About this item
A surprising work of narrative history and detection that illuminates one of the most daring -- and long-forgotten -- heroes of the Civil War.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. 8 pages of illustrations
About the Author
Brian McGinty is the author of twelve books and almost 200 articles dealing with American history, the American West, and American legal history. One of his specialties has been books about Abraham Lincoln. Born and raised in California, he earned degrees in American history and law from the University of California, Berkeley. He was awarded the Best Writing Prize from the National Historical Society, the Editor's Award for Historical Scholarship from the Sonoma County (California) Historical Society, a nomination for the One Book Arizona prize for 2008, and Honorable Mention in the 2010 Scribes Book Award of the American Society of Legal Writers.McGinty believes that neither history nor biography need be dull or plodding--that they can tell true stories accurately and in a style that ordinary readers find absorbing, even compelling. His most recent books include "Archy Lee's Struggle for Freedom: The True Story of California Gold, the Nation's Tragic March Toward Civil War, and a Young Black Man's Fight for Liberty" (Lyons Press/Rowman and Littlefield 2020) , "The Rest I Will Kill: William Tillman and the Unforgettable Story of How a Free Black Man Refused to Become a Slave" (Liveright/Norton 2016) , and "Lincoln's Greatest Case: The River, The Bridge, and the Making of America" (Liveright/Norton 2015) . His books have received enthusiastic reviews in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, the Chicago Tribune, the Christian Science Monitor, Publisher's Weekly, Kirkus Review, and the Library Journal. His "Lincoln's Greatest Case" was described as "masterful" by both the Christian Science Monitor and Publishers Weekly and as a "lively account" of a central episode "in America's economic and political development" by the Wall Street Journal. Others of McGinty's books have received similar praise.McGinty's books are available at Amazon Books, from the book publishers, and from other sellers. See brianmcgintyauthor.com.
