Shipwrecked: A True Civil War Story of Mutinies, Jailbreaks, Blockade-Running, and the Slave Trade
Time & Place
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The Mariners' Museum and Park
February 22, 2024, 7 - 9 p.m.
100 Museum Drive
Newport News, VA 23606 -
Phone: 757-596-2222
Highway Exit: 258A from I-64
Website: Click here to visit us online
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The Mariners' Museum and Park
Description
Historian and author Jonathan W. White tells the riveting story of Appleton Oaksmith, a swashbuckling sea captain whose life intersected with crucial moments of the mid-19th century, most importantly the extraordinary lengths the Lincoln Administration went to destroy the illegal trans-Atlantic slave trade. White takes readers into the murky underworld of New York City, where federal marshals plied the docks in lower Manhattan in search of evidence of slave trading. Once they suspected Oaksmith, federal authorities had him arrested and convicted, but he escaped from jail and became a Confederate blockade-runner in Havana. Always claiming innocence, Oaksmith spent the next decade in exile until he received a presidential pardon from U.S. Grant, at which point he moved to North Carolina and became an anti-Klan politician. Through a remarkable, fast-paced story, this book will give readers a new perspective on slavery and shifting political alliances during the turbulent Civil War Era. Click here to register, whether attending in person or watching online.