A young Confederate sharpshooter, Charlie Merrill, has already suffered many losses in his life, but he must find a way to endure—and to grow—if he is to survive the battles he and his fellow soldiers face in July 1864 at the gates of Atlanta. From the opening salvos on Rocky Face Ridge in northwest Georgia through the trials of Resaca and Kennesaw Mountain, Charlie faces the overwhelming force of the Union army and a growing uncertainty about his place in the war.
Framed by a story that finds the elderly Charlie giving a speech on the fiftieth anniversary of the Battle of Atlanta, A Distant Flame portrays love, violence, and regret about wrong paths taken. With an attention to historical detail that brings the past powerfully to the present, Philip Lee Williams reveals Charlie's journey of redemption from the Civil War's fields of fire to the slow steps of old age.
- ISBN13 9780820339627
- Publish Date 30 April 2011 (first published 1 September 2004)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Imprint University of Georgia Press
- Format eBook
- Pages 328
- Language English