In Gloucester County, one family’s story stretches from enslavement and the Civil War to civil rights activism, education reform, entrepreneurship, and migration across North America. The story begins during the Civil War. Two brothers, James Carter and Andrew Carter, were enslaved at Shelly in White Marsh, near Gloucester. When Union forces at Fort Monroe began accepting formerly enslaved people seeking refuge, the brothers escaped across the water and enlisted in the United States Colored Troops. “They stole themselves,” Dianne Carter de Mayo, a direct relative, explained. The brothers fought for the Union Army throughout the South, eventually serving as far away as Florida. Family memory holds that when Confederate forces surrendered at Appomattox Court House in 1865, Union soldiers in Florida celebrated by firing cannons. One of the brothers reportedly stood too close to the blast and suffered a permanent hearing injury, later receiving a Union pension for his military service. But...