I mentioned this on Facebook a while back, but I’m listening to Dr. David Blight’s class lectures on the Civil War. (iTunes U link) Dr. Blight’s an amazing speaker, lecturer and storyteller and I can’t recommend it highly enough.
I’m in the Reconstruction era now, which is a sad and nasty time of social unrest and political infighting. It’s worth a listen, though: America was begun in 1776, but the country we know today was built in the 1860s.
This is a five minute clip from one of the lectures. There aren’t many amusing stories from this time, but this particular one manages to be hilarious and terribly moving. A former master writes to his former slave, and asks him to come back. This is the former’s slave’s reply.
Notes