And the Crows Took Their Eyes

In bitterly divided western North Carolina, Confederate troops execute thirteen men and boys suspected of Unionism. The Shelton Laurel Massacre, as it came to be known, is a microcosm of the horrors of civil warneighbor against neighbor and violence at ones own front door. Told by those who lived itthe colonels wife, a helpless witness; the jealous second-in-command who gives the fatal order; the canny mountain woman who cares only for her people and her land; the conscript, a haunted man seeking redemption; and the mute girl, whose folk magic yields an unexpected resultthese voices offer an intimate glimpse into the lives of five people tangled in historys web, caught up together in love and hate. See more