Tap Roots
Description:...
In the second novel of the Dabney family saga, Sam'l Dabney is no
longer "ol' man Dabney's brat" but has become a rich and successful
aristocrat of such great influence that some call him the Father of
Mississippi and Alabama. Old and dying, he and Tishomingo, a prince of
the Choctaws, are all who are left of the group who fled the Promised
Land.
After Sam's death, the Dabney family, strong, greedy, and imbued with
raw courage, jeers at fate and dares the impossible. They secede from
Mississippi, organize an independent republic called the Free State of
Lebanon, and wage a no-quarter war against the might and millions of theConfederacy at a time when the Union seemed doomed. Some die in battle,others on the gallows, and only a few live to see the tiny spark they
kindled blaze into a fire for freedom.
The family is led by Sam's son, Hoab, a shouting abolitionist and
religious zealot, whose secret is still carefully guarded and, if ever
revealed, may rock the South. He and wife, Shellie, and their children —Cormac, red-headed Morna, in spirit much like her great-aunt, Honoria,
and the twins Aven and Bruce continue Sam's legacy — the tap root that
pushed through the loam and into the red clay bed of the valley and fromwhich the Dabney legacy continues to flourish. They are joined by
others — neighbor Claiborne MacIvor, who loved two Dabney women; Keith
Alexander, the morose and unbelievably handsome Black Knight of
Vengeance; and Reverend Kirkland, the pudgy little preacher who told a
great denomination, "I'll see you in hell before I surrender my rights. Iam but a feeble ripple, but behind me comes the whirlwind."
Tap Roots begins in 1858 and moves to a
thunderous climax in 1865. The book is based on the true story of the
"free state of Jones" in which the farmers and workmen of Jones County
in Mississippi decide to succeed from both the United States and the
Confederacy. In this part of the South there were few if any
plantations, most people worked their own farms and held no slaves and
they strongly resented being required "to fight a rich man's war". The
majority of settlers were also of Scots-Irish decent and did not believein slavery, so they decided to form a Republic of free men.
Tap Roots was a best seller and later made into a film starring Susan Hayward.
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