Synopses & Reviews
“The fascinating story of a ferocious three-day battle, among the bloodiest ever fought on US soil. Six months before Gettysburg, there was Stones River, near Nashville, in which 44,000 Union troops and 37,700 Confederates hammered away at each other, savagely and unremittingly, and yet so indecisively that at the end, both sides could claim victory. . . . Carter’s theme––war is hell––is familiar enough, yet ever fresh when rendered, as it is here, with the kind of creative force that amounts to a sense of mission. Buffs will love it.”––
Kirkus Reviews (starred)
“Monumentally ambitious. . . . For a depiction of war, this is as good as it gets.”—Publishers Weekly (starred)
“Carter brings not only Stones River, but also all Civil War conflict to life in a manner that no novelist since Josepeh Pennell has done. . . . It’s a wonderful book all the way around.”––Peter Cozzens, author of No Better Place to Die: The Battle of Stones River
“Bright Starry Banner transports me into the thick of the Stones River campaign and enables me to see the tragic battle and its personalities in a new and dramatic way. Bravo!”––David J. Eicher, author of The Longest Night: A Military History of the Civil War
With Bright Starry Banner, Alden R. Carter adds an invaluable chapter to the war’s legend, presenting not only a great battle, but also the terror and courage of the men who fought it.
Alden R. Carter’s nine novels and 20 nonfiction titles have won numerous honors, including six ALA Best Book awards.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
Review
"Exquisite and graphic... For a depiction of war [Bright Starry Banner] is as good as it gets." Publishers Weekly
Review
"Rendered with the creative force that amounts to a sense of mission."
Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Crackles with action, suspense and drama. A must-read for Civil War buffs."
Booklist
Review
"Carter brings Civil War conflict to life [like] no novelist since Joseph
Pennell [a century ago]."
Peter Cozzens, No Better Place to Die: The Battle
of Stones River
Synopsis
On the last day of 1862, outside Murfreesboro, Tennessee, 38,000 Rebel soldiers of the Army of Tennessee engaged the 43,000-strong Army of the Cumberland in what has come to be known as the Battle of Stones River. A meticulous and stirring re-creation of this pivotal (and often overlooked) confrontation, Bright Starry Banner is filled with action, tension, and heroism.
Synopsis
December 30, 1862, outside Murfreesboro, Tennessee: the forty-three thousand men of General William Starke Roscecrans's Army of the Cumberland faced the thirty-eight thousand Confederate soldiers of General Braxton Bragg's Army of Tennessee. It had been a dismal month for the Union. In the east, the Army of the Potomac suffered a terrible defeat at Fredericksburg, Virginia; in the west, Grant failed yet again to breach the Confederate stronghold of Vicksburg, Mississippi. The Emancipation Proclamation was to go into effect on New Year's Day, but after the disasters of December, Lincoln's decree seemed less the assertion of a great moral imperative than a desperate attempt to shore up a crumbling cause. Rosecrans was to engage Bragg and win. That evening, the bands of both armies played, while the eighty thousand soldiers joined in singing "Home Sweet Home." At dawn, they would set about killing each other.
At the Battle of Stones River, thousands fall in three days of savage fighting across the fields and woods of middle Tennessee. The carnage awakes the best in some men-courage, sacrifice, and honor; the worst in others-cruelty, cowardice, and depravity. In arenas dubbed "the Slaughter Pen" and "Hell's Half Acre," Blue and Gray collide.
A meticulous and sweeping re-creation of this pivotal confrontation, Bright Starry Banner does for the Civil War what A Bridge Too Far did for WWII.
Alden R. Carter's nine novels and twenty nonfiction titles have won numerous honors, including six ALA Best Book awards.
Synopsis
December 1862, outside Murfreesboro, Tennessee, the 43,000 men of Gen. Rosencrans' Army of the Cumberland faced the 38,000 Confederate soldiers of Gen. Bragg's Army. In arenas dubbed "the Slaughter Pen" and "Hell's Half Acre," Blue and Gray collide.