Sign-In
Cart
The Rest I Will Kill: William Tillman and the Unforgettable Story of How a Free Black Man Refused to Become a Slave
Hardcover
Black American HistoryCivil War Period (1850-1877)Naval History
Currently unavailable to order
Please enter your email and a message will be sent to you when this product becomes available on our website.
ISBN13: 9781631491290
Publisher: Liveright Publishing Corporation
Published: Aug 16 2016
Pages: 240
Weight: 0.70
Height: 0.90 Width: 5.70 Depth: 8.50
Language: English
Independence Day, 1861. The schooner S. J. Waring sets sail from New York on a routine voyage to South America. Seventeen days later, it limps back into New York's frenzied harbor with the ship's black steward, William Tillman, at the helm. While the story of that ill-fated voyage is one of the most harrowing tales of captivity and survival on the high seas, it has, almost unbelievably, been lost to history.
Now reclaiming Tillman as the real American hero he was, historian Brian McGinty dramatically returns readers to that riotous, explosive summer of 1861, when the country was tearing apart at the seams and the Union army was in near shambles following a humiliating defeat at the First Battle of Bull Run. Desperate for good news, the North was soon riveted by reports of an incident that occurred a few hundred miles off the coast of New York, where the Waring had been overtaken by a marauding crew of Confederate privateers. While the white sailors became chummy with their Southern captors, free black man William Tillman was perfectly aware of the fate that awaited him in the ruthless, slave-filled ports south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Stealthily biding his time until a moonlit night nine days after the capture, Tillman single-handedly killed three officers of the privateer crew, then took the wheel and pointed it home. Yet, with no experience as a navigator, only one other helper, and a war-torn Atlantic seaboard to contend with, his struggle had just begun.
It took five perilous days at sea--all thrillingly recounted here--before the Waring returned to New York Harbor, where the story of Tillman's shipboard courage became such a tabloid sensation that he was not only put on the bill of Barnum's American Museum but also proclaimed to be the first hero of the Civil War. As McGinty evocatively shows, however, in the horrors of the war then engulfing the nation, memories of his heroism--even of his identity--were all but lost to history.
As such, The Rest I Will Kill becomes a thrilling and historically significant work, as well as an extraordinary journey that recounts how a free black man was able to defy efforts to make him a slave and become an unlikely glimmer of hope for a disheartened Union army in the war-battered North.
Also in
Civil War Period (1850-1877)
The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War
Larson, Erik
Paperback
America's Founding Son: John Quincy Adams, from President to Political Maverick
Crawford, Bob
Hardcover
The Ballad of the Fugitive William Parker: A True Tale of Love, Murder, Treason, and Ordinary Folks Who Saved America
Aptowicz, Cristin O'Keefe
Hardcover
The Confederacy Myth: How an Insurrection of Slaveholders Tried to Destroy the United States
Williams, Connor
Hardcover
Centennial: The Great Fair of 1876 and the Invention of America's Future
Bordewich, Fergus M.
Hardcover
Combee: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom During the Civil War
Fields-Black, Edda L.
Hardcover
Getting to Reparations: How Building a Different America Requires a Reckoning with Our Past
Brown, Dorothy A.
Hardcover
Midnight on the Potomac: The Last Year of the Civil War, the Lincoln Assassination, and the Rebirth of America
Ellsworth, Scott
Hardcover
If I Can Get Home This Fall: A Story of Love, Loss, and a Cause in the Civil War
Alexander, Tyler
Hardcover
Lincoln's Lady Spymaster: The Untold Story of the Abolitionist Southern Belle Who Helped Win the Civil War
Willis, Gerri
Hardcover
The Man Behind the Cane: Preston Brooks, Political Violence, and the Road to the Civil War
Quigley, Paul
Hardcover
The Road Was Full of Thorns: Running Toward Freedom in the American Civil War
Zoellner, Tom
Hardcover
Lincoln on Leadership for Today: Abraham Lincoln's Approach to Twenty-First-Century Issues
Phillips, Donald T.
Paperback
The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism
Baptist, Edward E.
Paperback
Nothing Like It in the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869
Ambrose, Stephen E.
Paperback
Saving Yellowstone: Exploration and Preservation in Reconstruction America
Nelson, Megan Kate
Hardcover
A Promise Delivered: Ten American Heroes and the Battle to Rename Our Nation's Military Bases
Seidule, Ty
Williams, Connor
Hardcover
Lincoln's Road to War: A Day-by-Day Account of the First 60 Days of Abraham Lincoln's Presidency
Johnson, David Alan
Hardcover
The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution
Foner, Eric
Paperback
The Memoirs of General William Tecumseh Sherman: The Complete Annotated Edition
Sherman, William T.
Hardcover
Behind the Scenes: Or Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House
Keckley, Elizabeth
Paperback
The Three-Cornered War: The Union, the Confederacy, and Native Peoples in the Fight for the West
Nelson, Megan Kate
Paperback
The Republic for Which It Stands: The United States During Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, 1865-1896
White, Richard
Paperback
The Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic: Reconstruction, 1860-1920
Sinha, Manisha
Paperback
To Rescue the Republic: Ulysses S. Grant, the Fragile Union, and the Crisis of 1876
Baier, Bret
Whitney, Catherine
Paperback
Maine's Place in History: Joshua Chamberlain's 1876 Address at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition
Chamberlain, Joshua
Hardcover
This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War (National Book Award Finalist)
Faust, Drew Gilpin
Paperback
Such Troops as These: The Genius and Leadership of Confederate General Stonewall Jackson
Alexander, Bevin
Paperback
We Gather Together: The True Story of Thanksgiving and the Woman Who Fought to Make It an American Holiday
Kiernan, Denise
Paperback
Everything You Were Taught about the Civil War Is Wrong, Ask a Southerner!
