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Freedom (Safire Novel)
''Freedom'' is a historical novel by American essayist William Safire, set in the early years of the American Civil War. It concludes with the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. The novel shows how its main characters grapple with the dilemmas of political morality raised by secession and war. A particular focus is the challenge of reconciling individual rights and liberties with preserving the nation when its existence is threatened (a topic Safire would return to in his non-fiction writing, following the September 11 attacks). The novel shows how this process of wrestling with moral dilemmas in the political setting led, step by step, to the Emancipation Proclamation. As compared with other historical novels, ''Freedom'' is unusual in the volume of detail provided about its sources by the author. In a lengthy appendix, or "underbook" as Safire refers to it, he goes through the novel chapter by chapter, and in some cases line by line, distinguishing fact ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Safire
William Lewis Safire (; Safir; December 17, 1929 – September 27, 2009Safire, William (1986). ''Take My Word for It: More on Language.'' Times Books. . p. 185.) was an American author, columnist, journalist, and presidential speechwriter. He was a long-time syndicated political columnist for ''The New York Times'' and wrote the "On Language" column in ''The New York Times Magazine'' about popular etymology, new or unusual usages, and other language-related topics. Early life Safire was born William Lewis Safir in New York City, the son of Ida ( Panish) and Oliver Craus Safir. His family was Jewish and of Romanian origin on his father's side. Safire later added the "e" to his surname for pronunciation reasons, although some of his relatives continued to use the original spelling. Safire graduated from the Bronx High School of Science, a specialized public high school in New York City. He attended S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University but dropp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Salmon P
Salmon () is the common name for several commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the family Salmonidae, which are native to tributaries of the North Atlantic (genus ''Salmo'') and North Pacific (genus '' Oncorhynchus'') basin. Other closely related fish in the same family include trout, char, grayling, whitefish, lenok and taimen. Salmon are typically anadromous: they hatch in the gravel beds of shallow fresh water streams, migrate to the ocean as adults and live like sea fish, then return to fresh water to reproduce. However, populations of several species are restricted to fresh water throughout their lives. Folklore has it that the fish return to the exact spot where they hatched to spawn, and tracking studies have shown this to be mostly true. A portion of a returning salmon run may stray and spawn in different freshwater systems; the percent of straying depends on the species of salmon. Homing behavior has been shown to depend on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Simon Cameron
Simon Cameron (March 8, 1799June 26, 1889) was an American businessman and politician who represented Pennsylvania in the United States Senate and served as United States Secretary of War under President Abraham Lincoln at the start of the American Civil War. A native of Maytown, Pennsylvania, Cameron made a fortune in railways, canals, and banking. He was elected to the United States Senate as a member of the Democratic Party in 1845. A persistent opponent of slavery, Cameron briefly joined the Know Nothing Party before switching to the Republican Party in 1856. He won election to another term in the Senate in 1857 and provided pivotal support to Abraham Lincoln at the 1860 Republican National Convention. Lincoln appointed Cameron as his first Secretary of War. Cameron's wartime tenure was marked by allegations of corruption and lax management, and he was demoted to Ambassador to Russia in January 1862. Cameron made a political comeback after the Civil War, winning a third elec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Weiss Forney
John Weiss Forney (30 September 1817 – 9 December 1881) was an American newspaper publisher and politician. He was clerk of the United States House of Representatives from 1851 through 1856, and again from 1860 through 1861. He was thereafter secretary of the United States Senate from 1861 through 1868. Biography He was born at Lancaster, Pennsylvania and at the age of 16 entered the printing office of the Lancaster ''Journal''. Four years later he purchased the Lancaster ''Intelligencer'', and in 1840 he became proprietor of the ''Journal'' and combined the two papers under the name of the ''Intelligencer and Journal''. In 1845 President James K. Polk appointed him deputy surveyor of the port of Philadelphia, and he disposed of the ''Intelligencer and Journal'', and purchased a half interest in the ''Pennsylvanian'', a Democratic paper of great influence, which under his editorial control attained a national importance. From 1851 to 1855 he was Clerk of the United States Ho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Narrative Mode
Narration is the use of a written or spoken commentary to convey a story to an audience. Narration is conveyed by a narrator: a specific person, or unspecified literary voice, developed by the creator of the story to deliver information to the audience, particularly about the plot (the series of events). Narration is a required element of all written stories (novels, short stories, poems, memoirs, etc.), with the function of conveying the story in its entirety. However, narration is merely optional in most other storytelling formats, such as films, plays, television shows, and video games, in which the story can be conveyed through other means, like dialogue between characters or visual action. The narrative mode encompasses the set of choices through which the creator of the story develops their narrator and narration: * ''Narrative point of view, perspective,'' or ''voice'': the choice of grammatical person used by the narrator to establish whether or not the narrator and the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kate Chase
Katherine Jane ("Kate") Chase Sprague (August 13, 1840 – July 31, 1899) was a Washington society hostess during the American Civil War. During the war, she married Rhode Island Governor William Sprague. She was the daughter of Ohio politician Salmon P. Chase, who served as Treasury Secretary during President Abraham Lincoln's first administration and later Chief Justice of the United States. She was a strong supporter of her widowed father's presidential ambitions which, had he been successful, would have made her acting First Lady. Early life Kate was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, the daughter of Salmon Chase and his second wife Eliza Ann Smith. Eliza Chase died shortly after Kate's fifth birthday; Chase later married Sara Bella Ludlow with whom Kate had a difficult relationship. Kate Chase was educated at the Haines School in New York City, where she learned languages, elocution and the social graces along with music and history. After nine years of schooling, she returne ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mary Todd Lincoln
