Marching through Georgia: My Walk along Sherman's Route [Paperback]

JERRY ELLIS is a writer and folk artist living in Ft. Payne, Alabama. He is the author of several books, including Walking the Trail: One Man's Journey along the Trail of Tears and Bareback! One Man's Journey along the Pony Express Trail.

In 1864 William Tecumseh Sherman made Civil War history with his infamous March to the Sea across Georgia. More than a century later, Jerry Ellis set out along the same route in search of the past and his southern and Cherokee heritage.

On Ellis's trek by foot from Atlanta to Savannah, he confronts the contradictions and complexities of his native region as he reflects on his own. From Macon's fabled Goat Man to Arthur "Cowboy" Brown, the Savannah street musician, we meet a vibrant, unregimented people, all of whom, like Ellis, are looking for their place with one eye on the past and one on the present.

A book about seemingly ordinary people who do seemingly ordinary things, from drinking whisky to tending goats, that under Ellis's deft stylistic touch and wry sense of humor become extraordinary.

Sheds new light on an important part of our history . . . We discover what it meant and still means to be a southerner.

[Ellis] shows us where we're going by taking us where we've been, and Marching Through Georgia makes a fine journey of it in the process.

In 1864 Sherman made Civil War history with his infamous March to the Sea across Georgia. More than a century later, Jerry Ellis set out along the same route in search of the past and his southern and Cherokee heritage. On his trek he confronts the contradictions and complexities of his native region as he reflects on his own.