In early April 1861, the streets of West Chester, PA, echoed with the sound of a rattling snare drum. The orders it marked out could be heard for blocks around – about face, advance, retreat, company rest – but there were no troops in the city to hear it. The Civil War, though it loomed heavy on the minds of everyone in the nation, had not yet begun. Fort Sumter would remain in Union hands for another two weeks and the secession crisis in the south was yet still only a war of words. But on the one hundred block of Barnard Street, the children had already mustered. The children were already marching. And Charley King, a boy of only 11, was leading them. In a matter of days, the war would start in earnest. In just a few months, Charley would march with the 49th Pennsylvania Infantry into the heat of battle. And in just under a year and a half, he would become the youngest enlisted soldier to die in the American Civil War.Charley marched with Company F, tapping out the cadence and relaying orders as they fought in the ill-fated Peninsula Campaign, traveled in the long slog through Maryland during Robert E. Lee’s first invasion of the North, and faced down enemy artillery in the woods north of Sharpsburg at Antietam Creek. That battle remains the bloodiest day in American history. Charley and twenty-two thousand other Americans were killed or wounded that day. Charley’s final resting place is unknown, but he is memorialized in West Chester at Greenmount Cemetery where his mother and father are buried. Using a wide range of sources, this unique history reconstructs Charley’s short life and the tragedy of his claim as the youngest soldier to die in the American Civil War.
Christine Allen; Fred Anguera; Shelly Bailes; Matthew Baume; Kirsten Berzon; Michael Boyajian; Billy Bradford; Kate Burns; Marvin Burrows; Geoff Callan; Joe Capley-Alfano; Frank Capley-Alfano; Beau Chandler; Sean Chapin; J.Scott Coatsworth; Michael Farino; Stuart Gaffney; Tim Garcia; Mike Goettemoeller; Baltimore Gonzalez; Carmen Goodyear; Tracy Hollister; Mark "Major" Jiminez; Davina Kotulski; Kitty Lambert-Rudd; Cheryle Lambert-Rudd; John Lewis; Amos Lim; Zack Lyons; Cathy Marino-Thomas; Michael Markiewicz; Brian Maschka
"The People's Victory is a mirror for each of us to see our own power to fight for justice and create the change we want to see in our world." – Gavin Newsom, Lieutenant Governor of CaliforniaIn 1996, a small group of Americans from all walks of life banded together to create one of the most miraculous political victories in modern American history. Opponents attacked the issue of marriage equality as amoral and a direct threat to families. Allies warned that it was a generation away from being practicable and a selfish drain of precious political capital. A stirring oral history told by those who almost inexplicably found themselves fighting on the front lines, The People's Victory recounts the successes – and the setbacks – that only served to strengthen everyone's resolve to resist, fight, and bring equal marriage rights to an entire nation. Through it all, these love warriors found their voice and home in Marriage Equality USA, the nation's oldest and largest grassroots organization of its kind. While high profile books, articles and documentaries have covered the judicial and legislative machinations, this book puts a human face on the people who made the everyday personal sacrifices to keep the movement alive. The People's Victory shares deeply moving personal testimonies of over sixty people, from Marvin Burrows, who was forced out of his home and lost many treasured possessions after losing his lost his partner of fifty years; to Kate Burns, who risked arrest for the first time when she stood up for her relationship; to Mike Goettemoeller, who pushed his mother in a wheelchair with Marriage Equality USA to fulfill her dream of marching in a Pride parade.Edie Windsor, the triumphant lead plaintiff in the Supreme Court case United States vs. Windsor recounts shouting down a major LGBTQ organization with "I'm 77 years old and I can't wait!!" when they attempted to belittle marriage as a critical issue. Writer and producer Del Shores shares the touching moment his young teenage daughter used tears and laughter to console him after the passage of Proposition 8 in California dealt a blow to the cause.The People's Victory is an inspirational roadmap for anyone who has felt passionately about an issue, but has questioned whether one person's contribution can make a difference. These candid accounts once again prove that every movement for important social change must be built on the acts of everyday. In fact, that is the only way the people have ever been victorious.In his introduction, California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom writes: "I hope these stories inspire you to resist, to fight, to win and in the end write the next stories in our continuing push for a more just and perfect union.
The exciting sequel to THE REMEMBER BOX. Poised at the edge of a mystifying adult world, twelve-year-old Carley grapples with complexities she doesn't understand. Why the prickly tension between the beautiful divorcee, Maddie Raeburn, and the school principal, Jerry Donaldson? What lies behind the sudden and disturbing change in behavior of Grace, Uncle Stephen and Aunt Kate's maid? How did Emily, Maddie's sister-in-law, acquire her broken jaw and bruised face? As the web of circumstances, relationships, and faith that surrounds her grows increasingly intricate, Carley makes a shocking discovery at the gully on the town's outskirts, and a longstanding mystery suddenly becomes something much more sinister. One very ugly skeleton has popped out of someone's closet. But whose? The futures of innocent people hand in the balance as Job's Corner digs to get at the root of its deepest, darkest secret of all. "Sprinkle is adept at crafting memorable settings that feel historically authentic ... the writing is superb ... there's plenty of redemption and hope laced throughout ..." --Publishers Weekly