Mary Ann Todd Lincoln (December 13, 1818July 16, 1882) served as First Lady of the United States from 1861 until the assassination of her husband, President Abraham Lincoln in 1865. Mary Lincoln was a member of a large and wealthy, slave-owning Kentucky family. She was well educated. Born Mary Ann Todd, she dropped the name Ann after her younger sister, Ann Todd (later Clark), was born. After finishing school during her teens, she moved to Springfield, Illinois, where she lived with her married sister Elizabeth Edwards. Before she married Abraham Lincoln, she was courted by his long-time political opponent Stephen A. Douglas. The Lincolns had four sons of whom only the eldest, Robert, survived both parents. Their family home and neighborhood in Springfield is preserved at the Lincoln Home National Historic Site. Mary Lincoln staunchly supported her husband throughout his presidency and was active in keeping national morale high during the Civil War. She acted as the White Hous ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elizabeth Keckley
Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley (February 1818 – May 1907) was an American seamstress, activist, and writer who lived in Washington, D.C. She was best known as the personal dressmaker and confidante of Mary Todd Lincoln. Born into slavery, she was owned by her father, Armistead Burwell, and later his daughter who was her half-sister, Anne Burwell Garland. She became a nursemaid to an infant when she was four years old. She received brutal treatment—including being raped and whipped to the point of bleeding welts—from Burwell's family members and a family friend. When she became a seamstress, the Garland family found that it was financially advantageous to have her make clothes for others. The money that she made helped to support the Garland family of seventeen family members. In November 1855, she purchased her and her son's freedom in St. Louis, Missouri. Keckley moved to Washington, D.C. in 1860. She established a dressmaking business that grew to include a staff of 20 seams ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Allan Pinkerton
Allan J. Pinkerton (August 25, 1819 – July 1, 1884) was a Scottish cooper, abolitionist, detective, and spy, best known for creating the Pinkerton National Detective Agency in the United States and his claim to have foiled a plot in 1861 to assassinate president-elect Abraham Lincoln. During the Civil War, he provided the Union Army – specifically General George B. McClellan of the Army of the Potomac – with military intelligence, including extremely inaccurate enemy troop strength numbers.Sears (2017), p.104 After the war, his agents played a significant role as strikebreakers – in particular during the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 – a role that Pinkerton men would continue to play after the death of their founder. Early life Allan J. Pinkerton was born in the Gorbals area of Glasgow on August 25, 1819, the son of Isobel McQueen and William Pinkerton. He left school at the age of 10 after his father's death. Pinkerton read voraciously and was largely ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rose O'Neal Greenhow
Rose O'Neal Greenhow (1813– October 1, 1864) was a renowned Confederate spy during the American Civil War. A socialite in Washington, D.C., during the period before the war, she moved in important political circles and cultivated friendships with presidents, generals, senators, and high-ranking military officers including John C. Calhoun and James Buchanan. She used her connections to pass along key military information to the Confederacy at the start of the war. In early 1861, she was given control of a pro-Southern spy network in Washington, D.C., by her handler, Thomas Jordan, then a captain in the Confederate Army. She was credited by Jefferson Davis, the Confederate president, with ensuring the South's victory at the First Battle of Bull Run in late July 1861. The government found that information was being leaked and the trail led to Rose Greenhow's residence. Greenhow was subject to house arrest; found to have continued her activities, in 1862 after an espionage h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mathew Brady
Mathew B. Brady ( – January 15, 1896) was one of the earliest photographers in American history. Best known for his scenes of the Civil War, he studied under inventor Samuel Morse, who pioneered the daguerreotype technique in America. Brady opened his own studio in New York City in 1844, and photographed Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, and Abraham Lincoln, among other public figures. When the Civil War started, his use of a mobile studio and darkroom enabled vivid battlefield photographs that brought home the reality of war to the public. Thousands of war scenes were captured, as well as portraits of generals and politicians on both sides of the conflict, though most of these were taken by his assistants, rather than by Brady himself. After the war, these pictures went out of fashion, and the government did not purchase the master-copies as he had anticipated. Brady's fortunes declined sharply, and he died in debt. Early life Brady left little record of his life bef ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Hay
John Milton Hay (October 8, 1838July 1, 1905) was an American statesman and official whose career in government stretched over almost half a century. Beginning as a private secretary and assistant to Abraham Lincoln, Hay's highest office was United States Secretary of State under Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt. Hay was also an author and biographer, and wrote poetry and other literature throughout much of his life. Born in Indiana to an anti-slavery family that moved to Warsaw, Illinois when he was young, Hay showed great potential, and his family sent him to Brown University. After graduation in 1858, Hay read law in his uncle's office in Springfield, Illinois, adjacent to that of Lincoln. Hay worked for Lincoln's successful presidential campaign and became one of his private secretaries at the White House. Throughout the American Civil War, Hay was close to Lincoln and stood by his deathbed after the President was shot at Ford's Theatre. In addition ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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