This collection of 17 biographies provides a unique opportunity for the reader to go beyond the popular heroes of the American Revolution and discover the diverse populace that inhabited the colonies during this pivotal point in history.

Thomas Brown was a key loyalist on the southern front during the American Revolution. In the course of exploring Thomas Brown, this text also covers aspects such as colonial migration, diplomacy, the British evacuation of the southernmost colonies, and the formation of settlements in the Caribbean.

When examining the course of the American Revolution in the South, one often finds references to the activities of Thomas Brown, a key loyalist on the southern frontier. History, however, has relegated Brown to the status of a dark, almost mythical figure, remembering him most as the man who, by hanging thirteen patriots as vindication for his treatment at the hands of the Sons of Liberty, embodied the villainy of the king himself.

In the course of bringing Thomas Brown from the shadows of myth into the full light of history, The King's Ranger explores not only military history but also such aspects of the American past as colonial migration, upheaval in the backcountry, Indian diplomacy, the British evacuation of the southernmost colonies, and the formation of new settlements in the Caribbean. Using Brown's career as the thread to weave together these disparate themes, Edward Cashin provides a lucid, panoramic view of the Revolutionary period in the South.

These essays look at southern social customs within a single city in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In particular, the volume focuses on paternalism between masters and slaves, husbands and wives, elites and the masses, and industrialists and workers. How Augusta's millworkers, homemakers, and others resisted, exploited, or endured the constraints of paternalism reveals the complex interplay between race, class, and gender. One essay looks at the subordinating effects of paternalism on women in the Old South-slave, free black, and white-and the coping strategies available to each group. Another focuses on the Knights of Labor union in Augusta. With their trappings of chivalry, the Knights are viewed as a response by Augusta's white male millworkers to the emasculating "maternalism" to which they were subjected by their own wives and daughters and those of mill owners and managers. Millworkers are also the topic of a study of mission work in their communities, a study that gauges the extent to which religious outreach by elites was a means of social control rather than an outpouring of genuine concern for worker welfare. Other essays discuss Augusta's "aristocracy of color," who had to endure the same effronteries of segregation as the city's poorest blacks; the role of interracial cooperation in the founding of the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church as a denomination, and of Augusta's historic Trinity CME Church; and William Jefferson White, an African American minister, newspaper editor, and founder of Morehouse College. The varied and creative responses to paternalism discussed here open new ways to view relationships based on power and negotiated between men and women, blacks and whites, and the prosperous and the poor.

This collection of essays grew out of a symposium commemorating the 250th anniversary of the founding of Georgia. The contributors are authorities in their respective fields and their efforts represent not only the fruits of long careers but also the observations and insights of some of the most promising young scholars. "Forty Years of Diversity" sheds new light on the social, political, religious, and ethnic diversity of colonial Georgia.

Henry Ellis (1721-1806) is recognized as the most capable of Georgia's three colonial governors. In this biography Edward J. Cashin presents the fullest account to date of Ellis's life, and shows that his tenure as governor of Georgia was but one of many accomplishments by a man of exemplary intelligence, courage, and vision. Cashin puts Ellis's life and career the context of the great cultural migrations, encounters, and conflicts of British imperial and American colonial history. As he traces Ellis's rise from one who implemented British foreign policy to one who played a crucial hand in formulating it, Cashin reveals the inner workings of the imperial bureaucracy and shows how colonial politics were inextricably linked to the intrigues of the royal court and the vagaries of the nobility's patronage system. The book's first chapters recall Ellis's youth and formative years as a transplanted Briton in Ireland, and then tell of his seafaring exploits as he searched Canada's arctic waters for the Northwest Passage and engaged in the slave trade between Africa, the Caribbean, and the American Colonies - all the while enhancing his reputation as an explorer, scientist, and man of his letters. As Georgia's governor (1757-1760) Ellis came to be known as the colony's "Second Founder" (after James Oglethorpe) by recasting it into one of the more economically sound, less politically factionalized North American colonies. In his account of Ellis's governorship Cashin shows how Ellis had to function as a local administrator and a representative of the crown, managing, for instance, the French and Indian War as it was fought both in his colony and in the halls and chambers of Parliament. Themiddle chapters cover Ellis's return to England in 1761. There he accepted, but eventually relinquished, an appointment as governor of Nova Scotia. Choosing instead to remain in England, Ellis drew on his knowledge of French and Spanish colonial activity, the slave trade, and Indian affairs to advise Pitt, Egremont, Halifax, and others of the king's ministry. A polished statesman, Ellis weathered the machinations surrounding George III's ascension to the throne, and influenced the course of the war with France and the terms of the peace settlement in 1763. Ellis also had a hand in the political appointments, boundary settlements, and trade decisions attendant to the epochal Proclamation of 1763, which set the course of history for Quebec, Nova Scotia, the Floridas, and the British West Indies. After his invaluable help in reorganizing Britain's expanded American empire, Ellis withdrew from public service in 1768. Cashin portrays Ellis in genteel retirement, during which he increased his absentee landholdings in Ireland and traveled in Italy, France, Belgium, and elsewhere on the Continent. In his last years, Ellis was a much-sought-after guest, and moved within a circle of friends that included Horatio Nelson, the king of Sweden, and the Abbe Raynal. More than an artful biography, this is the story of a crucial period in American and British history, as told through the experiences of one of the period's most influential, behind-the-scenes power brokers.

