Pope’s Tavern Book Reviews
You can find these books and more in our Gift Shop!
Searching for Black Confederates: The Civil War’s Most Persistent Myth
By: Kevin Levin
Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, (2019).
Searching for Black Confederates explores the myths used by heritage organizations to claim that African Americans fought in large numbers for the Confederate Army during the Civil War. As the author points out, these claims are made to distort the reality of antebellum slavery and Jim Crow Era society. They serve to discredit assertions that the War was fought over the issue of slavery. Well researched and easy to read, Levin’s book is timely, and a must read for people interested in how we remember the Civil War.
Rambles of a Runaway from Southern Slavery
By: Henry Goings. Edited by Calvin Schermerhorn, Michael Plunkett, and Edward Gaynor
Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, (2012).
Henry Goings’ story is one that captures the breadth of antebellum slavery in the United States. Born in Virginia, Goings was enslaved in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Alabama before he escaped to freedom in Canada. Through Goings’ life story, the reader can learn much of the conditions of human bondage. While Goings’ narrative is from his life experience, this edition of the book features ample annotations by modern scholars to provide the reader with excellent historical context. A good part of his story takes place in Florence near the Forks of Cypress plantation. You can learn more about the Forks of Cypress and Henry Goings at the museum and in the new Slavery and Cotton exhibit.
Loyalty and Loss: Alabama's Unionists in the Civil War and Reconstruction
by Margaret M. Storey
Baton Rouge: LSU Press (2004).
Loyalty and Loss is incredibly researched and explores the lives of people who lived in Alabama but chose to fight for the United States Army during the Civil War. Storey examines how and why Alabamians resisted the Confederacy by maintaining ties to the United States. Much of the book focuses on north Alabama, which had a larger Unionist population than the southern part of the state. This book delves into an underexplored history of the Civil War and is perfect for people interested in the Civil War or Alabama history.