Shenandoah, Vol. 8 Book

In Shenandoah, the scene returns to Culpeper County, Virginia. Titus Brannon returns home on Christmas Day, 1863, a little over a year after his disappearance in battle, only to learn that his wife, Polly, is now married to his brother Henry. And she is pregnant.

Titus does not accept Polly and Henry’s marriage, and when a judge agrees that she is still his wife, he refuses to agree to a divorce. Later, she is found dead at her father’s plantation and the evidence points to Titus. Proven innocent of the crime, he leaves home to join the rangers of John S. Mosby. In the Spring, Will Brannon rejoins Robert E. Lee’s army as its resists the Union army’s march on Richmond led by U.S. Grant. During the contest at Cold Harbor, he is killed.

The Confederacy and the Brannons have suffered much in 1864. Now even the hotheaded Titus—who has vowed revenge on the Yankee army that is ravaging the Shenandoah Valley—begins to wonder if the nation and his family will survive into 1865.