James Willis

The Other Side of Silence: a Civil War Novel James Willis

When CSA Lieutenant William Joseph Butler, or Billy, as family and friends know him, becomes a target of revenge for a wealthy planter on the Mississippi, Billy's father allows him to follow his brother into the army. Seventeen-year-old Billy finds his brother and regiment at Corinth, just before the battle of Shiloh in April of 1862. War is not what young Billy imagined it to be. Educated and inquisitive, he questions much of what he sees and experiences, and Billy finds himself contemplating the true nature and validity of the war he's fighting-and losing. After his first battle, Billy realizes glory is not a holy grail to be sought or bought-glory is made when soldiers are brutally slain, unable to strike the heroic pose. Yet Billy still finds reason to continue the war effort at each junction, risking losses beyond anything he has known in his short life. From the fragrant stalls of a livery stable to the bloodstained battlefields of the Civil War, The Other Side of Silence vividly portrays the life of a soldier who becomes disillusioned with war and the quest for glory.