During the Civil War, many African Americans were eager to strike a blow for freedom long before American public opinion was ready to support the fighting efforts of the Sable Arm. The 6th Regiment of United States Colored Infantry fought a war against prejudice as well as the Confederacy. At first, their mission brought them little recognition and glory as they struggled through rain and mud in a series of grueling marches and faced the arduous task of digging the infamous Dutch Gap Canal, moving tons of earth by hand as Confederate shells fell among the workers. At last, the regiment became involved in the crucial campaigns against Petersburg and Richmond, and took part in the assault against the Confederate Goliath, Fort Fisher, North Carolina. The African Americans' greatest ordeal and demonstration of courage came during the battle of New Market Heights, where their charge through withering opposing fire resulted in frightful casualties and the winning of the Congressional Medal of Honor by three soldiers.

Most histories of wounded Civil War veterans construe them as feminized men whose manhood has suffered due to their inability to provide for and raise families or engage in business. Wounded for Life complicates this picture by examining how seven veterans--six soldiers and one physician--coped with their changed bodies in their postwar lives. Through these intimate stories, author Robert D. Hicks looks at the veteran's body as shaped by the trauma of the battlefield and hospital and the construction of a postwar identity in relation to that trauma. Through his research, he reveals the changing social circumstances of the late 19th and early 20th centuries as they impacted the traumatized veteran's body. This engaging book is equal parts Civil War history, disability and gender history, and the history of the body that discloses the impact of war on a wounded warrior.

Reproduction of the original: Labor and Freedom, the Voice and Pen of Eugene V. Debs by Henry M. Tichenor

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Countless lives were transformed by the war that split the nation, and many stories are yet to be revealed about how the Civil War and the Reconstruction era affected Kentuckians. One such narrative is that of Sandy Holt, who, in the summer of 1864, joined tens of thousands of former slaves and enlisted in the United States Colored Troops. He put his life on the line to secure the Union's survival and the end of slavery. Hundreds of miles away in a federal office, Sandy Holt's former owner, Joseph Holt, worked to achieve the same goals. No one could have predicted before the Civil War that these two very different but interconnected Kentuckians would be crucial participants in the Union war effort. Joseph Holt's radical transformation and the contributions of black Kentuckians in the United States Colored Troops have long been underestimated. In Slaves, Slaveholders, and a Kentucky Community's Struggle toward Freedom, author Elizabeth D. Leonard examines a community of black and white Kentuckians whose lives were intertwined throughout the Civil War era. Bringing new insights into the life and legacy of Breckinridge County native Joseph Holt, Leonard exposes the origins of Holt's evolution from slave owner to member of Lincoln's War Department, where he became a powerful advocate for the abolition of slavery and the enlistment of former bondsmen. Digging deep into Holt's past, Leonard explores the lives of Holt's extended family members and also traces the experiences and efforts of Sandy Holt and other slaves-turned-soldiers from Breckinridge County and its periphery. Many ran from bondage to fight for freedom in the Union army and returned, hoping to claim the promises of Emancipation. The interwoven stories of Joseph and Sandy Holt, and their shared Kentucky community during and after the war, show how a small corner of this border state experienced one of the most defining conflicts in American history.

