In the True Blue's Wake

Daniel B. Thorp is Associate Professor of History at Virginia Tech and author of Facing Freedom: An African American Community in Virginia from Reconstruction to Jim Crow (Virginia).

A story of triumph and a celebration of the Black lives connected to the Preston holdings, emphasizing their humanity, strength, and creativity in the face of challenges. . . Thorp's work will be of immense use to historians of Virginia and the region, and to Black genealogists. . . The author is to be commended on the dedication to providing these resources, and the press similarly applauded for making room for this end matter despite what it may have added to the production cost. This supplemental material is not only valuable for the utility it adds to the book; it makes a powerful statement by asserting the humanity of people who appear only in glimpses in the historical record.-- "Journal of Southern History" In the True Blue's Wake is an ambitious undertaking, stunningly achieved. To attempt to tell the story of one Southern plantation's enslaved population would be a daunting task in itself. Trying to follow them down through succeeding generations to the present day would discourage all but the most committed scholars, but Daniel Thorp has done it. His research is beyond impressive, and his use of it has put living flesh on the bare bones the archives have to offer. This wholly original study leaves us with a portrait of the patience, determination, and frequent heroism, it took for those Black Virginians at Smithfield, and their descendants, to survive and leave slavery in the wake of their own march to freedom. --William C. Davis, author of The Cause Lost: Myths and Realities of the Confederacy Written with great empathy, Thorp's powerful narrative connects the fascinating story of an enslaved community with the pioneering movements of freedpeople and their descendants. --Warren Milteer, Jr., University of North Carolina, Greensboro, author of Beyond Slavery's Shadow: Free People of Color in the South