The Fateful Lightning

by Jeff Shaara Book 4 in the The Civil War in the West series.

First published 2015

Amazon

4.5(5,825)

In the closing phase of the Civil War, William Tecumseh Sherman leaves Atlanta and marches across Georgia towards Savannah, destroying railways and supplies that sustain the Confederate war effort. Soldiers, freed people and civilians experience the campaign from sharply different positions as the armies move through a landscape stripped by war.

Sherman then turns north into the Carolinas, where Joseph E. Johnston gathers the remaining Confederate forces for a final resistance. The campaign through South Carolina and the battles in North Carolina unfold alongside the collapse of Confederate authority. The novel ends with surrender approaching and the country facing emancipation, ruin and an uncertain peace.