The Town That Started the Civil War: The True Story of the Community That Stood Up to Slavery--and Changed a Nation Forever - Softcover

Brandt, Nat

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0440503965 ISBN 13: 9780440503965

Publisher: Random House Publishing Group, 1991

Synopsis

Before the War Between the States, there was the war between the U.S. government and Oberlin, Ohio. . . .
 
“A fascinating, gripping narrative.”—James M. McPherson, author of Battle Cry of Freedom

On a crisp autumn day in Ohio, 1858, two Kentucky slave hunters were closing in on a runaway slave named John Price. Federal law said they had the right to bring the man back across state lines. But to the people of Oberlin, Ohio, the law was wrong—and they were willing to prove it with their sweat and blood.

In this fascinating, spirited telling of one of the most extraordinary confrontations in U.S. history, Nat Brandt gives a blow-by-blow account of how a small but passionate army of students, farmers, former slaves, a bookstore owner, a professor, a preacher, and a cobbler risked their lives to rescue a man they didn’t know—and ignited a furious conflict with a wavering U.S. government. From its first blows to the controversial trials that followed, the Oberlin Rescue was an act of uncommon heroism and courage—and a true battle for the conscience of a land.

About this title

About the Author:

Nat Brandt was born in New York City in 1929. He is a veteran journalist for CBS News and The New York Times, former managing editor of The American Heritage Dictionary, and former editor in chief of Publishers Weekly. Brandt is also an accomplished American history novelist whose work includes the book The Man Who Tried to Burn New York, which won the Douglas Southall Freeman History Award.

From Library Journal:

The place was Oberlin, an Ohio college town and Underground Railroad station. The year was 1858. Claiming a law higher than the federal Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, scores of blacks and whites foiled the return of escaped Kentucky slave John Price. Focusing on the prosecution of 36 rescuers who paid the price of fines and prison, Brandt re-creates the scene and the action. With a journalist's feel for detail and compelling human interest, he builds on Jacob Shipherd's original History of the Oberlin-Wellington Rescue (1859) and William Cochran's Western Reserve and the Fugitive Slave Law: A Prelude to the Civil War (1920; Da Capo, 1972. reprint). Brandt brings to life moral conflict, politics, personalities, stategies, and theology that divided the Union and induced the nation's bloodiest war. Recommended for antebellum, Civil War, and general American history collections. Brandt is the author of the well-received history The Man Who Tried To Burn New York (LJ 8/86). History Book Club and BOMC selections.
- Thomas J. Davis, Univ. at Buffalo, N.Y.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 0440503965
• ISBN 13: 9780440503965
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336