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For four grueling years,
Raymond Rutherford, a West Point graduate and Confederate colonel, was
one of Robert E. Lee's best officers. But in the dying days of the
Confederacy, even Rutherford's luck runs out. While leading a brigade of
the Army of Northern Virginia into battle at Five Forks, he takes a
sharpshooter's bullet in his left shoulder.
During those grim days of 1865,
just after Five Forks, Lee is forced to pull out of Richmond and retreat
with his remaining army, bleeding, exhausted and almost surrounded. In a
race with Grant to reach General Johnston, Lee loses and on April 8th is
forced to surrender.
From his makeshift hospital bed,
Rutherford learns of the surrender and cannot wait for his wound to
heal. Against doctor's orders he gets out of bed and sets out for his
North Carolina home.
Along the way,
Rutherford begins to suffer severely from his injury. After some close
calls with the weather and a bandit, his throbbing wound proves too much
for him. He finds a well in a widow's yard but loses consciousness. His
unexpected encounter with the Widow Morgan proves fateful, and
Rutherford starts down a path, complicated by Southern reconstruction,
that will change his life forever.
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