Excerpt from Fair Wind of Liberty
Abby couldn’t imagine what life was like for a slave. Most of the people in Groton didn’t own slaves, and the few blacks she knew personally were free men, like Leonidas. She wasn’t sure she understood slavery, but she knew that she was helping Leonidas, and that made her feel good.
In the eastern sky faint traces of light began to appear. Leonidas pulled the oars into the boat and dropped the small anchor over the side.
“Hold the tiller steady,” he said to Abby. “I got to get the net out just right to catch the incoming tide.”
Abby kept the nose of the vessel pointed south towards the mouth of the river as she watched the powerful black man pulling the net out of the bottom of the boat and feeding it over the side.
In the distance she saw something that startled her.
“Oh, my,” she said suddenly. “Look at that!”
Leonidas cocked his head to one side. At first, he couldn’t see anything but as his eyes adjusted, the horizon was suddenly filled with the outline of dozens of ships.
“It’s the British fleet,” he said. “Must be twenty or thirty warships!”
“What does that mean?” Abby asked anxiously.
“It means we’re being invaded!” said Leonidas.
Sixteen chapters
Fair Wind of Liberty is illustrated by Miranda Norris. Each chapter comes with its own drawing, and the story has its own distinctive logo.
Note: This serial comes with an additional page explaining the historical background.
Teacher's Guide
Fair Wind of Liberty is set in the Revolutionary War. On September 6, 1781, British forces under the traitor Benedict Arnold, attacked New London, Connecticut, setting fire to the city and overrunning Fort Griswold on the Groton side of the Thames River. While the events are real, most of the characters are fictional.
The story is told from multiple viewpoints by members of the Cutler family, who experience the key events of that fateful day, providing the reader with a continuous first-person narrative as the action shifts from New London to Groton, and inside Fort Griswold, where 187 defenders await the advancing British army.
The raid was a decisive victory for the British - and one of the most deadly and brutal days of the war. On the New London side of the river at least 140 buildings, including many homes, businesses, public buildings, and even a church were consumed by fire. The battle for Fort Griswold on the Groton side of the river was a bloody one for the British whose casualty rate was over 20%—with 48 killed, 145 wounded, and several missing (out of a force of 800 soldiers). During the attack itself, the Americans lost only about ten men, but after the fort was surrendered the British went on a rampage, killing or wounding most of the 200 defenders, making the battle the bloodiest of the war in terms of percentage of casualties.
Today, Fort Griswold is a city park and a battle monument commemorates the sacrifices of the Americans who took part in the battle.
