Cold Mountain

In Charles Frazier's award-winning book, Cold Mountain, Inman is a grievously wounded Confederate soldier who has had enough of war. After nearly losing his life, he walks south - convinced he will never turn back.

At the beginning of the story (on page 9 of the paperback edition), Inman thinks about the awful battles he has experienced as a Confederate soldier:

Where to begin? . . . Malvern Hill. Sharpsburg. Petersburg. Any would do admirably as example of unwelcome visions. But Fredericksburg was a day particularly lodged in his mind.

Later, Inman ponders Petersburg, the battle scene of his near-fatal injury. What was the battle of Petersburg really like? Could it have so traumatized a Confederate soldier - like Inman - that he would leave his post without permission?

Thanks to America's National Archives, we can examine primary sources of the battle. Some of the photographs, including those of a subsequent siege - the longest in U.S. history - are gruesome. The experience must have been forever seared in the memory of those who survived.