The Forge is the first book in the Vaiden Trilogy by award-winning Alabama author T. S. Stribling. Originally published in 1931, The Forge introduces the Vaiden family, residents of the rural north Alabama of Stribling's own youth. The Vaidens are a family of white yeoman farmers who scratch out a living in the social and financial shadow of the Lacefields, masters of an opulent plantation nearby.

The novel opens on Alabama's secession and the onset of the Civil War. It traces the story of Miltiades Vaiden, who enlists in the Confederate army, and explores the ways the...