“The excitement of December and January – when Anderson’s men had expected a Southern assault at any moment and were ready, even eager, to fight – had given way to a surreal calm, a stasis that seemed as if it might last forever, with the little band of soldiers fixed eternally on a point around which history’s wheel would continue to turn, never touching them.”

The above is but one entry in an exceptionally well written and continually unfolding account of the American Civil War.