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Kidnapped at Sea

The Civil War Voyage of David Henry White

ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

The true story of David Henry White, a free Black teenage sailor enslaved on the high seas during the Civil War, whose life story was falsely and intentionally appropriated to advance the Lost Cause trope of a contented slave, happy and safe in servility.

David Henry White, a free Black teenage sailor from Lewes, Delaware, was kidnapped by Captain Raphael Semmes of the Confederate raider Alabama on October 9, 1862, from the Philadelphia-based packet ship Tonawanda. White remained captive on the Alabama for over 600 days, until he drowned during the Battle of Cherbourg on June 19, 1864.

In a best-selling postwar memoir, Semmes falsely described White as a contented slave who remained loyal to the Confederacy. In Kidnapped at Sea, archaeologist Andrew Sillen uses a forensic approach to describe White's enslavement and demise and illustrates how White's actual life belies the Lost Cause narrative his captors sought to construct.

Kidnapped at Sea is the first book to focus on White's actual life, rather than relying on Semmes and other secondary sources. Until now, Semmes's appropriation of White's life has escaped scrutiny, thereby demonstrating the challenges faced by disempowered, illiterate people—and how well-crafted, racist fabrications have become part of Civil War memory.

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    • Booklist

      September 15, 2024
      The infamous Confederate commerce raider Alabama charted a course of mayhem across the world's oceans, capturing and burning unarmed merchant ships flying the U.S. flag. Among the "prizes" stolen by the Alabama's captain, Raphael Semmes, was a free Black teenager named David White from Delaware, who was forced to work on the ship, held captive for nearly a year-and-a-half until he drowned in battle. Scholar Sillen attempts the impossible, to reconstruct the life of this innocent young man despite White's enforced silence. There is, however, ample evidence of the Alabama's piracy in service to the rebel cause, along with Semmes' popular and brazenly inaccurate memoir. Sillen reads between the lines of the captain's self-serving Confederate propaganda to discover the truth. The result is an informative and compelling adventure on the high seas, a skillful litigation of Civil War events, and an engaging description of antebellum and wartime America. Sillen cuts through tall tales and hagiography to give recognition to one of the hidden victims of Confederate war crimes. Kidnapped at Sea joins the pantheon of great Civil War scholarship.

      COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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  • English

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