Paul Varnes

Through the story of one family, we learn how white settlers moved into the Florida territory, taking it from the natives with false treaties and finally all-out war. The natives in Florida had arrived there not long before, coming to fill the area left by earlier natives who had died off after t...

In 1861, as this story opens with the Yankee raid on the salt works at Cedar Key, Florida, a Confederate dollar is worth 90 cents in gold or silver. The Yankee soldiers, in their zeal to destroy the important Confederate salt works, kill young Henry Ferns step-pa, who has brought Henry to the Gul...