A Journey Beyond Innocence

About the Book

 William Stone had a plan for his life. He would marry Olivia Moore, practice medicine in Selma, Alabama, and expand his love of creating anatomical drawings. The Battle of Shiloh in April, 1862 changed those plans. When a Tennessee newspaper brought news of an approaching Union Army, William decided to travel north. He would offer his assistance as a medical officer under the command of John Hunt Morgan. William arrived in Middle Tennessee in time to participate in the Battle of Hartsville. A Union garrison had set up camp around the Averitt House and in the valley below. Morgan’s forces crossed the Cumberland River before the Union troops had finished their morning coffee on December 7. After capturing the Union brigade and supplies, the Confederated soldiers re-crossed the river completing their mission just prior to the arrival of a larger Union army. William Stone chose to stay in the Averitt house. He would provide care for the wounded soldiers from both sides of the conflict. From there, he would face the brunt of anger incurred by this Union defeat.

About the Author

Jim Herod was raised in an enchanted place a little south of Selma, Alabama. He was educated at the University of Alabama and the University of North Carolina. For thirty-five years, he told stories about science and mathematics at Georgia Tech, the University of Montana, the United States Military Academy at West Point, and the University of Karlsruhe. There was another story that needed to be told. It was the story of the young Confederate soldier who bled on the floor of the house known in Hartsville, Tennessee, as the Averitt-Herod House. It would be the story of a journey by a young man too innocent to anticipate what could happen on the battlefields and in the prisons during the War Between the States. Herod now lives and writes from the edge of The Nethermost in Grove Hill, Alabama.