"A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America" is the subtitle of W. Caleb McDaniel's SWEET TASTE OF LIBERTY. Born into slavery, Henrietta Wood was taken to Cincinnati and legally freed in 1848. In 1853, a Kentucky deputy sheriff named Zebulon Ward colluded with her employer, abducted her, and sold her back into bondage. Henrietta Wood remained enslaved throughout the Civil War.

By 1869, Wood had obtained her freedom a second time. She returned to Cincinnati, where she sued Ward for damages in 1870. Astonishingly, Wood won her case: in 1878, a Federal jury awarded her $2,500. The decision stuck on appeal. More important than the amount (though it was the largest ever awarded by an American court in restitution for slavery) was the fact that any money was awarded at all. By the time the case was decided, Ward had become a wealthy businessman and a pioneer of convict leasing in the South. 

SWEET TASTE OF LIBERTY is an epic tale of a black woman who survived slavery twice and achieved more than merely a moral victory over one of her oppressors. It is a portrait of an extraordinary woman and a searing reminder of the lessons of her story ... as Americans continue to debate reparations for slavery.