The Roving Editor: or, Talks with Slaves in the Southern United States (review)

90civil war history Certainly this played a part in preserving the nation and granting it a "new birth of freedom." Vernon L. Volpe University of Nebraska at Kearney The Roving Editor: or, Talks with Slaves in the Southern United States. Edited by John R. McKivigan. (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996 [1859]. Pp. xxvi, 356. $45.00 cloth; $16.95 paper.) James Redpath may not be one ofthe better-known abolitionists, but his call for slave insurrection and war against the institution set him apart from a majority of his antislavery travelers. Scottish-born in 1833, Redpath arrived in Michigan in 1849 with his parents. He became interested in journalism, wrote for several papers in Michigan, and eventually landed a job with Horace Greeley's New York Tribune. Redpath's "Facts of Slavery" column became a regular feature and also inspired his Southern travels. Between 1854 and 1857, Redpath made three tours of the South; specifically, he visited Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama. By 1857 he was investigating slavery in Kansas, where he met John Brown. During his Southern sojourns, Redpath conducted clandestine interviews with slaves and free blacks. To conceal his own identity, Redpath wrote a series of letters signed with the pseudonym John Ball, Jr. (a fourteenth-century English priest beheaded by King Richard ? for seditious preaching). Although these missives suggest a milder form of slave resistance than outright revolt (Redpath referred to it as a "general stampede" to freedom), he quickly abandoned this approach and called for a general insurrection. He later wrote a significant biography of John Brown, which may have sold seventy-five thousand copies. Redpath denied to the end of his life that Brown had participated in the Pottawatomie massacre. Redpath deeply admired Brown perhaps never more so than after the raid on Harpers Ferry where Brown attempted to put into practice one of the Scotsman 's most cherished beliefs, a slave insurrection. In numerous articles he defended the Kansas warrior but criticized him for his geographical choice of Harpers Ferry to center the upheaval. Moreover, Redpath denied that Brown was a madman and emphasized his deep religious convictions. Apparently, Redpath either knew or suspected that Brown planned to implement a scheme that would encourage and aid Southern bondspeople to rise up in revolt. He, however, did not know where or when. Redpath's association with Brown clearly benefited the newspaperman financially and professionally. Redpath was certainly on the outer fringes of an already despised and radical movement, but his ability to travel in the South, arrange secret interviews with slaves and free blacks (Redpath had stenographic training), and never be harmed says something about a supposed tense and volatile Southern society in book reviews91 the 1850S. That his letters and observations were so extensively published suggests that the South may not have been a "closed society" in the decade before the war. Because of his extensive reporting on the Kansas crisis, Redpath originally planned a fourth Southern tour. But after the Harpers Ferry raid, he scuttled that idea and went to Haiti instead. Redpath became the official Haitian lobbyist to secure recognition for that island from the United States. During the Civil War he served as a correspondent and published inexpensive books for the soldiers. He became a bitter opponent of President Andrew Johnson's lenient Reconstruction policy and was appointed the first superintendent of education in South Carolina in the federally occupied area. Until his death, Redpath supported causes that promoted the advancement and education of African Americans . Although some may wonder why a new edition of Redpath's The Roving Editor was published, McKivigan has presented the profession with a superb document. Not only has he annotated the book, but he captures the essence of Redpath's Southern tours, identifies all the John Ball, Jr., letters, plus he provides additional writings by Redpath. Moreover, his introduction is a reasoned explanation of the pros and cons of using interviews from African Americans who were either slaves, successful runaways, or who survived the vicissitudes ofa slave society as supposedly "free." McKivigan has provided us with an extensive picture and characterization of a "radical" abolitionist that demonstrates how far slavery...