Following the War of Independence against the British Crown, a band of Tennessee settlers begins to carve out a new state in a young nation but face the opposition of the federal government and bloody resistance from the Chickamauga Indians. In this untamed land Owen Killefer, a slender lad barely in his teens, will face a trial by fire at the hands of white men and Indians alike -- and find within himself a stout spirit as strong as that of any frontiersman.

The third volume in The Tennessee Frontier Trilogy, The Canebrake Men is a saga of adventure set in the period from 1785 to 1800. In it Cameron Judd paints a portrait of the unforgettable men and women whose vision, passion, and pain gave rise to the new nation, such as:
-- Joshua Coulter, who had made a life amid the dangers of the rugged frontier and had been tamed by the Tennessee Wilderness, only to discover again a deep restlessness that stirred in his heart
-- Owen Killefer, who set out for the Chickamauga country as a boy to avenge a bloody crime
-- Emaline Killefer, who was torn from her family in a bloody raid by a British deserter and taken to live among the Chickamauga as his unwilling wife
-- John Sevier, the frontiersman who led raids against the Indians and was named governor of a would-be state the federal government never recognized
-- Andrew Jackson, a brash young lawyer with a fiery temper, who first met Joshua Colter as an opponent in a brawl but soon became a strong ally and loyal friend