Posted by
wingnut on Sunday, November 06, 2011 2:10:46 PM
In the Shadow of The Civil War -- Passmore Williamson and the Rescue of Jane Johnson
Nat Brandt w/ Yanna Brandt, The Univ. of South Carolina Press, 2007.
This is the story of the Philadelphia Quaker who rescued a female slave and her two children from a ship in July 1855. Her owner had HIGH connections in government. He was a personal friend of President Franklin Pierce. The case touched off national and international furor as leading abolitionists joined the fight to free Passmore from his prison cell. This was a major spark in the growing rift over State's rights and personal liberties that would later result in war.
Singing For Freedom -- The Hutchinson Family Singers and the Nineteenth-Century Culture of Antebellum Reform
Scott Gac, Yale Univ. Press, 2007.
Think of these as the Von Trapp Family singers of their day. John, Asa, Judson, and Abby took up the biggest reform issues of their day (1840s and 50s). Temperance and abolition movements made them national icons. They truly originated the tradition of the American protest song and one of their songs is credited with helping Lincoln to victory in 1860. See my earlier blog post dated Aug. 29, 2010 in which I printed the words to the song "Lincoln and Liberty".
To Live and Die -- Collected Stories of The Civil War
ed., Kathleen Diffley, Duke Univ. Press, 2002.
These are stories published in Harper's Monthly, The Atlantic Monthly, Overland Monthly, Southern Monthly, Lippincott's, Continental Monthly, Putnam's, Galaxy, and other periodicals. They are dated from 1861 to 1876.
--RPC, Houston, TX