Suzy Barile

I like this book because it's written by the great-great-granddaughter of Ella Swain and Smith Atkins. Ella was the daughter of the president of the University of North Carolina - and Smith Atkins was a Union general who came to Ella's father's house to inform him that the town was under Union occupation.

Against this unlikely backdrop began a passionate and controversial love story still vivid in town lore. When President Swain's daughter Ella met the Union general, life for these two young people who had spent the war on opposite sides was forever altered.

This famous courtship and marriage, needless to say, caused quite a stir. Interwoven throughout Undaunted Heart are excerpts from Ella's never-before-published letters to her parents that reveal a loving marriage that transcended differences and scandal… (mehr)