04/17/2017
Journalist Lineberry (The Secret Rescue) chronicles how in 1862 Robert Smalls, an illiterate 23-year-old deckhand from Charleston, S.C., hijacked the Planter, a Confederate steamer, and with a crew of fellow enslaved sailors—including his wife and children—sailed to freedom in Union-occupied waters, giving valuable Confederate secrets to the North. Through succinct and powerful prose, Lineberry unveils how Smalls hatched his bold and dangerous plan to steal the ship. His defiant act was “an extraordinary and unprecedented event” that made national headlines and gave lie to the white-supremacist belief in black inferiority. Smalls became a Union hero who met with President Lincoln and a hallowed leader of the South Carolina coastal Gullah community to which he belonged. Lineberry narrates Smalls’s story against the backdrop of the Civil War and Reconstruction, detailing his career as a Union soldier, U.S. congressman from South Carolina, school builder, businessman, and customs collector, as well as his fall into obscurity after his 1915 death. Lineberry elevates Smalls to America’s pantheon of black leaders, showing him to have been as courageous and inspirational as Harriet Tubman in her heroic exploits along the Underground Railroad and Booker T. Washington in his rise from bondage. Agent: Ellen Geiger, Frances Goldin Literary. (June)
Facing death rather than enslavement-a story of one man's triumphant choice and ultimate rise to national hero.
It was a mild May morning in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1862, the second year of the Civil War, when a twenty-three-year-old slave named Robert Smalls did the unthinkable and boldly seized a Confederate steamer. With his wife and two young children hidden on board, Smalls and a small crew ran a gauntlet of heavily armed fortifications in Charleston Harbor and delivered the valuable vessel and the massive guns it carried to nearby Union forces. To be unsuccessful was a death sentence for all. Smalls' courageous and ingenious act freed him and his family from slavery and immediately made him a Union hero while simultaneously challenging much of the country's view of what African Americans were willing to do to gain their freedom.
After his escape, Smalls served in numerous naval campaigns off Charleston as a civilian boat pilot and eventually became the first black captain of an Army ship. In a particularly poignant moment Smalls even bought the home that he and his mother had once served in as house slaves.
"1124768843"
It was a mild May morning in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1862, the second year of the Civil War, when a twenty-three-year-old slave named Robert Smalls did the unthinkable and boldly seized a Confederate steamer. With his wife and two young children hidden on board, Smalls and a small crew ran a gauntlet of heavily armed fortifications in Charleston Harbor and delivered the valuable vessel and the massive guns it carried to nearby Union forces. To be unsuccessful was a death sentence for all. Smalls' courageous and ingenious act freed him and his family from slavery and immediately made him a Union hero while simultaneously challenging much of the country's view of what African Americans were willing to do to gain their freedom.
After his escape, Smalls served in numerous naval campaigns off Charleston as a civilian boat pilot and eventually became the first black captain of an Army ship. In a particularly poignant moment Smalls even bought the home that he and his mother had once served in as house slaves.
Be Free or Die: The Amazing Story of Robert Smalls' Escape from Slavery to Union Hero
Facing death rather than enslavement-a story of one man's triumphant choice and ultimate rise to national hero.
It was a mild May morning in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1862, the second year of the Civil War, when a twenty-three-year-old slave named Robert Smalls did the unthinkable and boldly seized a Confederate steamer. With his wife and two young children hidden on board, Smalls and a small crew ran a gauntlet of heavily armed fortifications in Charleston Harbor and delivered the valuable vessel and the massive guns it carried to nearby Union forces. To be unsuccessful was a death sentence for all. Smalls' courageous and ingenious act freed him and his family from slavery and immediately made him a Union hero while simultaneously challenging much of the country's view of what African Americans were willing to do to gain their freedom.
After his escape, Smalls served in numerous naval campaigns off Charleston as a civilian boat pilot and eventually became the first black captain of an Army ship. In a particularly poignant moment Smalls even bought the home that he and his mother had once served in as house slaves.
It was a mild May morning in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1862, the second year of the Civil War, when a twenty-three-year-old slave named Robert Smalls did the unthinkable and boldly seized a Confederate steamer. With his wife and two young children hidden on board, Smalls and a small crew ran a gauntlet of heavily armed fortifications in Charleston Harbor and delivered the valuable vessel and the massive guns it carried to nearby Union forces. To be unsuccessful was a death sentence for all. Smalls' courageous and ingenious act freed him and his family from slavery and immediately made him a Union hero while simultaneously challenging much of the country's view of what African Americans were willing to do to gain their freedom.
After his escape, Smalls served in numerous naval campaigns off Charleston as a civilian boat pilot and eventually became the first black captain of an Army ship. In a particularly poignant moment Smalls even bought the home that he and his mother had once served in as house slaves.
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Be Free or Die: The Amazing Story of Robert Smalls' Escape from Slavery to Union Hero
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Product Details
BN ID: | 2940170823833 |
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Publisher: | Tantor Audio |
Publication date: | 01/24/2018 |
Edition description: | Unabridged |
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