Born in Tennessee in 1841, George L. Knox survived slavery and service with both Confederate and Union armies during the Civil War and afterward made his way north to find a chilly reception in Indiana. His autobiography covers the first 44 years of his life and tells how he persevered against threats, harassment, and physical intimidation to become a leading citizen of Indianapolis and an important figure of the Republican Party.
"At the end of the Civil War, an escaped slave first returns to his old plantation and then walks across the ravaged South in search of his lost wife."--Provided by the publisher.
"A Free Woman On God's Earth" The True Story of Elizabeth "Mumbet" Freeman, The Slave Who Won Her Freedom is the inspiring story of Mumbet, an enslaved African woman who lived in Sheffield, Massachusetts during Revolutionary War times. Owned by John and Hannah Ashley, Mumbet served eleven patriots as they wrote impassioned letters to King George demanding freedom from the British. Mumbet could not help but overhear their conversations. These Declaration of Grievances became the Sheffield Resolves, or the Sheffield Declaration, the precursor to the Declaration of Independence and the irony of the sentiments in this document was not lost on Mumbet. After a particularly brutal incident, where Mistress Hannah Ashley intends to strike a servant girl with a hot poker from the hearth, Mumbet puts her own arm up to block the blow and is burned to the bone. When she finally heals, she realizes she can no longer live enslaved and waits for the right moment. The moment comes in 1780 with the ratification of the Massachusetts Constitution, making into the law the words, "All men are created free and equal." Mumbet takes these words and used them to sue for her freedom. On August 21, 1781, she becomes a free woman.
In this autobiography, John Quincy Adams chronicles his life as a slave and his journey to freedom. Adams offers a firsthand account of the horrors of slavery, as well as his struggles to obtain an education and secure his release from bondage. A powerful and moving work that sheds light on an important chapter in American history. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
"One of the best history books I've read in the last few years." —Chris Hayes The Field of Blood recounts the previously untold story of the violence in Congress that helped spark the Civil War. A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR AN NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR ONE OF SMITHSONIAN'S BEST HISTORY BOOKS OF THE YEAR Historian Joanne B. Freeman recovers the long-lost story of physical violence on the floor of the U.S. Congress. Drawing on an extraordinary range of sources, she shows that the Capitol was rife with conflict in the decades before the Civil War. Legislative sessions were often punctuated by mortal threats, canings, flipped desks, and all-out slugfests. When debate broke down, congressmen drew pistols and waved Bowie knives. One representative even killed another in a duel. Many were beaten and bullied in an attempt to intimidate them into compliance, particularly on the issue of slavery. These fights didn’t happen in a vacuum. Freeman’s dramatic accounts of brawls and thrashings tell a larger story of how fisticuffs and journalism, and the powerful emotions they elicited, raised tensions between North and South and led toward war. In the process, she brings the antebellum Congress to life, revealing its rough realities—the feel, sense, and sound of it—as well as its nation-shaping import. Funny, tragic, and rivetingly told, The Field of Blood offers a front-row view of congressional mayhem and sheds new light on the careers of John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, and other luminaries, as well as introducing a host of lesser-known but no less fascinating men. The result is a fresh understanding of the workings of American democracy and the bonds of Union on the eve of their greatest peril.
This book combines a sweeping narrative of the Civil War with a bold new look at the war’s significance for American society. Professor Hummel sees the Civil War as America’s turning point: simultaneously the culmination and repudiation of the American revolution. While the chapters tell the story of the Civil War and discuss the issues raised in readable prose, each chapter is followed by a detailed bibliographical essay, looking at all the different major works on the subject, with their varying ideological viewpoints and conclusions. In his economic analysis of slavery, Professor Hummel takes a different view than the two major poles which have determined past discussions of the topic. While some writers claim that slavery was unprofitable and harmful to the Southern economy, and others maintain it was profitable and efficient for the South, Hummel uses the economic concept of Deadweight Loss to show that slavery was both highly profitable for slave owners and harmful to Southern economic development. While highly critical of Confederate policy, Hummel argues that the war was fought to prevent secession, not to end slavery, and that preservation of the Union was not necessary to end slavery: the North could have let the South secede peacefully, and slavery would still have been quickly terminated. Part of Hummel’s argument is that the South crucially relied on the Northern states to return runaway slaves to their owners. This new edition has a substantial new introduction by the author, correcting and supplementing the account given in the first edition (the major revision is an increase in the estimate of total casualties) and a foreword by John Majewski, a rising star of Civil War studies.
"As this true story unfolds, each detail seems more shocking: a young man forced to methodically kill his friends; his calm, unresisting compliance; men chained together, two by two, weighted down with rocks, and slowly driven to the bridges where they would be thrown over, alive and terrified; men ordered to dig their own graves."--BOOK JACKET.
