The area where author Henry Wise's Holy City takes place—Southside—encompasses a swath of counties in the southern portion of Virginia's Piedmont region. Southside stretches from the James River south to the North Carolina border and extends as far east as Isle of Wight and Southampton Counties, bounded along the western edge by the foothills of the Blue Ridge.

Its history is rich in landmark events. In the nineteenth century, Southside comprised counties with some of Virginia's largest enslaved populations, and the region was the setting of two of the most dramatic episodes of the Civil War: Ulysses S. Grant's siege of Petersburg, Virginia, in 1865, led to Robert E. Lee's eventual retreat from the city on April 2 and his surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House on April 9. In the twentieth century, Southside emerged in the national consciousness again during the fight for civil rights for Black Americans. In Prince Edward County in 1951, ...