I would like to thank the librarians at Emory University and others in Georgia and North Carolina for providing me with maps and more than two dozen history texts and biographies, written by both English and American authors. They also helped me understand how people traveled, fought battles, grew crops, made shoes, and what words were used during the eighteenth century.

My wife, Rosalynn, was my earliest editor, and her questions about the interrelationship of characters, both historical and fictional, were incisive and helpful.

The strong influence of Michael Korda and Alice Mayhew, editors at Simon & Schuster, provided the necessary incentive for me to arrange the text in a more logical fashion and, with some pain and reluctance, to reduce its original length.

As with all my other books, Faye Perdue provided easy and pleasant communication with the editors and librarians and handled the myriad details of a book’s being born.

Principal Characters

Ethan Pratt (wife, Epsey): frontiersman, later Georgia militiaman

Henry Pratt (wife, Sophronia): Ethan’s brother, member of North Carolina Regulators

Joseph Maddock: Quaker leader

Kindred Morris (wife, Mavis): naturalist, neighbor of Ethan Pratt

Newota: young Indian, neighbor of the Pratts and Morrises

Elijah Clarke (wife, Hannah): organizer and leader of Georgia militia

Aaron Hart: aide to Elijah Clarke

Lachlan McIntosh: Georgia military commander

Button Gwinnett: Georgia political leader

Thomas Brown: organizer and leader of Florida Rangers

Quash Dolly: slave woman

OTHERS

Georgia militia leaders: James Jackson, John Dooly, William Few

South Carolina militia leaders: Andrew Pickens, Francis Marion, Francis Sumter

Continental military commanders: George Washington, Charles Lee, Benjamin Lincoln, Robert Howe, John Ashe, Horatio Gates, Nathanael Greene, Daniel Morgan, “Lighthorse Harry” Lee, “Mad Anthony” Wayne

British military commanders: Thomas Gage, William Howe, Henry Clinton, Charles Cornwallis, Augustine Prevost, Alured Clarke, Banastre Tarleton, Patrick Ferguson

Royal governors: William Tryon, North Carolina; James Wright, Georgia; William Campbell, South Carolina; Earl Dunmore, Virginia

Georgia’s elected leaders: Council of Safety President Archibald Bulloch, Governors John Adam Treutlen and John Houstoun

Aides to Thomas Brown: Alonzo Baker, Chief Sunoma, Daniel McGirth, James Grierson

Chesley Bostick: a Son of Liberty, Brown’s persecutor

Emistisiguo: distinguished Indian chief

Herman Husband: leader of North Carolina Regulators

John Stuart: Royal Indian superintendent

William Bartram: naturalist, explorer

William Henry Drayton: South Carolina firebrand patriot

Count d’Estaing: French naval commander

BOOK I

1763–1773

CHAPTER 1

The Philadelphia Cordwainers

1763