Reprise: Sharpshooter

Literary critic and writing professor David Madden’s 1996 novel Sharpshooter is the only other fiction I’m aware of about the Siege of Knoxville and, very briefly, the Battle of Fort Sanders.

It’s a good story, worth your money (as little as one penny plus shipping used at Amazon) and time (at 160 pages it’s a short read), though it’s more about the broader war and a veteran’s confused memory than the siege, more about the East Tennessee region than Knoxville or the battle.

Madden’s main character, Willis Carr, is a young, Confederate sniper (sharpshooter in the parlance of the day) who may (or may not) have been the one who potshotted Union General William P. Sanders from the tower at Bleak House. Carr just can’t remember for sure.

About Dick Stanley

Retired Texas daily newspaperman
This entry was posted in Bleak House, Civil War armament, Gen. William T. Wofford and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink.

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