Stones River: A Civil War Story of Courage, Sacrifice, and an Otherworldly Love

JESSIE GIBBS is a shy twenty-six-year-old musician who feels stuck in both her musical ambitions and her romantic desires. She plays in a Civil War-style band, and, one summer night, camping out with her group near the Stones River National Battlefield in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, she meets a young man in the woods. LEMUEL SANDERS is handsome, with an old-fashioned courtesy. The attraction between them is powerful.

Then he shocks her with the revelation that he is the spirit of a soldier killed in the 1862 battle of Stones River. Unaware that 144 years have passed, Lem has kept vigil at the unmarked wilderness grave where he and six other comrades were buried, in order to fulfill a twofold mission: find someone who will seek out his family in Tennessee's Great Smoky Mountains and tell them of his death and burial place, and have a minister give a proper blessing to the seven occupants of the mass grave. Only then will he feel free to go to his final rest.

Overcoming her initial horror, Jessie agrees to assist him. Throughout the summer Lem tells her his tragic, self-sacrificing war story. As love grows between them, Jessie faces a dilemma: If she helps him achieve his goal, she will lose him to the afterlife. However, if she fails and he remains in the world, she fears she'll never be free to find a real-life love.

Jessie's quest to fulfill Lem's mission draws forth qualities that she has never believed she possessed: the courage to approach strangers in search of his family, the boldness to help block a real estate development that threatens to destroy the gravesite, and the resourcefulness to have the grave excavated and the remains identified.

On the 145^th anniversary of his death, Lem is given a funeral. Present are Jessie and the Sanders family members she has succeeded in finding, including a young man who stuns Jessie with his resemblance to her lost love. Avery Gowan, Lem's great-great-great nephew, is a soldier newly returned from Iraq, and Jessie recognizes the marks of war's horror on his familiar features.

After everyone has left the gravesite, Jessie stays behind and discovers a hand-carved wooden ring of the kind Lem used to make as a soldier. She knows it is a sign to her from Lem that he is now at peace. She knows, too, that their love has given her the confidence to move forward with her musical career, and hopefully, in time, to find an intimate relationship that can endure.