Book Review "Border Men"

by Cameron Judd

December 2007

• Type: Historical Fiction
• Author: Cameron Judd
• Published: Cumberland House 1992
• Subject: Second Book in the Tennessee Frontier Trilogy. Includes actual historical figures such as John Sevier, Isaac Shelby, Dragging Canoe and Nancy Ward.
• About the Author: From the back cover: "Cameron Judd is a prolific author of historical fiction who writes with authority and respect for the American frontier and the people who courageously settled the land. He is the author of Passage to Natchez, Boone, Crockett of Tennessee, and the Mountain War Trilogy of the Civil War, The Canebrake Men and The Border Men...Judd is Director of Communications at Tusculum College in Greeneville, Tennessee."

This book is the second in Judd's Tennessee Frontier Trilogy and takes place from 1778 to 1783. Joshua Colter is grown and married and living with Alphus Colter, the man who raised him.

The characters in this book participate in the actual events of The Battle of Kings Mountain, a turning point for the Patriots in the Revolutionary War, John Donelson's flatboat flotilla journey to the Cumberland region and the establishment and defense of Fort Nashborough near present-day Nashville. While the Revolutionary War continued to the East, settlers from the Overmountain towns moved west and north toward Kentucky to claim lands purchased in 1775 in the Transylvania Purchase. Dragging Canoe and others who opposed the sale of the lands pursue and attack these new settlers to try to slow or stop their progress.

Judd's books give a great foundation for further reading about the 1770s on the Tennessee frontier..

Interesting links related to this article:

• Fort Nashborough

Other recommended books by Cameron Judd in The WataugaLakeMagazine bookstore :

"The Border Men" "The Canebrake Men" "The Bridge Burners"
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