Civil War author and preservationist Robert Hicks dies at 71

Robert Hicks, whose best-selling novel “The Widow of the South,” set during the 1864 Battle of Franklin, Tenn., evoked the bravery and bloodshed that he sought to memorialize as a leading preservationist of Civil War history, died Feb. 25 at his home in Franklin. He was 71. Mr. Hicks helped lead Franklin’s Charge, a nonprofit organization founded in 2005 to preserve the Civil War battle sites of Middle Tennessee and to educate the public about the history that transpired there. -- Article