Southern Dreams, a collection of stories of rhapsodies and struggles of the Bellamead family living on the Bella Oak Plantation established in 1844 in South Carolina. Each generation of the Bellamead family chronicles events that weave the years to unite the tapestry of life. Diary of Olivia Bellamead a love story telling tales of struggles of the south, along with heartbreaking stories of the north binding them together.
A letter clinched in the hand of a young southern girl, a young Yankee soldier writing in dim light out on the battlefield tells of an enduring love that even the Civil War isn’t able to destroy.
Southern Dreams begins one Fourth of July picnic in 1861, when Olivia Rose Bellamead, a young southern belle, being arranged by her parents to marry Jackson Seth Montgomery, met a Yankee doctor, named, Andrew Robert Drake that changed the course of both of their lives. Andrew rode north that day leaving his love behind promising someday to come back. He, a surgeon in the Union army sends her letters, tales from the battlefields, stories of young men, northern and southern alike each with their uniforms bloody not caring if they were blue or grey. Olivia holds dear each letter she receives with her dreams of Andrew coming home struggling with death and destruction all around, watching the south as it is left in ruins. She stands remembering the day she met Andrew, looking out over her beloved plantation, Bella Oak knowing that was a time lost in the past and would never, be again. She pulls out the unopened letter she has received, clinching it tight, her worst fear that her letter would arrive, one with different handwriting.