin. Quite a few years later, when a neighbor's field is going to be plowed, Carrie's husband and others relocate 1500 of the Confederate bodies to land adjacent to her family cemetery, burying them by their state and marking the graves with their initials. Carrie keeps a full accounting of their names in a book, and for the rest of her life, she and Mariah walk the gravesite to honor what she told their kin - they would be remembered. Interestingly, the author is on the preservation committee for Carnton, which is how he had access to a lot of research for the book.… (mer)