Cease firing

Mary Johnston's Cease Firing concludes the sweeping narrative of the Civil War begun in The Long Roll, also available from Johns Hopkins. Cease Firing continues the story of Richard Cleave of Virginia, Confederate artillery commander, following him as the war effort of the Confederacy begins to falter. Also featured prominently is the Confederate commander General Joseph E. Johnston, the author's own grandfather. From the siege of Vicksburg, through the battles of Gettysburg, Chickamauga, the Wilderness, and Spotsylvania, to the surrender at Appomattox, Johnston tells an epic story of the war while giving that terrible conflict a human scale. Using a variety of narrative voices to tell her tale, many drawn from actual memoirs and transcripts, Johnston produces skilled prose to evoke the emotions felt on both sides as the tide of victory turned against the Confederacy.