Thunder at Meridian

Thunder at Meridian begins on a piece of land in the hills of east Mississippi in 1695.  The Native Americans occupied the lands that are now part of eastern and northern Mississippi from time immemorial most recently in the form of the Choctaw Indian Nation.  The the coming of the Europeans would bring drastic and tragic change.

Hewitt Clarke starts this action filled true story with an account of the Choctaw.  How they lived, who they were, who their enemies were before the Europeans came, are explored in some depth.  Their leaders, Alabama Mingo, Chief of the Choctaw war village of Koosa Town, Pushmataha, and his nephews Oklahoma and Nittekechi and how they lived and died.  And, how their people were driven from their lands by unscrupulous men in treacherous times.

With the coming of the European community, especially the English, Scotch and Irish emigrants, the development of Lauderdale and her neighbor counties began to shift from the wilderness home of Sam Dale to the thriving metropolis of Marion.  When the railroad displaced the slow and sporadic service of the stage lines, the focus shifts again as the area becomes a major transportation center and that upstart village to the south, Meridian, becomes the hub of activities in the area.

Meridian was then, as now, a Deep South town in the hills of East Mississippi with strong ties to the old code of chivalry inherited from their fierce Scotch Irish ancestors.   Barely a village in 1861, with only 4 or 5 wooden buildings, the city would grow and prosper over the years and eventually come to vie with its neighbors, Birmingham, Alabama and Atlanta, Georgia for the title "Heart of the new South."

The saga continues through the raging Civil War years with all the danger and hardships of a Confederate soldier and a young naval officer in combat.  Even as GEN Sherman reports "Meridian no longer exists." the reconstruction of the railroads and buildings that would usher in the "Golden Years" of the area is well underway.  Then the Meridian Riot that exploded for three violent days during in 1871 and, for all intents and purposes, brought reconstruction to a screeching halt in the south.

There is murder in 1923, and bootleggers and revenuers in bloody gun fight.  And a graphic account of the sensational civil rights murders by the Ku Klux Klan in 1964, that was publicized by the fictional movie Mississippi Burning.

Twenty years in the making, Thunder At Meridian is the definitive historical work of east Mississippi and a welcome addition to anyone's library.  As Mississippi's Nobel Prize winning author, William Faulkner has said, "To understand the world, you must first understand a place like Mississippi."
 

Publisher:  Lone Star Press Date Published:  December, 1995. ISBN:  0-9649231-0-6 Pages:  390