Publisher's Synopsis
Benjamin is a slave working on the Wagner plantation in 1859. He works as a blacksmith, but he also helps with picking cotton. Benjamin falls in love with Bessie, a fifteen-year-old girl working in Thomas Wagner's house. Benjamin takes Bessie as his wife and they have a son. Life is good for Benjamin and Bessie until after their son is born. Three weeks after little Ben is born, Thomas Wagner sells Bessie and the baby to a man in Birmingham. But Charles Madison does not live in Birmingham--he takes Bessie and three other slaves back to Louisiana to work on his sugar plantation. Benjamin runs away from the plantation looking for Bessie and little Ben, and he gets caught up in the Civil War.
