March 1849. Stone Creek, Johnston County. Two thousand acres of cotton. Forty-five enslaved people. And a family about to be orphaned by death — then torn apart by war.

The Snead brothers didn't start the Civil War. But they lived it up close — in the letters they wrote home, in the hands who slowed their work when news of Lincoln spread, in a family Bible where "Harriet and children gone to freedom, 1863" was entered like any other fact.

Four brothers. Forty-five souls. One plantation watching the world crack open.

This is People Get Ready.