The Rock Quarry Book

the long version

During the Civil War, a small group of Unionists - some, though not all, Northern-born - found themselves trapped in the largest Southern city between Richmond and New Orleans. Atlanta was a Confederate bastion. The military ruled, and it brooked little dissent. But, as Thomas G. Dyer reveals in Secret Yankees, the Confederate military hadn't reckoned on Cyrena Stone. A Vermont native, Cyrena moved to Atlanta with her husband, Amherst, in 1854. After war had broken out between the states, Amherst escaped to the North, ostensibly on business. Union authorities eventually arrested him as a Southern spy. Meanwhile, Cyrena stayed behind. Hiding her small Union flag in her sugar bowl, suppressing but not moderating her well-known pro-Northern views, she belonged to a secret circle of Unionists - white and black, male and female - who lived in fear of their lives but nevertheless managed to aid Union prisoners of war, protect the interests of slaves and freedmen, and spirit military intelligence out of the city - eventually to the benefit of Sherman's advancing army. An intriguing story of loyalty and patriotism, Secret Yankees offers a perspective on the Civil War ignored in previous accounts. Arrested on suspicion of spying (the penalty was death) but released by Southern authorities, her house destroyed by Union shelling during the vividly rendered fall of Atlanta, Cyrena Stone survived the war to see the triumph of the cause for which she had risked her life.