Fear and brutality grip Columbia, South Carolina, in the harsh winter of 1865 as General William Tecumseh Sherman continues his fiery march to the sea and advances on the capital city where secession began. John Mark Sibley-Jones s By the Red Glare takes us into the lives of representative citizens black and white, men and women, Confederates and Unionists, civilians and combatants, freed and shackled, sane and insane on the eve of historic destruction.
The Columbia hospital is overcrowded with wounded soldiers from both sides. As word of Sherman s advance spreads, old animosities...