The Amalgamation Polka

A Civil War epic from one of Americas finest writers. This book follows theportentously named Liberty Fish a kind of abolitionist Candide from hisboyhood as the... » 

A Civil War epic from one of Americas finest writers. This book follows theportentously named Liberty Fish a kind of abolitionist Candide from hisboyhood as the child of Underground Railroad activists in upstate New Yorkthrough an extremely bloody tour of duty as a Union soldier in Georgia and theCarolinas and eventually to a Caribbean island with all sorts of adventuresboth expected and improbable along the way. The novel overflows withcharlatans whores preachers soldiersoffortune madmen and even a handfulof pirates all of them declaiming at the tops of their lungs in languagethat often borders on free verse.Born in 1844 in bucolic upstate New York Liberty Fish is the son of fervent abolitionists as well as the grandson of Carolina slaveholders even more dedicated to their cause. Thus follows a childhood filled with fugitive slaves moving through hidden passageways in the house his Uncle Potters freesoil adventure stories the violence of which sets the tone of the mounting national crisis and the inevitable distress that befalls his mother whenever letters arrive from her parents a conflict that ultimately costs her her life and compels Liberty in the hope of reconciling the familial disunion to escape first into the cauldron of civil war and then into a bedlam more disturbing still. «