No Drums takes readers into the homes and hearts of the individuals, families, and communities on the home front of the Civil War in Tioga County, New York. First published in 1951, this novel is both a dramatic story of war and a moving tale about living in its shadow. Through a vividly drawn cast of characters centered around George and Nancy Wilson and their family and friends, E. R. Eastman re-creates the daily life of rural America in the mid-nineteenth century-how crops were planted, cultivated, and harvested, how meals were prepared for the table-and the debates that took place in many...

When a party of four women, five men, and a ten-year-old boy leave their comfortable homes in eastern New York and faced westward on a cold February morning in the year 1807, they knew they would need a full measure of endurance and courage, but they were far from knowing the challenges and adventures that lay ahead in the newly opened Iroquois lands around the Finger Lakes. In this carefully researched historical novel, E. R. Eastman tells the story of the pioneers who settled "Genesee Country" of frontier New York in the early nineteenth century. The Settlers brings to life men and women of...