With this Pledge — Tamera Alexander

What can a woman -- a mere governess -- do against the scourge of slavery?

Elizabeth “Lizzie” Clouston's quietly held principles oppose those of the Southern Cause -- but when forty thousand soldiers converge on the fields of Franklin, Tennessee, the war demands an answer. The Carnton home, where she is governess, is converted into a Confederate field hospital; and Lizzie must gather up her fortitude to assist the military doctor with surgeries that determine life or death -- even as she fears for the life of Towny, her fiancé and lifelong friend.

A young soldier's last wish is that she convey an urgent message to his mother. She vows to do so, but Lizzie knows little more than the boy's first name. That same night, decorated Mississippi sharpshooter Captain Roland Ward Jones extracts a different promise from Lizzie: that she intervene should the surgeon decide to amputate his leg.

Lizzie is nothing if not a woman of her word, earning the soldiers' respect as she tends to the wounded within Carnton's walls. None is more admiring than Captain Jones, who doesn't realize she is already pledged to another. When Towny vanishes after a crushing battle in Nashville, Lizzie must confront the costs of war. And torn between love, principles, and promises made, she struggles to be true to her own heart while standing for what she knows is right -- no matter the cost.

From the pages of history and the personal accounts of those who endured the Battle of Franklin, Tamera Alexander weaves the real-life love letters between Captain Roland Ward Jones and Miss Elizabeth Clouston into a story of unlikely romance first kindled amid the shadows of war.