Seventeen year old Clayton Crist stood in front of a long line of boxcars. He carried two pistols, his rifle, and a bowie knife. The enthusiasm was so strong inside him, he remembered. He was on his way to Nashville to join the Third and Eleven regiments . Clayton served with the First Tennessee regiment throughout the entire Civil War, seeing action from Shiloh, to Chickamauga. His fearless conduct during combat made him a legendary figure who some say killed 25 men in one battle, and hundreds throughout the war. The descriptions of the fighting, killing, and dying in the battle scenes are awesome. Quarles offers a tale of death from the battlefields to a struggle for freedom within.
