Full name: The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832

Author: Alan Taylor Year: 2013 Rank: Rating: Original Rating: Pop Rating: Genres/categories: History, Award winners, Non Fiction Purchase/reserch links: Goodreads Amazon LibraryThing ISBNs: 9780393349733 039334973X

Frederick Douglass recalled that slaves living along Chesapeake Bay longingly viewed sailing ships as "freedom's swift-winged angels." In 1813 those angels appeared in the bay as British warships coming to punish the Americans for declaring war on the empire. Over many nights, hundreds of slaves paddled out to the warships seeking protection for their families from the ravages of slavery. The runaways pressured the British admirals into becoming liberators. As guides, pilots, sailors, and marines, the former slaves used their intimate knowledge of the countryside to transform the war. They enabled the British to escalate their onshore attacks and to capture and burn Washington, D.C. Tidewater masters had long dreaded their slaves as "an internal enemy." By mobilizing that enemy, the war ignited the deepest fears of Chesapeake slaveholders. It also alienated Virginians from a national government that had neglected their defense. Instead they turned south, their interests aligning more and more with their section. In 1820 Thomas Jefferson observed of sectionalism: "Like a firebell in the night [it] awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once the knell of the union." The notes of alarm in Jefferson's comment speak of the fear aroused by the recent crisis over slavery in his home state. His vision of a cataclysm to come proved prescient. Jefferson's startling observation registered a turn in the nation's course, a pivot from the national purpose of the founding toward the threat of disunion. Drawn from new sources, Alan Taylor's riveting narrative re-creates the events that inspired black Virginians, haunted slaveholders, and set the nation on a new and dangerous course. Similar books: American Colonies by Alan Taylor The Divided Ground by Alan Taylor Colonial America by Alan Taylor The Civil War of 1812 by Alan Taylor Roll, Jordan, Roll by Eugene D. Genovese The Empire Of Necessity by Greg Grandin Landon Carter's Uneasy Kingdom by Rhys Isaac The Slave Ship by Marcus Rediker The Half Has Never Been Told by Edward E. Baptist Dead Wake by Erik Larson One Summer: America, 1927 by Bill Bryson Six Frigates by Ian W. Toll 102 Minutes by Jim Dwyer The History of Jihad by Robert Spencer Five Days at Memorial by Sheri Fink The Oregon Trail by Rinker Buck The History of Surfing by Matt Warshaw Washington's Immortals by Patrick K. O'Donnell American Gun by Chris Kyle No Way Out by Mitch Weiss