 Meanwhile, Judson Fletcher, a drunkard and a womanizer still pursued Peggy Ashford McLean, the wife of his friend Seth McLean, whom he had courted before her marriage.Judson lived with his father on Sermon Hill, a large tobacco plantation on the Rappahannock River in northern Virginia.During a great rebellion of slaves Peggy was raped, Seth killed; Angus Fletcher, opposed to Judson's defense of black slaves (and his accusation of white violence that caused it) and his way of life, put his son out of house.