Beadle's Dime Novels No. 102: Hearts Forever

HEARTS FOREVER; OR, THE OLD DOMINION BATTLE-GROUNDS This 1866 Beadle & Company dime novel by N.C. Iron presents a Revolutionary War romance set during the 1781 Yorktown campaign. The narrative opens with a man burying fifty thousand dollars in gold beneath an oak tree near Yorktown during a violent storm, motivated by unwillingness to sacrifice his wealth for American independence. A nearby observer witnesses this act. The story then shifts to the Beaumont estate in Virginia, where elderly Louis Beaumont and his beautiful daughter Adeline learn that Washington has arrived in Virginia and that Cornwallis has retreated to Yorktown—and that Adeline's brother Randolph, a captain in Washington's regiment, will soon return home. The narrative explores themes of patriotic sacrifice, familial devotion, and the moral complexities of slavery, as Mr. Beaumont reflects on having contributed half his wealth to the revolutionary cause while retaining the other half, and questions whether a free nation can justly maintain slavery.