Audiobook10 hours
Junius and Albert's Adventures in the Confederacy: A Civil War Odyssey
Written by Peter Carlson
Narrated by Danny Campbell
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
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About this audiobook
Albert Richardson and Junius Browne, two correspondents for the New York Tribune, were captured at the Battle of Vicksburg and spent twenty months in horrific Confederate prisons before escaping and making their way to Union territory. Their amazing, long-forgotten odyssey is one of the great escape stories in American history, packed with drama, courage, horrors and heroics, plus many moments of antic comedy. They must endure the Confederacy's most notorious prison; rely on forged passes and the secret signals of a covert pro-Union organization in North Carolina; trust a legendary guerilla leader; be hidden by slaves during the day in plantation slave quarters; and ultimately depend on a mysterious, anonymous woman on a white horse to guide them to safety. They traveled for 340 miles, most of it on foot, much of it through snow, in twenty-six days.This is a marvelous, surreal voyage through the cold mountains, dark prisons, and mysterious bands of misfits living in the shadows of the Civil War.
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Reviews for Junius and Albert's Adventures in the Confederacy
Rating: 4.019999975999999 out of 5 stars
4/5
25 ratings8 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A short, fun (!) history of two Northern journalists captured outside of Vicksburg in 1863 and trapped in the Confederate prisoner-of-war system until they escaped in December 1864. The most interesting part of the book is the last third, the escape and flight across the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee back across Union Lines. Anyone can read the book and enjoy it, but residents of North Carolina and east Tennessee may find it particularly engaging, to read references to familiar rivers, towns, and mountains.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Two newspaper reporters go to cover a Civil War battle and find themselves arrested and thrown into a Confederate prison. And then transferred to a few more. The conditions were terrible but what really makes this so readable is the buoyant spirits of Albert and Junius. They had a real sense of humor, and it shows in their correspondence and diary entries. It was also a change of pace to read about the journalists, spouses, draft-dodgers, and other civilians whose lives were disrupted by a war they weren't fighting. Definitely recommended.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Anson Mount challenged us to read this book by June 1st for a semi book club. Excellent read about the Confederacy prison.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This well-written picaresque of the Civil War combines the best of storytelling and research, tracing the saga of two Northern reporters who are captured while trying to reach the South in order to provide coverage of an upcoming battle. Their imprisonment takes them to several different prisons over the space of nearly two years, with deteriorating conditions to the point of near death. The author quotes extensively from their letters and other primary sources, but still keeps the adventure moving along at a fast clip, giving readers a depth of understanding of what Junius and Albert's lives must have been like.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Very, Very InterestingDo not buy this book if you are looking for suspense, but it is such an excellently written slice of history that even if you aren’t a history buff, you will enjoy this book. The true story of these two reporters reveals a side of the confederacy that most of us Southerners, or any Americans for that matter, don’t wish to acknowledge. I frequently wonder what the Germans think about their actions during WWII, but the way that the prisoners were treated in the Confederacy was shockingly bad. It makes you realize that we are not too many years removed from actions occurring around the world today.I recommend this to anyone interested in stretching his mind about American history. I would also like to point out that this would make an excellent addition to a history classroom. It is not difficult to read, although my Kindle dictionary helped with some of the older terms, but it would allow students to glimpse a view of life during the American Civil War that they might not otherwise garner.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I received this Advance Reader Copy through NetGalley.The title of the nonfiction book is whimsical and light; the reality is not. I have read quite a bit on the Civil War, but I hadn't heard of the terrible plight of Browne and Richardson. These two reporters were left to wallow and die in a series of Confederate prisons, all because they worked for the Tribune, a famed abolitionist newspaper out of New York. Other Yankee reporters were quickly released. Instead, their ordeal dragged out for almost two years.Carlson does an excellent job of creating a tense, compelling narrative. The two reporters begin their reporting on the war with a flippant attitude. They gripe about the boredom and lack of action, so they write up absolutely fictional accounts of battles like Pea Ridge, when in truth they were over a thousand miles away. Then they are captured, and they enter hell. I won't go into gory details. Andersonville is the most infamous of the Confederate prisons, but places like Castle Thunder and Salisbury weren't cushy by any means. However, the story isn't all negativity. The men endured the best and worst of humanity. They only survived and escaped due to the kindness of blacks willing to do anything in their power to help Yankees, and the pro-Union guerrilla fighters of Appalachia. After the war, the ordeal still isn't over, and it's very heartbreaking to see how much these men really lost in their time of captivity.I highly recommend this to anyone who's a student of history with an interest in the American Civil War.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Albert Richardson and Junius Browne were New York Tribune reporters who covered the Civil War. They were captured by the Confederates at Vicksburg. This book tells us their stories on each side of that capture.They were two tough characters, spending an exceedingly long time in extremely nasty Confederate prisons. This at a time when the North and South regularly exchanged prisoners, especially noncombatants. Because Horace Greely's Tribune was so anti-south, the Confederates seemed to take great joy in not releasing them.A reasonable read that takes us into a part of the Civil War that is not very well known.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The juvenile-sounding title doesn't do justice to this riveting story of two New York reporters who are captured at Vicksburg and spend 20 months in several Confederate prisons before escaping and making a harrowing journey across snow-covered mountains to the safety of Union lines in Tennessee. While other reporters were released fairly quickly, the South had a particular grudge against these two, who worked for the hated Horace Greeley's New York Tribune, a rabidly anti-slavery newspaper. Still, they were fortunate enough to avoid the worst conditions of imprisonment that were reserved for captured enlisted men or Southern deserters.Carlson draws the bulk of his story from the books that Browne and Richardson published after their escape, supplemented with other contemporary accounts, unpublished memoirs, and a few secondary sources. He weaves it all together into a true page-turner with an unforgettable cast of characters. The brutality of the Confederate prisons and their guards, who often shoot prisoners for sport, should help to shatter any illusions anyone may still harbor about the Civil War being some sort of noble cause. But there are inspiring stories here as well, in addition to the two reporters' personal courage. They are aided by Southerners who remained staunch supporters of the Union, risking their own lives every day to help prisoners escape. And when they do escape, the hospitality (at the risk of their own lives) provided by slaves on their escape routes is deeply moving. Carlson also paints a vivid picture of the brutal conflict between loyal Unionists and Confederates in the mountains of North Carolina where many men who refused to serve (almost all from non-slaveholding families) went into hiding.I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a more human, more important look at the Civil War instead of another story of some general's strategy and tactics. Carlson skillfully brings the central issue of the war--Southern slavery--to the forefront through the hate-filled words and actions of its supporters. This shines an even more flattering light on those Southerners who refused to take part, but the most remarkable persons in the book are the slaves themselves, whom we meet in brief vignettes as they show the type of true humanity both sides could have learned from.