Freedom’s Tears: The History of the Civil War in Charleston, South Carolina, and Port Royal Sound
Author Josie Olsvig transports the reader to a tumultuous time in American history, the mid-1800s in Charleston, South Carolina, neighboring Beaufort, and the surrounding Sea Islands. As the story unfolds, White aristocratic planters, determined to protect their tremendous wealth and rights as slaveholders, seek to form a separate nation. Walk the halls of the Citadel Military Academy where the sons of secessionists prepare to defend their “way of life” from the invading forces of the North. Listen to the steamy rhetoric of local plantation owners and their spouses under the influence of segregationists John C. Calhoun and newspaper publisher Robert Barnwell Rhett. Climb aboard the Union armada sent to block the flow of military goods from Europe to the Confederacy. Witness the liberation of over ten thousand enslaved workers, who later become known as “contrabands of war,” and the Union Army’s struggle to protect and assist the now liberated enslaved workers. This riveting historical novel has a compendium of the key players in the war and is filled with previously unknown facts, illustrations, and photographs.
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Josie is a new Southern author who lives outside Charleston, South Carolina. Previously, Josie was an attorney and social worker who spent her career addressing child abuse, domestic violence, and sexual assault. Her call to service was spurred by growing up in poverty in the inner city, experiencing hardship, strife, and violence. Josie worked for nearly thirty years as a public servant and advocate. In the twilight of her career, Josie served on a statewide committee to combat human trafficking in her home state of Ohio. After moving to the South, she became deeply interested in the Gullah culture and race-based slavery. Leveraging her legal research skills, she interviewed Gullah slave descendants, conducted site visits, and researched archival records. Her first book, Growing Up Gullah in the Lowcountry, is a children's picture book about the Gullah culture, heirs' property, and the history of Charleston. Gullah Tears is Josie's debut historical fiction novel, the first in a series.