A Sound Of Distant Thunder

A Sound Of Distant Thunder is historical fiction set during the last year of the American Civil War in Virginia. It centers on Petersburg, where the citizens have managed to avoid most of the war's hardships — until that situation changes in the spring of 1864.

After failing to take Richmond by direct attack, the Union Army of the Potomac moves undetected toward Petersburg. What follows is nine months of siege, ending with a horrible death march to Appomattox Courthouse and the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia.

The story centers on the Stoner family of Oak Manor: Jacob, the patriarch holding to his Christian belief that fighting is wrong; John, his eldest, whose hatred threatens to consume him; Emily, John's wife, suddenly the matriarch of a plantation under siege; Sarah, who must find strength where she did not look for it; and young Paul, sixteen and aching to prove himself. Around them: Taylor Kendall of the Stonewall Brigade, Lindsey Archibald, and the faithful Hezekiah, whose loyalty becomes the family's anchor.

Through the Battle of the Wilderness, the Bloody Angle, the Siege of Petersburg, the prison camps at Point Lookout and Elmira, and the destruction of the Shenandoah Valley, Sherrill weaves history into the personal journeys of his characters — capturing the burden of faith and the cost of moral conviction in a nation tearing itself apart.