"In1853 Lexington, Virginia, Mary Evelyn Anderson, one of the most beautiful women in the Commonwealth, spurned the advances of a young law student named Charles Burks Christian. Humiliated and heartbroken, Christian confronted, stabbed and killed the man he believed responsible for Anderson's decision. The man was her cousin, Thomas Blackburn, a VMI cadet and student of Stonewall Jackson. What followed was a circus of inept and brilliant lawyers dragging members of the most prominent families in antebellum Virginia through and all-too-public discussion of seduction, courtship, honor and self-defense. Author and historian Daniel S. Morrow chronicles the history of the events that led to Blackburn's death, the trials that followed and the impact on Lexington, its two colleges and the men and women who would soon find themselves engaged in a great Civil War"--

Dan Morrow is the publisher of the Middleburg Eccentric, a newspaper outside Washington, D.C. He is the founder of the Jamestown Exploration Company and was the first executive director of the Computerworld Smithsonian Awards Program. He has served on the Board of Directors for many local organizations, including the Mosby Heritage Area Association.