In this Book
- I Am a Fugitive from a Georgia Chain Gang!
- Book
- 1997
- Published by: University of Georgia Press
In 1921, Robert E. Burns was a shell-shocked and penniless veteran who found himself at the mercy of Georgia's barbaric penal system when he fell in with a gang of petty thieves. Sentenced to six to ten years' hard labor for his part in a robbery that netted less than $6.00, Burns was shackled to a county chain gang. After four months of backbreaking work, he made a daring escape, dodging shotgun blasts, racing through swamps, and eluding bloodhounds on his way north.
For seven years Burns lived as a free man. He married and became a prosperous Chicago businessman and publisher. When he fell in love with another woman, however, his jealous wife turned him in to the police, who arrested him as a fugitive from justice. Although he was promised lenient treatment and a quick pardon, he was back on a chain gang within a month. Undaunted, Burns did the impossible and escaped a second time, this time to New Jersey. He was still a hunted man living in hiding when this book was first published in 1932.
The book and its movie version, nominated for a Best Picture Oscar in 1933, shocked the world by exposing Georgia's brutal treatment of prisoners. I Am a Fugitive from a Georgia Chain Gang! is a daring and heartbreaking book, an odyssey of misfortune, love, betrayal, adventure, and, above all, the unshakable courage and inner strength of the fugitive himself.
Table of Contents
- Foreword to the Brown Thrasher Edition
- pp. v-xxiv
- Introduction
- pp. 9-36
- I. The War Makes a Wanderer
- pp. 37-41
- II. The Wanderer Gets into a Jam
- pp. 42-46
- IV. A Decision to "Run Out
- pp. 56-61
- V. Breaking the Shackles
- pp. 62-67
- VII. To Chicago and—Freedom
- pp. 78-81
- VIII. An Unfortunate Marriage
- pp. 82-92
- IX. Success, Romance and—Betrayal
- pp. 93-102
- X. The Heavy Hand of Unfeeling Law
- pp. 103-106
- XI. In the Coils of Legal Red Tape
- pp. 107-115
- XII. The Fight against Extradition
- pp. 116-121
- XIII. Back to the Horrors of the Gang
- pp. 122-133
- XIV. A Request for Money—and a Transfer
- pp. 134-140
- XV. Life at the Troup County Stockade
- pp. 141-147
- XVI. Excitement Among the Convicts
- pp. 148-165
- XVII. A Hearing Before the Prison Commission
- pp. 166-169
- XIX. The Depths of Despair
- pp. 179-184
- XX. Hope Revived Once More
- pp. 185-189
- XXII. Driven to Desperation
- pp. 198-202
- XXIII. Preparation for a Daring Break
- pp. 203-210
- XXIV. Another Try at Breaking the Gang
- pp. 211-219
- XXV. Almost Recaptured
- pp. 220-226
- XXVII. A Fugitive in his Native Land
- pp. 238-257