Nashville 1864

by Madison Jones

Book Overview

War is Hell. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 187994135X
• ISBN13: 9781879941359
• Release Date: June 1997
• Publisher: J. S. Sanders and Company
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 4.7" x 7.8"

Customer Reviews

Nashville Civil War History

AMAZING story of a grandson’s recounting of a Nashville boy’s experience during the Battle of Nashville!

They Have Beaten Us, Steven

It is clear today that the Southern Confederacy is regarded as an evil aberration in American history. Many books and films depict the gray-coated Rebs as uncouth huns bent upon the destruction of a paternal and benevolent Union. Today, their symbols are reviled and their memory is denounced as if four states of the Confederacy weren't also Founding colonies themselves. Nashville 1864 is told from the point of view of a 12 year-old boy, but the narrative is suitable for adults as well. Imagine an American city occupied by an enemy army. We have to reach all the way back to the Revolutionary War period for a practical analogy, but that period is so far behind us it is difficult create a connection within our 21st Century minds. The Civil war, however, is much closer to us. Young people may not be able to empathize, but people in their late-forties and older will probably remember a grandfather or great grandfather who lived during that time, so for us the Civil War is still real. Nashville was occupied by the Union Army, and the bitterness from that occupation still shows up from time to time. Madison Jones' descriptions of the period and the emotion and the misery of war are vivid. When young Steven Moore's father tells him, "They have beat us, Steven", you can feel the agony and despair, and so throughout the book. There are many great Civil War novels, but Nashville 1864 should not be overlooked.

The Civil War from a Young Boy's Perspective

At the outbreak of the Civil War, 12-year-old Steven Moore watches on as his father Jason saddles up his horse to join other Confederates in the fight to protect Tennessee. After many months of hardship, Steven's youngest sister, Liza, becomes so gravely ill that he decides to find his father and to bring him home. With his mother's approval and a crude map, he and his companion, a young slave named Dink, set off into the heart of the battle to find his father.This is one of the most compelling novels of the Civil War, told from the perspective of a 12-year-old boy. Through his eyes, we see the area surrounding Nashville change from healthy farmland to desolate battle fields. The Confederate soldiers whom he knew to be proud and strong turn out to be haunted men with sallow faces, bare feet and rags for clothing. He and Dink watch some of the fighting firsthand: the booming of the canons, the black troops fighting for the Union, the dead and the dying everywhere. And, still he continues to search for his father, diving deeper and deeper into the heart of the battle.With fantastically detailed imagery and strongly developed characters, Madison Jones has created a Civil War novel that appeals to all readers, both young and old. You have a real sense of what the war must have been like for a young boy, witnessing his family life upturned and almost destroyed. Nothing is romanticized. A strong novel for young adults and anyone interested in the Civil War.

A powerful miniature by a master

Madison Jones is one of the unheralded masters of contemporary American fiction. He has written powerful, compelling stories dealing with such explosive issues as racism (in his masterpiece A CRY OF ABSENCE), drugs, family conflict, and sex (AN EXILE, turned into the Gregory Peck film I WALK THE LINE).In the present volume Jones turns his attention to the waning days of the War Between the States, in which a young boy, with his black companion, goes searching for his father. This is not sugar-coated stuff. Jones casts an unflincing eye on the events, related in memoir form by the adult Steven, and the descriptions of war and its carnage are often graphic (but never exploitively so)in the manner, say, of Spielberg's SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. Jones never loses his moral focus, however. This is a story of love and courage, faithfulness and innocence, determination and loyalty.A short work but memorable nonetheless, by a novelist long overdue greater and wider attention.

Deserves all the fame that Cold Mountain achieved!

My interest in Civil War fiction started after reading Cold Mountain. When I saw Madison Jones' book reviewed in Chronicles Magazine I thought I must give it a try as well. And I am so glad I did! Jones has reached into the depths of the human instinct for survival in the face of doom and fashioned a masterpiece that will chill you to the bone. It is no wonder that it has garnered two literary awards so far. The most significant charm of the book for me was his avoidance of politically correct modern-day notions of antebellum racial relations (white man as oppressor; black man as victim), instead portraying a white family and their black servants in a situation of harmony, love, and mutual respect. This was quite a shock to me, having been brainwashed by public school propaganda and the media-fed hoax casting all white Southerners as brutal demons. (Northerners are always too enlightened and thus could never be racist right?). What a delight to see the table turned toward a scenario that was probably much closer to the truth in the majority of cases. It is this image of the war that I will forever carry with me, and I am indebted to Mr. Jones for bestowing it upon me.