Seabrook, Lochlainn
Paperback
Heroes: From Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar to Churchill and de Gaulle
Johnson, Paul
Paperback
Defending Dixie's Land: What Every American Should Know About The South and The Civil War
Bishop, Isaac C.
Hardcover
Freedom Was in Sight: A Graphic History of Reconstruction in the Washington, D.C., Region
Masur, Kate
Paperback
Civil War Camps and Soldier Health: Sanitation and Military Effectiveness in the Union Army
Hess, Earl J.
Paperback
A Legacy in Brick and Stone: American Coast Defense Forts of the Third System, 1816-1867
Weaver, John R.
Hardcover
Seeking Freedom in Indian Country: Slavery, Sovereignty, and Resistance Within the Five Tribes, 1790-1861
Oertel, Kristen Tegtmeier
Hardcover
Fear No Pharaoh: American Jews, the Civil War, and the Fight to End Slavery
Kreitner, Richard
Hardcover
Abolitionists of the Northeast: Black Leaders in the Antislavery Movement
MacDonald, Gail Braccidiferro
Paperback
The Agitators: Three Friends Who Fought for Abolition and Women's Rights
Wickenden, Dorothy
Paperback
Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination That Changed America Forever
O'Reilly, Bill
Dugard, Martin
Paperback
Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow
Gates, Henry Louis
Paperback
Reminiscences of My Life in Camp: An African American Woman's Civil War Memoir
Taylor, Susie King
Paperback
Gettysburg Surgeons: Facing a Common Enemy in the Civil War's Deadliest Battle
Franco, Barbara
Hardcover
Be Free or Die: The Amazing Story of Robert Smalls' Escape from Slavery to Union Hero
Lineberry, Cate
Paperback
Hell's Half-Acre: The Untold Story of the Benders, a Serial Killer Family on the American Frontier
Jonusas, Susan
Paperback
The Surgeon's Battle: How Medicine Won the Vicksburg Campaign and Changed the Civil War
Privette, Lindsay Rae Smith
Paperback
Scars on the Land: An Environmental History of Slavery in the American South
Silkenat, David
Hardcover
To Purge This Land with Blood: A Biography of John Brown [Updated Edition]
Oates, Stephen B.
Hardcover
The President and the Freedom Fighter: Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and Their Battle to Save America's Soul
Kilmeade, Brian
Paperback
A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin: Presenting the Original Facts and Documents Upon Which the Story Is Founded
Stowe, Harriet Beecher
Paperback
Abolitionists of the Northeast: Black Leaders in the Antislavery Movement
MacDonald, Gail Braccidiferro
Hardcover
The Impeachers: The Trial of Andrew Johnson and the Dream of a Just Nation
Wineapple, Brenda
Paperback
Civil War Photo Forensics: Investigating Battlefield Photographs Through a Critical Lens
Hippensteel, Scott
Hardcover
Retreat from Victory: The Battle of Malvern Hill and the End of the Seven Days, July 1, 1862
O'Reilly, Francis Augustín
Hardcover
Envisioning Emancipation: Black Americans and the End of Slavery
Krauthamer, Barbara
Willis, Deborah
Paperback
Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Keckly: The Remarkable Story of the Friendship Between a First Lady and a Former Slave
Fleischner, Jennifer
Paperback
Somewhere Toward Freedom: Sherman's March and the Story of America's Largest Emancipation
Parten, Bennett
Paperback
No Common Ground, Second Edition: Confederate Monuments and the Ongoing Fight for Racial Justice
Cox, Karen L.
Paperback
Lincoln's Last Trial: The Murder Case That Propelled Him to the Presidency
Abrams, Dan
Fisher, David
Paperback
The War Before the War: Fugitive Slaves and the Struggle for America's Soul from the Revolution to the Civil War
Delbanco, Andrew
Paperback
Somewhere Toward Freedom: Sherman's March and the Story of America's Largest Emancipation
Parten, Bennett
Hardcover
A Plausible Man: The True Story of the Escaped Slave Who Inspired Uncle Tom's Cabin
Ashton, Susanna
Hardcover
Fear No Pharaoh: American Jews, the Civil War, and the Fight to End Slavery
Kreitner, Richard
Paperback
Hidden in Plain View: A Secret Story of Quilts and the Underground Railroad
Tobin, Jacqueline
Dobard, Raymond G.
Paperback
Hope Never to See It: A Graphic History of Guerrilla Violence During the American Civil War
Fialka, Andrew
Paperback
Requiem for Reconstruction: Black Countermemory and the Legacy of the Lowcountry's Lost Political Generation
Bland, Robert D.
Paperback
Ways and Means: Lincoln and His Cabinet and the Financing of the Civil War
Lowenstein, Roger
Paperback
Out of This Strife Will Come Freedom: Free People of Color and the Fight for Equal Rights in the Civil War Era
Milteer, Warren Eugene, Jr.
Paperback
The Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic: Reconstruction, 1860-1920
Sinha, Manisha
Hardcover