If God was watching that Indian summer afternoon of November 30, 1864, some say he would have been looking at the continent of America, in the central part of a state called Tennessee, at a little town called Franklin - where a terrible battle was about to begin. Within a few short hours nearly 10,000 men would be dead, and the lives of many others changed utterly; none more so than Carrie McGavock who would find her home taken over by the Confederate Army and turned into a field hospital.

On the field of battle, a seasoned Southern soldier, Zachariah Cashwell, would drop his gun and charge forward into Yankee territory holding only the flag of his company's colours. In the pain-filled days and weeks that followed, both would find a form of mutual healing that neither thought possible.

In an extraordinary debut novel, based on a true story, Robert Hicks paints an unforgettable portrait of a woman who, through love and loss, found a cause. Known throughout the country as the Widow of the South, Carrie McGavock gave her heart first to a stranger, then to a tract of hallowed ground, becoming in the process a symbol of a nation's soul.