A Shot in the Moonlight: How a Freed Slave and a Confederate Soldier Fought for Justice

A Shot in the Moonlight - How a Freed Slave and a Confederate Soldier Fought for Justice in the Jim Crow South

The Little-known True Story Of George Dinning, A Freed Slave, And Colonel Bennett H. Young, A Confederate War Hero, Who In 1899 Joined Forces To Take On A Kentucky Mob In Court After Dinning Was Beaten Almost To Death For Defending His Farm Against White Attackers. After Moonrise On The Cold Night Of January 21, 1897, A Mob Of Twenty Five White Men Gathered In A Patch Of Woods Near Big Road In Southwestern Simpson County, Kentucky. Half Carried Rifles And Shotguns, And A Few Tucked Pistols In Their Pants. Their Target? George Dinning, A Freed Slave Who'd Farmed Peacefully In The Area For 14 Years, And Had Been Wrongfully Accused Of Stealing Livestock From A Neighboring Farm. When The Mob Began Firing Through The Doors And Windows Of Dinning's House, He Fired Back In Self-defense, Shooting And Killing The Son Of A Wealthy Kentucky Family. So Began One Of The Strangest Legal Episodes In American History -- One That Ended With Dinning Becoming The First Black Man In America To Win Damages After A Wrongful Murder Conviction. Drawing On A Wealth Of Never-before-published Material, Bestselling Author Ben Montgomery Resurrects This Dramatic And Largely Forgotten Story, And The Unusual Convergence Of Characters -- Among Them A Confederate War Hero-turned-lawyer Named Bennett H. Young, Kentucky Governor William O'connell Bradley, And George Dinning Himself -- That Allowed This Thrilling But Unlikely Story Of Justice To Unfold In A Time And Place Where Justice Was All Too Rare.

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