John Fraser lived with his mother and father in the backwoods of North Carolina.

Squire Fraser, a strict but kind Scotsman, was determined that his son should have a gentleman's education, and so he sent John to the coastal town of Edenton to be tutored by Dr. Clapton, an English clergyman.

While there, John made many friends. Sir Nat Dukinfield, a young rake, Captain Tennant, the Collector of the Port at Edenton and Eve, his daughter.

Captain Flood, a riverboat skipper, was another of his friends. The old man taught him some sea lore and, on his trips up and down the river, acted as a messenger between John and his parents.

After three years of schooling from Dr. Clapton, John became a young provincial gentleman.

The only cloud on his horizon was the report of troubles with the British in Boston. Many people were angry; some predicted violence….

John thrust dark thoughts aside, however, for a day of the races but there, Wylie Jones announces that Parliament had requested the King declare the American Colonies in a state of rebellion.

Sir Nat, putting no stock in rumours of war with the Colonies, volunteers for the English cavalry.

As his friends begin to pick sides and shots are fired at Lexington, John must decide where his loyalties lie…

Will he fight for or against the revolution, the beating of the Drums?

And what will happen to all his family and friends in the brutal conflict of North Carolina?

"Drums' is a brutal and honest thriller centred around the American Revolution.

James Boyd was born in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania into a wealthy coal and oil family. He was the son of John Yeomans Boyd and Eleanor Gilmore Herr Boyd, who were from North Carolina. He attended Princeton University where he wrote verse and fiction for the Tiger and was its managing editor in his senior year. After graduation in 1910, he studied at Trinity College and Cambridge.

Boyd served overseas with the Army Ambulance Service in World War I. After World War I, he experienced ill health, and retired to Weymouth, a house his grandfather built in Southern Pines, North Carolina. The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. Boyd's first book, Drums, was set in Edenton, North Carolina, and has been called the best novel written about the American Revolution.

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