4.5-STAR REVIEW: MOCCASIN TRACE by Hawk MacKinney

Publication Date: July 4, 2023

It is July of 1859, a month of sweltering dog days and feverish emotional bombast. Life is good for widower Rundell Ingram and his hazel-eyed, roan-haired son, Hamilton. Between the two of them, they take care of Moccasin Hollow, their rustic dogtrot ancestral home, a sprawling non-slave plantation in the rolling farming country outside Queensborough Towne in east Georgia. Adjoining Ingram lands is Wisteria Bend, the vast slave-holding plantation of Andrew and Corinthia Greer, their daughter Sarah and son Benjamin.

Both families share generations of long-accepted traditions, and childhood playmates are no longer children. Against this rustic idyll of hard work and gracious living comes inflexible discord and divided loyalties that mutilate ties of blood and bond, tearing at their lives as smoke and battle no longer so faraway crashes and maims ever closer. Ahead of the on-coming ranks of Blue, foragers and bumlers burn, loot, scavenge and kill. Hamilton faces agonizing sacrifices with dreadful consequences. With little else than his wits, he tries anything to protect Sarah, their unborn child, his sickly father, and Sarah’s family.

For two Georgia families, July 1860 marks the end of plentiful indulgences, ushering in the beginning of an era marked with destruction.

Author Hawk McKinney delivers a poignant story highlighting the Ingram and Greer families during the Civil War in Moccasin Trace. While one family uses slaves to maintain the plantation, the other does not.

Hamilton Greer weds Sarah Ingram, which unites the two families. While the war ramps up, it seems far away. A key element is the depiction of Bessie and Sam. Although she and her son were both freed, she considers Sarah her family. Sam, on the other hand, leaves to fight for the North. This creates a source of friction later in the story. As a side note, it was somewhat challenging to understand Bessie because her language reflected her slave identity.

Hamilton takes up the reins as his father becomes ill, which puts quite a bit of responsibility on his shoulders. It was interesting to watch his character evolve throughout the story, especially as life became more difficult.

Family dynamics play a central role throughout the story, especially as Sarah prepares to give birth while roaming bands of soldiers mount a looting and destruction effort. In confronting the soldier, both Bessie and Sarah’s mother demonstrate incredible resilience.

Moccasin Trace traces the impact of the Civil War on a family forced to make sacrifices in order to survive.

In addition to professional articles and texts on chordate neuroembryology, Hawk MacKinney has authored several works of fiction—historical love stories, science fiction and mystery-thrillers. Moccasin Trace, a historical novel nominated for the prestigious Michael Shaara Award for Excellence in Civil War Fiction and the Writers Notes Book Award, details the family bloodlines of his protagonist in the Moccasin Hollow Mystery Series: Hidden Chamber of Death, Westobou Gold, Dead Gold, Curse of the Ancients, and Blood of the Dragonfly.

Hawk’s science fiction novels include The Bleikovat Event, Vol I in The Cairns of Sainctuarie Science Fiction Series, followed by Vol II, The Missing Planets, and Vol III, Inanna Phantom.

Hawk MacKinney served in the US Navy for over 20 years.  While serving as a Navy Commander, he also had a career as a full-time faculty member at several major state medical facilities. He earned two postgraduate degrees with studies in languages and history. He has taught postgraduate courses in both the United States and Jerusalem, Israel. He now makes his home in Augusta, Georgia, where he writes full-time.