Lt. Col. John Laurens, son of one of South Carolina's wealthiest planters and aide-de-camp to General Washington as well as battlefield hero, had two passions. One, to free the colonies from England. The other, when the war was won, to free the slaves. He had a plan whereby slaves, having served during the war in a specially formed regiment, would have their freedom and 50 pounds sterling to start a free life. He had designed uniforms for that regiment and convinced his father, Henry Laurens, President of the Continental Congress, to let him have, as a start, 40 able-bodied men of their own 250 slaves (that included women and children) and to put through Congress permission for John to recruit 3,000 slaves for this regiment. At Valley Forge he met up with his father's good friend from Georgia, General McIntosh, whose father had tried, alongside Ogelthorpe in 1740 to keep slavery out of Georgia. At Valley Forge John also met the two McIntosh girls who had come up from Georgia to keep house for their father during winter camp. This is a story of the Revolutionary war, from Valley Forge to Philadelphia to CharlesTown to Savannah and back, and it is also a story of the men who fought, the women who waited, a war many thought impossible for the colonies to win, and a love a man and a woman thought just as impossible. And yet…<\p>