Inside the Civil War
In 1861, twenty-one-year-old Charles Wright Wills wanted what countless young men believed war would give them: adventure, purpose, and the chance to be part of history.
Four years later, he understood the price.
Drawn from the extraordinary letters and diary of the real Charles Wright Wills, Inside the Civil War follows one Illinois soldier from eager volunteer to veteran officer as the Civil War strips away every easy idea he once held about courage, command, glory, and survival.
Wills begins as a private in the 8th Illinois Infantry, accepts a commission with the 7th Illinois Cavalry, and eventually raises and commands Company G of the 103rd Illinois Infantry. His war carries him through camps, disease, endless marches, shattered friendships, Kennesaw Mountain, the Atlanta Campaign, Sherman's march across Georgia, the burning of Columbia, and the final bloody fighting at Bentonville.
But this is not the Civil War seen from a general's headquarters.
It is the war from inside.
It is wet wool and bad food. Letters written home by poor light. Men joking because fear has nowhere else to go. Officers making decisions without enough information. Friends disappearing from familiar places. Promotions that come because someone else was wounded, resigned, or killed. Victory that cannot restore what the survivors have lost.
By the time the guns fall silent, Charles has become good at being a soldier.
Now he must discover whether he still knows how to be anything else.
Meticulously grounded in the surviving record, Inside the Civil War is historical fiction about the men who lived the war one ordinary, terrifying, unforgettable day at a time.
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