Thank you, Betsy!

I think we could have possibly used those first two lines on the basis of Sweet/Green Mossy Bank of the Lea/Lee, given the age of the song. However, I did really want to use "When First Unto this Country" because there are other images/themes from the song echoed in the novel: a coat of many colors, a Colonel's stolen horse, a cap set on bold, etc.

The novel is actually based on a short story I wrote entitled "Unto This Country." We changed the story's title to and making it the title story of my collection In the Season of Blood and Gold, which came out last year.

I would love to use those first two lines as an epigraph for the novel, or even a whole verse, but in some ways I think the dedication does an even better job and with zero risk of complications.