Set in the Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee, Haun's stories of Appalachian life capture the forceful simplicity of the legends and ballads that still live in the rural hollows.

Combining biography, folklore, oral history, and ethnomusicology, this book explores the life and repertoire of the Scottish traditional singer Jeannie Robertson (1908-1975) - an artist whom Alan Lomax hailed as "a monumental figure in twentieth-century folksong". Utilizing numerous quotations from Robertson's own oral accounts of her life, James Porter and Herschel Gower trace her career as a member of the marginal nomadic group in Northeast Scotland known as "travellers", whose origin is obscure. They explain the importance of traditional song in Robertson's family and community and include...

As a young man Charles Dahlgren, brother of the famous Union admiral John A. Dahlgren, moved from Pennsylvania to Natchez, Mississippi, in search of glory. He made a spectacular start by acquiring two mansions overlooking the Mississippi River and cultivating acres of cotton fields in Louisiana. Determined to defend his dynasty at the outbreak of the Civil War, Dahlgren accepted an ill-fated commission as brigadier general of volunteers in the Mississippi militia. Ultimately his dreams crumbled with those of the Confederacy, but he survived his losses as a Confederate carpetbagger engaged in...