This is the first comprehensive history of the Lower Chickasaws in the Savannah River Valley. Edward J. Cashin, the preeminent historian of colonial Georgia history, offers an account of the Lower Chickasaws, who settled on the Savannah River near Augusta in the early eighteenth century and remained an integral part of the region until the American Revolution. Fierce allies to the English settlers, the Chickasaws served as trading partners, loyal protectors, and diplomatic representatives to other southeastern tribes. In the absence of their benevolence, the English settlements would not have developed as rapidly or securely in the Savannah River Valley. Aided by his unique access to the modern Chickasaw Nation, Cashin has woven together details on the eastern Chickasaws from diverse source materials to create this cohesive narrative set against the shifting backdrop of the Southern frontier. The Chickasaws offered primary allegiance to South Carolina and Georgia at different times in their history but always served as a link in ongoing trade between Charleston and the Chickasaw homeland in what is now Mississippi. By recounting the political, social, and military interactions between the native peoples and settlers, Cashin introduces readers to a colorful cast of Chickasaw leaders, including Squirrel King, the Doctor, and Mingo Stoby, each an important component to a story that has until now gone untold.

Confederate scout and sharpshooter Berry Greenwood Benson witnessed the first shot fired on Fort Sumter, retreated with Lee's Army to its surrender at Appomattox Courthouse, and missed little of the action in between. This memoir of his service is a remarkable narrative, filled with the minutiae of the soldier's life and paced by a continual succession of battlefield anecdotes. Three main stories emerge from Benson's account: his reconnaissance exploits, his experiences in battle, and his escape from prison. Though not yet eighteen years old when he left his home in Augusta, Georgia, to join the army, Benson was soon singled out for the abilities that would serve him well as a scout. Not only was he a crack shot, a natural leader, and a fierce Southern partisan, but he had a kind of restless energy and curiosity, loved to take risks, and was an instant and infallible judge of human nature. His recollections of scouting take readers within an arm's reach of Union trenches and encampments. Benson recalls that while eavesdropping he never failed to be shocked by the Yankees' foul language; he had never heard that kind of talk in a Confederate camp! Benson's descriptions of the many battles in which he fought - including Cold Harbor, the Seven Days', Manassas, Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, Spotsylvania, and Petersburg - convey the desperation of a full frontal charge and the blind panic of a disorganized retreat. Yet, in these accounts, Benson's own demeanor under fire is manifest in the coolly measured tone he employs. A natural writer, Benson captures the dark absurdities of war in descriptions such as those of hardened veterans delighting in the new shoes and other equipment they found oncorpse-littered battlefields. His clothing often torn by bullets, Benson was also badly bruised a number of times by spent rounds. At one point, in May 1863, he was wounded seriously enough in the leg to be hospitalized, but he returned to the field before full recuperation. Benson was captured behind enemy lines in May 1864 while on a scouting mission for General Lee. Confined to Point Lookout Prison in Maryland, he escaped after only two days and swam the Potomac to get back into Virginia. Recaptured near Washington, D.C., he was briefly held in Old Capitol Prison, then sent to Elmira Prison in New York. There he joined a group of ten men who made the only successful tunnel escape in Elmira's history. After nearly six months in captivity or on the run, he rejoined his unit in Virginia. Even at Appomattox, Benson refused to surrender but stole off with his brother to North Carolina where they planned to join General Johnston. Finding the roads choked with Union forces and surrendered Confederates, the Benson brothers ultimately bore their unsurrendered rifles home to Augusta. Berry Benson first wrote his memoirs for his family and friends. Completed in 1878, they drew on his - and partially on his brother's - wartime diaries, as well as on letters that both brothers had written to family members during the war. The memoirs were first published in book form in 1962 but have long been unavailable. This edition, with a new foreword by the noted Civil War historian Herman Hattaway, will introduce this compelling story to a new generation of readers.

In Travels, the celebrated 1791 account of the "Old Southwest," William Bartram recorded the natural world he saw around him but, rather incredibly, omitted any reference to the epochal events of the American Revolution. Edward J. Cashin places Bartram in the context of his times and explains his conspicuous avoidance of people, places, and events embroiled in revolutionary fervor. Cashin suggests that while Bartram documented the natural world for plant collector John Fothergill, he wrote Travels for an entirely different audience. Convinced that Providence directed events for the betterment of mankind and that the Constitutional Convention would produce a political model for the rest of the world, Bartram offered Travels as a means of shaping the new country. Cashin illuminates the convictions that motivated Bartram-that if Americans lived in communion with nature, heeded the moral law, and treated the people of the interior with respect, then America would be blessed with greatness.