In "Legacy of the Sacred Harp," author Chloe Webb follows the history of this musical form back four hundred years, and in the process uncovers the harrowing legacy of her Dumas family line. Webb set out on a personal quest to reconnect with her ancestors who composed, sang, and lived by the words of Sacred Harp music. The reality of the effects of slavery on Southern plantation life, the thriving tobacco industry, and the Civil War are revisited through the lens of the Dumas family. Most notably, Webb's original research unearths the person of Ralph Freeman, freed slave and pastor of a pre-Civil War white Southern church.