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Reviews
Reviews
What Sillen has done with Kidnapped at Sea is truly monumental. David Henry White's soul is somewhere between here and heaven, grateful to Sillen for finding the facts, telling his story, and honoring his dignity.
Thankfully, Andrew Sillen shares [David White's story], keeping [him] from becoming permanently invisible and just another anonymous member of the approximate 700,000 deaths of the Civil War. He was a human, and he was a young man. He was real and so is his story this a well-researched and written book. Andrew Sillen has produced an enjoyable and informative study of a lesser known yet important tale of a free black man kidnapped by Confederates during the Civil War. It is definitely a book that I happily recommend that others read.
Sillen's Kidnapped at Sea adds new evidence-based arguments that anyone researching CSS Alabama must explore, but more importantly it returns humanity and agency back to David Henry White, an illiterate teenage freeman who found himself impressed into Confederate service until his death under the Stainless Banner.
In this fast-paced narrative, Andrew Sillen uncovers the astounding story of David Henry White, a free Black teenager kidnapped from a US ship and forced to accompany the Confederate raider Alabama. Through a haunting account, Sillen restores White's humanity and, in doing so, provides a timely examination of the necessity for addressing historical crimes.
Kidnapped at Sea is masterful and engrossing. The sharp focus on the 'invisible' David Henry White vividly conveys the plight of the enslaved. It makes the reader care far more than a conventional history. In its methodology, it is akin to the way Anne Frank's diary made the reader see and understand the Holocaust more than all of the recitals of facts and numbers. A stunning professional accomplishment.
This book represents the best in weaving a compelling narrative across generations, geographies, and genres by an archeologist who has effectively used the perspective of his discipline to connect a young Black man's short life to the horrors of piracy, slavery, and colonial conquest.
This well-researched and captivating account of the Civil War Battle of Cherbourg commands the attention of naval and Civil War scholars alike. The embedded story of the teenage sailor David Henry White is effectively used by the author for a revealing analysis of the personal, professional, and moral strengths and flaws of all involved.
In this gripping story, Andrew Sillen rescues from Lost Cause mythology the story of David Henry White, a free Black man kidnapped and enslaved on board the CSS Alabama for 600 days before his untimely death. In the process, Sillen offers an important reminder that the struggle for a "new birth of freedom" was fought as much on the high seas as it was on the battlefield.
About
Book Details
Publication Date
Status
Available
Trim Size
6
x 9
Pages
352
ISBN
9781421449517
Illustration Description
1 b&w photo, 34 b&w illus.
Subject
Table of Contents
Author's Note
Preface
Part I: Context
1. David Henry White and the False Cause
2. Time and Place
3. Childhood in Lewes
4. Passenger Cook
5. Manifest Destiny
6. Gulf of Mexico
7. Secession
8. The Alabama
9
Author's Note
Preface
Part I: Context
1. David Henry White and the False Cause
2. Time and Place
3. Childhood in Lewes
4. Passenger Cook
5. Manifest Destiny
6. Gulf of Mexico
7. Secession
8. The Alabama
9. Prelude
Part II: Voyage
10. Capture
11. Storms
12. Report
13. Mutiny
14. South to Galveston
15. Port Royal, Olive Jane and the John A. Parks
16. Brazil and the South Atlantic
17. Cape of Good Hope
18. Simon's Town
19. The Indian Ocean
20. The Looming Battle
21. The Battle of Cherbourg
22. Demise
Part III: Aftermath
23. Accounts
24. An Ocean of Lies
25. Aide toi et dieu t'aidera
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibiliography
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