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Podcast: New Books in African American Studies
Episode: David Wright Faladé, "Black Cloud Rising" (Grove Press, 2022)
Description: By fall of 1863, Union forces had taken control of Tidewater Virginia, and established a toehold in eastern North Carolina, including along the Outer Banks. Thousands of freed slaves and runaways flooded the Union lines, but Confederate irregulars still roamed the region. In December, the newly formed African Brigade, a unit of these former slaves led by General Edward Augustus Wild—a one-armed, impassioned Abolitionist—set out from Portsmouth to hunt down the rebel guerillas and extinguish the threat.From this little-known historical episode comes Black Cloud Rising (Grove Press, 2022), a dramatic, moving account of these soldiers—men who only...