Nostalgia Author:Dennis McFarland **Winner of the Michael Shaara Prize for Excellence in Civil War Fiction** — **Washington Post Best 50 Books of the Year** — Set during the Civil War, this stunning novel from bestselling author Dennis McFarland follows a nineteen-year-old private who is struggling to regain his identity in an overturned American landscape. — In the winter of 1864,... more » Summerfield Hayes, a pitcher for the famous Eckford Club, enlists in the Union army, leaving his beloved sister alone in their Brooklyn home. After a particularly grim experience on the battlefield?deserted by his comrades and suffering from deafness and disorientation?he attempts to make his way home but instead lands in a Washington military hospital, mute and unable even to write his name. Among the people he encounters in this twilit realm?including a compassionate drug-addicted amputee, the ward matron who only appears to be his enemy, and the captain who is convinced that Hayes is faking his illness?is a gray-bearded eccentric who visits the ward daily and becomes Hayes?s strongest advocate: Walt Whitman.« less