Cold Mountain: A Novel by Charles Frazier, Paperback. Cold Mountain: A Novel by Charles Frazier (Paperback) 1998 Published by Vintage Books a div or Random House. Historical Civil War Fiction.
The novel opens in a Confederate military hospital near Raleigh, North Carolina, where Inman is recovering from battle wounds during the American Civil War. The soldier is tired of fighting for a cause he never believed in. After considering the advice from a blind man and moved by the death of the man in the bed next to him, he decides one nightfall to slip out of the hospital and return home to Cold Mountain, North Carolina.

At Cold Mountain, Ada's father soon dies. The farm, named Black Cove, that the genteel, city-bred Ada lives on is soon reduced to a state of disrepair. But she is saved from destitution by a resourceful-but-homeless young woman named Ruby, who soon moves in with her. Together, they clean the place up and return it to productivity. Ruby also teaches Ada how to survive in these very different times. Ada shares her knowledge of literature with Ruby.