This novel addresses the experiences and deeply felt personal values of a group of four college students from an Upstate New York state college visiting the historic Civil War town of Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. Conducting field research with their college professor and mentor, Dr. Jeremiah Angel Shiloh, will prove to be not only exciting but also challenging for their preset views on a host of issues, both contemporary and historic. For example, though their summer field research project is scheduled to afford them the opportunity to see, walk amid, and examine artifacts from this mid-nineteenth-century Southern American town, clearly the unfolding experience of conducting this research project will be not only interesting but, for some, also personally challenging. They soon realize that for many field researchers, one’s personality may in fact be either a restrictive, challenging, or enhanced advantage when attempting to understand the past or comprehend the possible favorable or unfavorable future.
However, central to this novel are the students’ thought-provoking discussions and efforts to connect previous notions of the important, strategic role of Harpers Ferry in the American Civil War and the importance of the attack on the town in October 1859 by armed Black and White insurgents under the leadership of antislavery activist John Brown. Of even more significance in this novel is the role the five Black insurgents in this attack and of one in particular who will survive the ordeal. With that in mind, this two-part novel provides the reader with a clearer understanding of the sinews of historical research and the often-tantalizing intrigues it offers.
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