In 1775 Cherokee leaders sold most of Tennessee and Kentucky to the recently arrived white settlers, but Dragging Canoe, a proud chief, said that the sacred land should not be defiled by the white man's ax and plow. "This is the Dark and Bloody Ground!" he proclaimed to the assembled chiefs. Perhaps it is the abundance of decaying mansions that harbor dark and sinister secrets, or perhaps it is Tennessee's tragic heritage of war and defeat,...