DOC Black Confederates and Afro-Yankees in Civil War Virginia (Nation Divided: New Studies in Civil War History) by Ervin L. Jordan Jr. in History

Description

To celebrate its fiftieth anniversary; the University of Virginia Press reissues its first-ever publication. The volume’s two accounts of the 1609 wreck of a Jamestown-bound ship offer a gripping sea adventure from the earliest days of American colonization; but the dramatic events’ even greater claim to fame is for serving as the inspiration for William Shakespeare’s last major work; The Tempest. William Strachey was one of six hundred passengers sailing to Jamestown as part of the largest expedition yet to Virginia. A mere week from their destination; the fleet’s flagship; Sea Venture; met a tropical storm and wrecked on one of the islands of Bermuda. Strachey’s story might have ended there; but the castaways survived on the tropical island for eleven months and―in an act of almost incomprehensible resourcefulness―used local cedarwood; along with the wreckage of their own ship; to construct two seaworthy boats and continue successfully on their voyage.Strachey’s frankness about his fellow travelers; mutinies on the island; and the wretched condition in which they finally found Jamestown kept his document from being officially published initially; but it circulated privately in London; where one of its early readers was William Shakespeare. The second narrative in this volume; by Strachey’s shipmate Silvester Jourdain; covers the same episode but includes many fascinating details that Strachey’s does not; including some that made their way into The Tempest.Presented with modern spelling and punctuation; this great maritime drama and unforgettable firsthand look at the profound struggle to colonize America offers today’s reader the raw material that inspired Shakespeare’s masterpiece.