Stories They Left Behind
The Civil War ended with signatures at Appomattox, but no stroke of pen could still the storms that raged through the South. The battlefields emptied, yet the air remained heavy with smoke—unseen, unyielding, and forming in parlors, pews, and plowed furrows. Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee each emerged from the ruins in their own way, yet their stories twined together like tangled roots beneath scorched earth.
