It has been too easy in many of these volumes to dismiss the proceedings as being more the Civil War Soap Opera series, but with the death of Duncan Ebersole and that entire convoluted plotline along with the war coming to an end, the battle sequences easily outweigh the relationship entanglements. In terms of the Brannon family "Savannah" focuses primarily on Cory, who is with the troops defending Atlanta and then Savannah, and Henry, who ends up with General Nathan Bedford Forrest in Tennessee after fleeing the family farm in Virginia. That is because the one soap opera element this time around involved young Cordelia and a Yankee lieutenant. We touch base a bit with Pie and Rachel, as well as Lucille, out on the Texas frontier, while Nathan Hatchers ends up in the Dakotas fighting Indians, but these are minor episodes in the novel. The main focus is on what is essentially the end of the Civil War in the West. All that is left is Charleston to fall to Sherman as he moves north to join up with Grant's Army of the Potomac, which will move on Appomattox in the final volume of the series.

From the dearth of reviews of "Savannah" and the last couple of Civil War Battle Series books by Reasoner I assume that readership has fallen off. Certainly there is no reason to pick up Book 9 unless you have gone through the rest of the series. I have to admit that I was actually rooting for one of the Bannon brothers to get killed simply because it was getting to be a bit much with the entire clan surviving so long into the war; although I appreciate the narrative necessity of having enough brothers to cover the key aspects of the Civil War in both the Eastern and Western theaters. The whole business with Polly Ebersole, her father, and the Bannons was probably the biggest flaw in Reasoner's grand design because it came off as some sort of twisted Shakespearean tragedy that distracted from the more real issues of fighting and surviving the war. But on the other hand, I had to keep reading the series at least until somebody put Duncan in the ground. Now all that is left to be buried in this series is the Confederacy and which ever Brannons fall in the last months of the Civil War.

Cory, now with General Hardee's troops, takes part in the long, fruitless struggle to save Atlanta from the advancing Federal troops under General William Tecumseh Sherman. With Atlanta falling, Cory finds himself forced to march to Savannah, Georgia, even further from his beloved wife Lucille.

Meanwhile, Cory's best friend, and former comrade-in-arms, Pie Jones and his wife Rachel, find themselves near the Brazos River in Texas, where they have fled to avoid Rachel's former owner, Grat. Beset by Confederate deserters, they are rescued by a troop of stalwart Texas Rangers. Riding with the Rangers for protection to the troop captain's ranch, Pie soon finds himself, along with the Rangers, in the midst of a fierce battle with raiding Comanches.

Cory's wife Lucille befriends an English blockade-runner, then, along with her aunt, Mildred, finds herself forced to flee to west Texas, hoping against hope Cory will find her once he's free from service in the Confederate Army.

And, back home in Virginia, at the Brannon farm, Cordelia finds a new beau. When Henry defends his sister from an attacking Yankee , killing the assailant, he, unaware the man has deserted the Union army, and believing he will be executed for killing a Federal soldier, flees, to join up with the Confederate Army, the last Brannon son to head to war.

As were the previous eight volumes, SAVANNAH is a gripping tale of one family's struggles during the Civil War. Mr. Reasoner's research continues to amaze me (he incorporates many real-life minor characters, such as Elizabeth Caldwell, a wife who marches with her husband Patrick, a former Confederate soldier now a galvanized Yankee, across Dakota Territory), and the stories are all richly detailed, and geographically accurate.

I highly recommend the entire Civil War Battle Series. The tenth, and final, volume, APPOMATTOX, will be released sometime this fall. Don't miss it.