The Widow of the South
Robert Hicks
(Reviewer - Coletta Ollerer)
2005 Warner Books
ISBN: 0446500127

In 1894 Carrie McGavock is an old woman with only her former slave for company & the soldiers buried in her backyard.

Years before, rather than let someone plow over the field where these young men had been buried, Carrie dug them up & reburied them in her own personal cemetery. Now, as she walks the rows of the dead, an old soldier appears. It is the man she met on the day of the battle that changed everything. The man who came to her house as a wounded soldier & left with her heart. He asks if the cemetery has room for one more.

Told in flashbacks to the afternoon of the Battle of Franklin, Tennessee, five of the bloodiest hours of the Civil War with more than 9000 casualties, when Carrie's home -- the Carnton plantation -- was taken over by the Confederate army for a field hospital. Four generals lay dead on her back porch; the pile of amputated limbs rose as tall as the smoke house.

Associate Reviewer Coletta Ollerer writes:

Carrie McGavock is a female fashioned by her life in the South. She is a precious daughter who becomes a beloved wife. She lives on a prosperous plantation where she gives birth to five children. Then things change. Three of her children are taken by illness which sends her into an emotional tailspin. When a battle between the Union & the Confederate armies takes place near her home, her world falls apart. She is bewildered & horrified when thousands of wounded & dying soldiers & strangers are brought in. Prior to that event she had been alone with her grief. Now her isolation vanishes. One soldier in her charge said, “Loneliness... could be more frightening than almost anything. Loneliness was what we feared about death and to embrace it in life seemed mad.” (p.145) Slowly Carrie becomes a different person. “What was station anymore? I could feel my own station slipping away, and good riddance. I wore plain clothes... I swore occasionally . . and committed to memory the new curses I heard.” (p.164)

Among the wounded is Zachariah Cashwell, & even though he is of a lower station, she is drawn to him. Awakening one day, Zachariah asks where he is & how he got there. He had been shot in the leg & Carrie sent him to have it amputated, rather than leaving him to die. Zachariah, however, would rather have died. “I knew what had happened to me, how that damn woman had reached into the room and plucked me out and sent me off to see the surgeon and his saw.” (p.152)

Carrie watches as hundreds of others lose their limbs & then go on to lose their lives. Together with Mariah, her former slave, Carrie labors on with few moments to rest. She sends her two remaining children to live with relatives & her husband, John, struggles to keep food & other necessaries available for the household.

The Widow of the South is an extraordinary debut novel, based on a remarkable true story. Robert Hicks draws an unforgettable, panoramic portrait of a woman who, through love & 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 -- & became a symbol of a nation's soul. Even Oscar Wilde, on one of his American tours, wanted to meet her. Robert Hicks has drawn a vivid picture of the lives of the ordinary people caught up in history & what they are feeling. His notes show pictures of Carrie’s home & of the prominent persons involved in the story. This is an engaging account of how the Civil War touched those who lived very close to it.

Carrie McGavock spent the rest of her life caring for the cemetery which is the final resting place of nearly 1500 Confederate soldiers of the 6000 treated in her home. Her communication with relatives of the deceased was her comfort.
(01/29/06)

Coletta
2006©Coletta Ollerer
A RebeccasReads.Com Associate Reviewer

Reviewer's Bio:
I have always enjoyed writing. As a teenager I submitted to magazines like Seventeen, & was politely rejected. As a young mother, I had several poems published in The Chicago Tribune. Born in Chicago in 1932, I still live in the area. Since I retired, I have had some success on the Internet with my book reviews, stories & poetry. I enjoy historical fiction mostly, but will read anything uplifting, informative & fun. When I'm not reading & writing, I'm making jewelry, sewing needlepoint, & painting.