A White River: Being a Partial Accounting of the Liner, Rush and Turpin Families of Western North Carolina, Their Free Negro Acquaintances, as well as ... Regiments in the War Between the States

We are wisely urged not to judge other cultures or times by current strictures. To our credit, we usually subscribe to this admonition, excepting, it seems to me, in the consideration of our own antebellum South. Slavery was, and is, an abomination, but that does not define the whole South or its people. Most in the Confederacy fought for honor and country. I think, in the midst of the malignancy that was slavery, somewhere in the shame and magnificence that was the South, there were people, men and women, black and white, who not only formed friendships, but also respected each other. I believe some came to love each other. I believe this happened and I have written about it.