The Sergeant: The Incredible Life of Nicholas Said: Son of an African General, Slave of the Ottomans, Free Man with the Tsars, Hero of the Union Army

The astonishing life of Mohammed Ali ben Said (c. 1837–1882) is recounted in this sparkling biography from journalist Calbreath (coauthor, The Wrong Stuff). The son of a legendary warrior in the sheikdom of Borno (present-day Nigeria), Said was kidnapped at age 13 and forced to walk nearly 1,900 miles across the Sahara Desert to the Ottoman Empire outpost of Fezzan in modern-day Libya. From there he was brought to Istanbul, where he was purchased by a Russian prince, who brought him to Saint Petersburg and set him free. Having already mastered Arabic and Turkish, Said soon became fluent in French and Russian and was renamed Nicholas. He travelled the world with another Russian nobleman, Nicholas Trubetzkoy, and eventually made his way to America in 1860, where he joined one of the Union Army’s first “colored” units. After the war, he worked as a voting registrar, taught at “colored schools” in Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee, published his memoir, and lectured across the South. Calbreath fills in the gaps in Said’s story with long digressions about the Ottoman slave trade, tensions between Black and white soldiers in the Union Army, Reconstruction-era politics, and more. The result is a fascinating bit of forgotten history. (Feb.)