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western side of the village. Before them, the Union forces were amassed, well positioned with earthworks and long lines of cannon. But in those early hours, few men on either side were stirring. Clay thought of his friend, Wesley Fanning, and his ability to sleep in the most perilous conditions. He and Wes had fought side-by-side for over a year—ever since Clay returned from the hospital and found himself assigned to an infantry regiment commanded by General John B. Gordon. On that morning, even Wes was tossing fitfully in his blanket, trying to stay warm. Soft murmurings along the line of soldiers on each side of him confirmed the uneasy wakefulness of his comrades in arms.
    Shortly after first light, some of the boys on his left pulled some fence rails over behind the line and built a fire. Clay, staying low to keep from tempting a Yankee sniper, moved closer to catch some of the fire’s warmth. It seemed that the Union army must have been waiting for Clay to rouse himself. For he had no sooner joined those around the fire when the Yankee cannons roared out the initial barrage. Like angry dragons belching fire and thunder, they turned his section of the line into a heaving mass of smoking earth, sending all of the men scrambling back to their positions. Almost immediately, the Confederate cannons behind him opened fire, signaling the attack. Clay andWes exchanged glances, a silent promise that they would see each other again at the end of this day. Then joining in the fierce Rebel yell that had started back down the line, they left the cover of the fence row, and charged toward the waiting Union rifles.
    Wes Fanning advanced no more than thirty yards before he broke the unspoken promise just made moments before. Clay heard a soft exclamation, as if Wes had merely stubbed his toe—or cut his finger. When he turned to look at his friend, Wes collapsed heavily, a miniball having split his face apart. Clay would never forget the look of astonishment in Wes’s eyes. His mind registered the horror of it, but there was no time to ponder the loss of his friend. Finding himself in a storm of flying lead, he forced himself to charge forward, his rifle before him. He went forward mindlessly, for the simple reason that the men on either side of him went forward. In the heat of the cannons’ thunder and the whining miniballs, all reasonable thoughts were abandoned—charging onward through the hailstorm of death, not even aware of his own maniacal yell until the whole world was suddenly plunged into darkness.
    The Confederate attack had been thrown back. Still the fighting went on for two hours before General Gordon sent word to General Lee that he could hold no longer. The final hour of the Confederacy was at hand when Lee was forced to send a flag of truce to General Sheridan’s headquarters. It was over. Clay remembered very little of the events that took place on that day, or the days that followed. Lee’s surrender to Grant in the McLean house near Appomattox Court House, the disarming of the troops, were all merely blurs in Clay’s memory as he lay unconscious in a makeshift hospital on the edge of the village.
     
    Now, months after the surrender, Clay found himself a survivor, back from the dead—healed physically, but still permanently scarred inside as he stood gazing upon his home. When that Union cannon exploded almost point-blank before him, hurling him into total darkness, it was no less than a miracle that he had managed to emerge from death’s waiting embrace. For months, not knowing who he was, or where he came from, he lay bedridden, tended by a kind Virginia family, who were more than willing to give comfort to one of the South’s fighting men. Their name was Loudon, and they had lost a son, John, in the long siege of Petersburg. Clay supposed they saw something of their son in him, prompting them to take him from the ghastly hospital where he had been left to die.
    Gradually Clay’s lost identity began to