A little known, true history of the only secessionist town north of the Mason Dixon Line. When escaped slave Joe Bell collapses in her father's barn, Mary Willis must ward off Confederate guerrillas and spies, Joe's vengeful owner, and even her own brother to help the handsome fugitive cross to freedom. Mary has always been an outcast, an outspoken abolitionist woman in a town of bounty hunters and anti-Union farmers. Helping runaways is the only thing that makes her life in Town Line bearable.

"By fall of 1863, Union forces had taken control of Tidewater Virginia and established a toehold in eastern North Carolina, including along the Outer Banks. Thousands of freed slaves and runaways flooded the Union lines, but Confederate irregulars still roamed the region. In December, the newly formed African Brigade, a unit of these former slaves led by General Edward Augustus Wild--a one-armed, impassioned abolitionist--set out from Portsmouth to hunt down the rebel guerrillas and extinguish t