Costly Freedom
Little is offered in Civil War literature to attract American youth. Most books are scholarly and detailed descriptions of battles, over-analyses of campaigns, or complicated political studies. Occasionally a volume comes along that presents a simple, straight-forward account of the impact the war had on the lives of common folk. Terry Webb has given us just that. There are no maps or photos of participants — just lucid descriptions. We are told of the lives of three families and their struggles to survive in a drastically changed landscape. The setting is Marietta, Ga., shortly after the war. The author vividly describes the struggles of freedmen, citizens returning to the area and Northern missionaries who plan to intervene in their lives. Although written in plain language, the book provides vivid descriptions of the violence of the Ku Klux Klan, the difficulties of freedmen trying to gain acceptance in society, and the beginnings of Jim Crow laws. Despite (or perhaps because of) its brief length, this is a good starter volume for young readers to get a glimpse of the struggles facing newly freed slaves and the hard road they had to travel for acceptance in the “New South.” Reviewer: Joseph Truglio Joseph A. Truglio is president and business agent for a motion picture film technicians local union and a lifelong student of the Civil War. His memberships include the Lincoln Group of New York and New Jersey Civil War Heritage Assn. He is president of the Phil Kearny Civil War Round Table in Wayne, N.J. |
