"On the eighteenth, the Federal forces appeared on the Jackson and Grapevine road, east of the town. The two following days were spent by the blue in making their lines of circumvallation. The grey and the blue lines were about eight hundred yards apart. On the twenty-second, the ironclads came up the river from Grand Gulf. When they opened fire on the town and its defenses, which they did almost immediately, the siege of Vicksburg was formally begun"--from Cease Firing Beginning with the Battle of Vicksburg and concluding at Appomattox, Mary Johnston"s Cease Firing picks up where The Long Roll leaves off. Another of the great Civil War novels eclipsed by Gone with the Wind, Cease Firing features Richard Cleave of Virginia, Confederate artillery commander and hero of Johnston"s previous novel. Johnston leads us with a sure and expert hand through the battles of Gettysburg, Chichamauga, the Wilderness, and Spotsylvania, and we feel the emotional weight as the tide of victory turns against the Confederacy. Featured prominently as the confederate commander is General Joseph E. Johnston, the author"s own grandfather.