Part Two Of Two Parts Lucy Mardsen is the widow of the Civil War's last surviving soldier. She is now half-blind, 99 years old, locked in a charity home and very talkative. For Lucy, the Civil War is the stuff of gritty, comic legend and her terms are the common foot soldier's—ribald and blunt. Her story offers a gallery of aristocrats and sharecroppers, blacks and whites, slaves and free men—Lee and Lincoln among them. With her last energies she cracks jokes, names names and tells how it really was. Throughout it all the stakes were always the lives of her nine children, the freedom of her best friend and her own emancipation. "This remarkable first novel is a gem; entertaining, engrossing and memorable. An unforgettable reading experience." (Publishers Weekly)
