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How the HELL had I never heard of August Bondi, "Enthusiastic Jew & lover of humanity," Austrian, part of the failed '48 revolt in Vienna, settled in Kansas, become a Free Soiler, ran Underground RR, fought slavers alongside John Brown, & was WIA as 1SG of Co K, 5th Kansas Cav?
This dude wrote an autobiography
Well there's me for the afternoon
Holy crap, it is GOOD: "my parents always impressed upon their children that Jews or Christians, high or low, all are children of a common Father. These principles affected my conduct all through life"
Well there's me for the afternoon
Holy crap, it is GOOD: "my parents always impressed upon their children that Jews or Christians, high or low, all are children of a common Father. These principles affected my conduct all through life"
Reading his accounts of the students forming a national guard in Vienne in 1848, organized by colleges of study is just WILD. He joined the 5th Company of the Battalion of the Philosophy Faculty
That is just begging for satire...
That is just begging for satire...
Holy hell, his eyewitness account of Bleeding Kansas is chilling. Most often because of all the banal bits of life he leaves in there, like buying food, visiting friends, tilling fields...in between slave-state Missourians burning farms & houses, while US troops didn't intervene
This is also a fascinating account of John Brown - here appearing as a calm, collected, and very brave civil and military leader. A far cry from the half-mad bloodthirsty zealot that he's often been painted as (lookin' at you, "The Civil War," on PBS)
Jewish mothers, man - timeless forces of nature, relentless, kind, and wonderful.
