Hugh and Serena Hallam have left everything they knew in Charleston behind, hoping to create a stable, productive home for themselves and their three children in the near-wilderness of West Tennessee. Though now war may loom on the horizon, life at Palmyra is good, for both themselves and—so they believe—their slaves. And Hugh is convinced that reasonable men of good will with a tolerant respect for their countrymen might yet prevail against the increasingly tense atmosphere that is dividing the two American cultures.
Capable and practical, he is nevertheless considered by his neighbors to be an idealist, with progressive notions concerning the science of agriculture and the requirements of Southern commerce, an ambivalent attitude toward slavery, and a confidence about the way things should be done. But when events move their entire world toward destruction, Hugh's values are put to the test, with only his surpassing love for Serena, his surprising strength, and his own belief in himself to possibly sustain him.<
Elisabeth Payne Rosen's powerful debut is authentic and carefully researched. From Nashville and Memphis to Richmond, Charleston and Washington, D.C., and across the bloody battlefields of Shiloh and Bull Run, Rosen brings vividly to life a tragic, heart-rending tale shot through with moments of beauty and joy.
