A thoroughly researched, comprehensive look at the Civil War regiments who took the first step in the struggle to make their...
The story of the black men, slaves and free, of the 54th and 55th Massachusetts Infantry, some of the greatest fighters of the Civil War.
Egerton (History/Le Moyne Coll.; The Wars of Reconstruction: The Brief, Violent History of America's Most Progressive Era, 2014, etc.) understands that these men fought more for nationality and citizenship than to preserve the union. Their success in 1863 at Battery Wagner in Charleston, South Carolina, showed the world their mettle. Overcoming the racism just as inherent in the North as the South was an even bigger battle. After the Emancipation Proclamation took effect, Massachusetts Gov. John Andrew was permitted to form the first black regiment. Congress would not, however, allow black officers, doctors, or ministers. Consequently, Robert Gould Shaw and Ned and Pen Hallowell, Philadelphia Quakers, became the leaders of the 54th and the 55th regiments, and Charles Adams Jr. led the 5th Cavalry. Adams’ regiment formed late in the war, and his leadership did not allow room for respect for his black men. Also included in the forces were two sons of Frederick Douglass: Lewis, whose wounds at Wagner ended his fighting days, and Charles, whose literacy led him to become the camp clerk. The Confederacy ruled that any blacks caught would be turned over to the state—no doubt to be reduced to slaves, no matter their background. The policy toward white leaders was that they were to be executed. The men saw how the Rebels treated blacks who tried to surrender; they were shot. After a battle, Rebel soldiers systematically walked among the wounded, executing any black soldiers. In this welcome addition to Civil War literature, Egerton gives readers a greater appreciation for their courage.
A thoroughly researched, comprehensive look at the Civil War regiments who took the first step in the struggle to make their countrymen see them as intelligent, capable men.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-465-09664-0
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 23, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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