The picture above depicts Tyler Lewis, fictional brother of Jim Lewis, who became a Union spy. Unlike Jim, Tyler let his hatred of the lash of slavery dominate his life and thoughts. Frederick Douglass shed light on the work of the American black spy and spoke of the ...
Read More

As historical fiction, Uncle T and the Uppity Spy speculates that while Stonewall Jackson fervently believed that God had crowned his military efforts with the victories he won, Jackson was a soul-searching man, and his doubts about the wisdom of human bondage could not be contained. Stonewall had ...
Read More

General Thomas Stonewall Jackson’s amputated arm is buried in a separate grave from the rest of his body. It is ironic to this author that the same arm that handed Bibles to African American slaves, and broke the law by teaching them how to read and write, is ...
Read More

Uncle T and the Uppity Spy’s star character Jim Lewis stayed on the Confederate side of the war. Today Jim might be labeled an “Uncle Tom,” which is a reference to Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Stowe’s character “Uncle Tom” was a saintly black slave who ...
Read More

The gospel song “Wade in the Water” is often sung today at baptisms. However, in the era of slavery, the song contained covert guidance for escaping. Since bloodhounds could not trace human scent through water, escaping slaves were told through the song that they should cross through water ...
Read More

“Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in, except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.” ― Winston S. Churchill, “Never Give In!” ...
Read More

Some black men volunteered to fight for the Confederacy out of loyalty to their homeland. For example, a militia of 440 free black men formed up in Louisiana and vowed to put their lives on the line to save the Confederacy from the Union power. At the same ...
Read More