"The marriage institution cannot exist among slaves, and one sixth of the population of democratic America is denied it's privileges by the law of the land. What is to be thought of a nation boasting of its liberty, boasting of it's humanity, boasting of its Christianity, boasting of its love of justice and purity, and yet having within its own borders three millions of persons denied by law the right of marriage?" "A man who will enslave his own blood, may not be safely relied on for magnamity." "To enslave men, successfully and safely, it is necessary to have their minds occupied with thoughts and aspirations short of the liberty of which they are deprived. A certain degree of attainable good must be kept before them." "There is not, beneath the sky, an enemy to filial affection so destructive as slavery. It had made my brothers and sisters strangers to me; it converted the mother that bore me, into a myth; it shrouded my father in mystery, and left me without an intelligible beginning in the world.""Should a slave, when assaulted, but raise his hand in self defense, the white assaulting party is fully justified by southern, or Maryland, public opinion, in shooting the slave down." But his sojourn in England was more than a joy to Mr.Douglass. Like the platform at Nantucket, it awakened him to theconsciousness of new powers that lay in him. From the pupilageof Garrisonism he rose to the dignity of a teacher and a thinker;his opinions on the broader aspects of the great Americanquestion were earnestly and incessantly sought, from variouspoints of view, and he must, perforce, bestir himself to givesuitable answer. With that prompt and truthful perception whichhas led their sisters in all ages of the world to gather at the feetand support the hands of reformers, the gentlewomen of England2were foremost to encourage and strengthen him to carve out forhimself a path fitted to his powers and energies, in the life-battleagainst slavery and caste to which he was pledged. [One of theseladies, impelled by the same noble spirit which carried MissNightingale to Scutari, has devoted her time, her untiringenergies, to a great extent her means, and her high literaryabilities, to the advancement and support of Frederick Douglass'Paper, the only organ of the downtrodden, edited and publishedby one of themselves, in the United States.] And one stirringthought, inseparable from the British idea of the evangel offreedom, must have smote his ear from every side--Hereditary bondmen! know ye notWho would be free, themselves mast strike the blow?The result of this visit was, that on his return to the UnitedStates, he established a newspaper. This proceeding was sorelyagainst the wishes and the advice of the leaders of the AmericanAnti-Slavery Society, but our author had fully grown up to theconviction of a truth which they had once promulged, but nowforgotten, to wit: that in their own elevation--self-elevation--colored men have a blow to strike "on their own hook," againstslavery and caste. Differing from his Boston friends in thismatter, diffident in his own abilities, reluctant at theirdissuadings, how beautiful is the loyalty with which he still clungto their principles in all things else, and even in this.Now came the trial hour. Without cordial support from anylarge body of men or party on this side the Atlantic, and too fardistant in space and immediate interest to expect much more,after the much already done, on the other side, he stood up,almost alone, to the arduous labor and heavy expenditure ofeditor and lecturer. The Garrison party, to which he still adhered,did not want a colored newspaper--there was an odor of casteabout it; the Liberty party could hardly be expected to give warmsupport to a man who smote their principles as with a hammer;

The world of twelve-year-old telepath Herbert Weinberg explodes into chaos when his single father implants a nuclear device within a garden gnome on their front yard, an act of defiance after which their home becomes a sanctuary for malcontents and a target for government troops. Original.

In Thucydides and the Pursuit of Freedom, Mary P. Nichols argues for the centrality of the idea of freedom in Thucydides' thought. Through her close reading of his History of the Peloponnesian War, she explores the manifestations of this theme. Cities and individuals in Thucydides' history take freedom as their goal, whether they claim to possess it and want to maintain it or whether they desire to attain it for themselves or others. Freedom is the goal of both antagonists in the Peloponnesian War, Sparta and Athens, although in different ways. One of the fullest expressions of freedom can be seen in the rhetoric of Thucydides’ Pericles, especially in his famous funeral oration. More than simply documenting the struggle for freedom, however, Thucydides himself is taking freedom as his cause. On the one hand, he demonstrates that freedom makes possible human excellence, including courage, self-restraint, deliberation, and judgment, which support freedom in turn. On the other hand, the pursuit of freedom, in one’s own regime and in the world at large, clashes with interests and material necessity, and indeed the very passions required for its support. Thucydides’ work, which he himself considered a possession for all time, therefore speaks very much to our time, encouraging the defense of freedom while warning of the limits and dangers in doing so. The powerful must defend freedom, Thucydides teaches, but beware that the cost not become freedom itself.

Following this historic battle, the United States Colored Troops (USCT) had proven their valor and taken their rightful place amongst heroes in America's history. In the predawn darkness of September 29, 1864, black Union soldiers attacked a heavily fortified position on the outskirts of the Confederate capital of Richmond. In a few hours of desperate fighting, these African-American soldiers struck a blow against Robert E. Lee's vaunted Army of Northern Virginia and proved to detractors that they could fight for freedom and citizenship for themselves and their enslaved brethren. For fourteen of the black soldiers who stormed New Market Heights that day, their bravery would be awarded with the nation's highest honor: The Congressional Medal of Honor. With vivid firsthand accounts and meticulous tactical detail, James S. Price brings the Battle of New Market Heights into brilliant focus with maps by master cartographer Steven Stanley.