BOUND FOR CANAAN The Underground Railroad and the War for the Soul of America

By 1850 and the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, the promised land for the nation's slaves had become Canada. The way there became known as the Underground Railroad. Though most people had never actually seen a railroad by 1840, its vocabulary triggered the imaginations of those on the road to freedom. The slave may have walked or gone by wagon or steamboat, but he was on the track, and there were conductors at each stop along the way. Peter Jay Fernandez skillfully moves between the hundreds of voices in Bordewich's richly documented narrative. We hear the voices of John C. Calhoun from South Carolina, Daniel Webster from Massachusetts, John Brown from Kansas, as well as Harriet Tubman and Levi Coffin. All ring with clarity in Bordewich's exhaustive text. P.E.F. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine [Published: APR/ MAY 07]