Shrouds of Glory: From Atlanta to Nashville: The Last Great Campaign of the Civil War

by Winston Groom

Overview

The Pulitzer Prize–nominated author of Forrest Gump examines Confederate general John Bell Hood’s fateful maneuvers in the final moments of the Civil War.
 
In Shrouds of Glory, acclaimed novelist and historian Winston Groom introduces readers to the courageous but reckless Hood, prematurely thrust into the spotlight by a combination of destiny and fate. Witness the unlikely rise of this young Confederate, who graduated forty-fourth out of a class of fifty-two at West Point, as he overcomes the nearly fatal amputation of his shattered leg and eventually devises a strategy to turn the tide of the war.
 
Weaving together eyewitness accounts, journal entries, military communiqués, and newspaper headlines, Groom recreates the war from the charged battlefields to the general’s tent where Grant, Sherman, Lee, and others plotted their unorthodox strategies. He paints vivid portraits of the major players in the conflict, revealing the character, the faults, the emotions, and most of all the doubts that molded the course of the war.
 
“Storytelling with energy, surprise, freshness, power, and yes, art.” —Chicago Tribune
 
“Meticulously reconstructed . . . shows us the war in all its savagery.” —Los Angeles Times
 
“An excellent introduction into a complex campaign.” —Publishers Weekly
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781555847845
Publisher:	Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Publication date:	12/01/2007
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	172,790
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

Winston Groom is the author more than twelve books, including A Storm in Flanders, Forrest Gump, Better Times Than These, As Summers Die, and the prizewinning Civil War history Shrouds of Glory. His book Conversations with the Enemy was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. "If you see a line, go stand in it, probably can't hurt nothing" is a sample of the pithy wisdom of Forrest Gump by Gump's creator, Winston Groom. Winston Groom took the publishing world by storm when his 1986 novel Forrest Gump flew to the top of the New York Times bestseller list and stayed there for twenty-one weeks. It has sold over 2.5 million copies in the United States alone on the heels of its blockbuster movie adaptation starring Tom Hanks. The book has also been reprinted in at least thirteen countries. Born in 1943, Groom grew up in Mobile, Alabama. In 1965 he graduated from the University of Alabama and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Army. He served in Vietnam with the Fourth Infantry Division from July 1966 to September 1967 when he was honorably discharged with the rank of Captain.

He then spent the next eight years working as a reporter and columnist for the Washington Star before becoming a full-time author. He holds several honorary PhD degrees as a doctor of humane letters. In addition to Forrest Gump and Gump & Co., Groom's novels include Better Times Than These, the award-winning As Summers Die, which was made into a movie starring Bette Davis, Gone the Sun and Only. He is also the coauthor of Conversations with the Enemy, a nonfiction account of the experience of an American prisoner of war in Vietnam, brilliantly rendered and nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. His novel, Such a Pretty, Pretty Girl, was published by Random House in the spring of 1999. He has also written The Crimson Tide, a pictorial history of football at the University of Alabama which was published by the University of Alabama Press in the fall of 2000. He has recently finished a novel, El Paso, set in 1916. As well as being a talented novelist, Groom is also a serious student of history. On of his books, the prize-winning Shrouds of Glory is a meticulous, atmospheric history of the little known, but very dramatic, Western Campaign of the Civil War, inspired by tales of his great-grandfather who fought for the Confederate Army. A Storm in Flanders, his riveting World War I history, was published by Grove-Atlantic in 2002.

Groom has written for numerous magazines, including Vanity Fair, Southern Living, Conde NastTraveler, Newsweek, Esquire, and the New York Times Magazine and contributed editorial articles to the New York Times and the Washington Post. He has made repeated appearances on all the television network morning talk shows as well as PBS's Frontline and CBS' Sunday Morning. He is also in demand on the lecture circuit, not only because of Forrest Gump, but also for his history books.

He has also appeared as an actor in the acclaimed Warner Brothers movie of Willie Morris' novel, My Dog Skip. The first weekend of June each year, Groom leads a popular literary festival at the North Carolina mountain resort of High Hampton. Past guests have included: Pat Conroy, William Styron, George Plimpton, Shana Alexander, Gay Talese, Kaye Gibbons, Peter Maas, Willie Morris and P.J. O'Rourke.

Groom lives with his wife, Anne-Clinton and their daughter, Carolina, in the mountains of North Carolina and Point Clear, Alabama, where he enjoys the public's continued warm response to his loveable, unlikely hero, Forrest Gump. He believes as Forrest says, "Always be able to look back and say, 'At least, I didn't lead no humdrum life.'"