In 1846, Joe Carson decides to sell his inn and move from Knoxville, Georgia, to Macon County, Georgia, near the future site of the town of Reynolds. Using the money from the inn, he buys a cotton plantation in Macon County. Joe and his wife, sons, and daughters start a new life on the farm. As tensions begin to rise across the nation on the eve of the War Between the States, Joe finds himself as a delegate to the state convention-where he signs the Ordinance of Secession, by which Georgia secedes from the Union. In Defending the South: Our Homes, Our Way of Life, and Our Sacred Honor, author Ferdinand Carson describes in compelling first-person narratives the true-life story of the Carson family and the conditions in rural Georgia before, during, and after the War Between the States. He also provides a riveting look into the adventures of Joe Carson's four sons as they serve in the Confederate Army, and he offers a window into the relationship between the slaves and the Carson family. From a particularly Southern perspective, the causes of the war and its aftereffects on the Carson plantation in West-Central Georgia resonate with themes of honor, family, sacrifice, and principles, and this faithful narrative of the Carson family's history offers an engaging insight into slavery and the war-one that admits of pride in a distinctly Southern way of life.