Steve Knowlton presented "Thirteen Months in Dixie, or the Adventures of a Federal Prisoner in Texas."
It was a fascinating story of a Union soldier Oscar Federhen who gets left behind by a troop ship and is sent to and escaped from POW Camp Ford, the largest Confederate-run prison west of the Mississippi. His autobiographical story is written down in a journal, re-written and then passed down through the family until it finds the light of day again. Steve researches the story and finds it is plausible (at least “80%”) and edits it into the book recently published.
Steve is a Librarian for History and African American Studies at Princeton University. His historical research has been published in many peer-reviewed journals. He is the recipient of the annual William Marshall Wingfield Award from the West Tennessee Historical Society and has twice won the Justin Winsor Library History Essay Award.
Winners of our monthly Book Raffle for Preservation are pictured below.
