Thirteen Fires

In 1775, as the first shots of the American Revolution echo in the north, a different war is brewing in the misty mountains of the southern frontier. At the infamous Treaty of Sycamore Shoals, the leaders of the Cherokee Nation, pressured by land speculators and the endless tide of settlers, agree to sell twenty million acres of their sacred homeland. But one war chief, a man whose face is a terrifying mask of scars and whose spirit is forged from unbreakable will, refuses to yield. His name is Dragging Canoe, and his dissent is not just a protest-it's a prophecy. He warns the buyers that the land they have purchased will be "a dark and bloody ground."

This is the epic story of that prophecy's fulfillment. The Thirteen Fires chronicles the thirty-year struggle of Dragging Canoe, the visionary leader who broke away from the Cherokee Nation to form his own militant society-the Chickamauga-a people dedicated to a single, uncompromising purpose: eternal war against the United States.

From his hidden capital in the Tennessee River Gorge, Dragging Canoe proves to be a brilliant and ruthless guerilla commander, his raids a constant, bleeding wound on the American frontier. He is opposed by John Sevier, a charismatic and equally ruthless frontiersman, the architect of the new state of Tennessee. Their personal conflict becomes the heart of a wider war, a brutal clash of two opposing visions for the future of the continent.

As the years of bloodshed turn into decades, Dragging Canoe realizes that the warrior's path alone cannot save his people. He must become a statesman, embarking on a desperate, final quest to unite the southern tribes into a single, powerful confederacy. It is a mad, ambitious dream, a last stand against a force that seems as inevitable as the setting of the sun. Based on meticulous historical research, The Thirteen Fires is a sweeping, tragic saga of a forgotten American war, and the story of a man who chose to fight for a world he knew was already dying.

On the eve of the American Revolution, a young Cherokee war chief named Dragging Canoe watches as his elders sign away millions of acres of their ancestral hunting grounds. But where they see a painful necessity, he sees the end of his world. He issues a chilling prophecy: the land the settlers covet will become "a dark and bloody ground."

What follows is the epic, tragic story of a man who spent his life trying to stop the tide of history. From the ashes of defeated towns, Dragging Canoe forges a new, militant nation-the Chickamauga-and wages a brutal, brilliant thirty-year war against the relentless encroachment of the American frontier. His nemesis is John Sevier, an ambitious and ruthless settler who embodies the spirit of manifest destiny, a man as determined to build a nation as Dragging Canoe is to preserve one.

As treaties are broken and betrayals mount, their conflict becomes a personal blood feud that engulfs the entire southern frontier. Dragging Canoe must evolve from a fearsome warrior into a shrewd statesman, attempting to build a pan-tribal confederacy as the last hope for his people's survival. This is a story of resistance, prophecy, and the tragic birth of a nation.