Manassas

Set in the years before the Civil War, the story opens on a Mississippi plantation where Allan Montague, a boy of about twenty years before the conflict, has been raised to see slavery as an ordinary part of life. His father takes him north to Boston on business, and Allan travels with a knife his cousin has given him, intended for use against abolitionists.

In Boston, Allan's first encounter with an abolitionist is Levi Coffin, a man usually credited with founding the Underground Railroad. The two become friends, and Coffin later brings the boy to hear Frederick Douglass, a former slave, speak. Douglass's words reshape Allan's views and set him on a new course.

His changed convictions send him back to the Deep South, where he hopes to help free enslaved people, and eventually lead him north again to the Battle of Manassas. The novel moves through many encounters with real historical figures, and it is written as a work of historical fiction.