Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen

Cathy Williams was a slave in 19th century Missouri when the Civil War changed her life forever. Torn away from her family and the only way of life she ever knew, Williams disguised herself as a man and joined the army yo fight with the Buffalo Soldiers. Struggling to keep her identity hidden, trying to deal with the graphic horrors of war and never losing sight of her ultimate goal of finding her family, this is a remarkable story based on a real woman. Bird reminds us of all the forgotten women in history, women whose stories should be told, women whose names we should all know

General Sheridan and his soldiers were burning everything in sight and took Cathy Williams-a slave-off a plantation as contraband to be an assistant to the generals cook. After the war is over she enlists in the Union Army disguised as a man with the Buffalo Soldiers.
I've always wondered how the Union Army was able to recruit/convince ex-slaves-right after the civil war- to become Buffalo Soldiers knowing what they were going to do to the Indians. It really has always baffled me. This story goes into that a little of that and explores the feelings of the Buffalo soldier’s feelings on this. The Union Army was not kind to the soldiers and I believe used them horribly.
As I was reading this story, I was dreading reading about what was going to happen once they get out west-already knowing its history and the author gives you a vivid picture of their struggles and Cathy’s efforts to keep her disguise as a man.
Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen is a top-notch historical fiction story, memorable characters, outstanding history details of its setting, conflict and I’m truly looking forward to more stories by this author.
I obtained a copy of this book from the publishers through NetGalley for an honest review.
I have rated this book five stars.
Stephanie M. Hopkins

Oh my, this book is engaging and wonderful. So true to what happened to the slaves after the civil war ended. The North did not truly care what happened to the slaves. Most of them did not care one bit for the Africans any more then the Southerns did. The Northerns were just following orders and refuse to let the South leave the Union. Once the civil war was over there was nothing for the slaves. They were just kicked off the only home they had ever known and made to fend for themselves.

I don't judge Cathy's choices cause in all honestly if I was in the same situation I would probably do the same thing. I admire her for surviving the way she did.

The characters are all well written and the story line is amazing. You need to read this book. The strength of Cathy is amazing the only downside to the book is the very end. It does not end they way you think it should or would. I still have unanswered questions about the story and in some ways that makes it a wonderful book.

Such a strong woman character. We all need to be more like her. Great story with twists and turns.

Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen is Cathy's story of the civil war. What makes this story so intriguing is that Cathy is a black, former slave who passes herself off as a man most of her life. It would be interesting to include this in a high school US History class.

If you love historical fiction, you will absolutely love this book. It tells the tale of Cathy Williams, who was the only woman documented to have served in the U.S. Army with the Buffalo Soldiers. She hid her identity and served two years before she was found out. She was a real person and she really did this, but the novel is fiction based on her story. Still, it’s a wonderfully fascinating tale of a very courageous and bold woman.

Her grandmother was a queen in Africa, but she was kidnapped and ended up in slavery in the southern U.S. Her daughter and granddaughter (Cathy) were born into slavery. The story begins during the Civil War, when General Philip Sheridan selects Cathy to come along with his entourage and be his cook’s helper. She is forced to leave all that’s left of her family, her mother and little sister. She sees the war end and her people freed, but then they have to find something to do. She was a cook’s helper, so she has skills, but she doesn’t want to be a laundress or a cook, two of the very few jobs that were available to women at the time. She and her friend, Solomon, who was the cook she worked for and who now wants to marry her, decide to go into the Army. Without giving away any spoilers, Cathy ends up enlisting in the Army alone. She is sent west, supposedly to fight Indians. But, the cowardly commander of her post has other ideas for the soldiers.

The story has a lot of very tense moments. She’s a woman living in a very dangerous situation. She’s alone and has few friends and can really trust no one. The work is very hard and the conditions are really bad. Weather is hot and there is no shelter at the fort at first, since it was burned down. She constantly has to struggle to keep her identity hidden. To complicate things, some of the other soldiers bully her all the time. But she has great marksmanship skills and gains their respect eventually, but it doesn’t completely stop the bullying and harassment she has to endure for being “different.” Even though the men don’t know she’s a woman, they sense that she is different somehow.

Her situation is further complicated because she met the man who is now her Sergeant previously, when she was on the wagon being transported to General Sheridan’s camp. He does not recognize her though.

The tale is very complex and intricately woven. I was so absorbed in her story that I didn’t want it to end. I even went on Google to see if there is more information out there about her life. She’s a fascinating historical figure and one that I have never heard about before. It’s sad that our history books don’t tell the stories of people like Cathy Williams. She deserves a place in history. This book should be made into a movie so that her story can be shared more widely.

The book was very well-written and I enjoyed the author’s take on the story. We don’t know all that much about Cathy Williams, but this book gives her interesting life a new audience and hopefully will lead to more research so we can learn more about her. I think this book would be appropriate for history classes since it presents a first-person look at the Civil War, the Buffalo Soldiers, and life on the frontier. It also shows how poorly the black people were treated by just about everyone they encountered in those days. They may have gained freedom, but they were still in a bad situation. The sort of insider’s view that a reader gets in a book like this is invaluable for teaching these lessons. High school students should read this book because it will help them gain a new perspective that they can’t get out of a dry, boring textbook. I highly recommend it.

Powerful. This is the sort of books that they should read in schools as recommended reading. Human, emotive, touching and very raw. I could see this being a movie very easily because it's that good (in the way that a movie would ruin it likely). From a white, foreign, perspective the American Civil War and the continuing racial tensions have always been so difficult to understand because I grew up in a country where slavery was made illegal hundreds of years ago in a multicultural school where racism was never even considered or seen. I realize that's a privileged thing to say, but this book just illustrated so much of the historical pain behind the current problems that it seems so relevant. I especially liked the beginning where she illustrates that the stereotype of the southern black ex-slave is so strong to make people assume she's a fake and the part where she comforts the dying black soldier. You can see the transition from a certain naivete into a much harder woman just between those two points. A very dynamic read with developed characters. Great history.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The author left me wanting more. Other than knowing that Cathy Williams was a real person, I’m ashamed to say I don’t know how historically accurate the balance of this book is. That being said, if only half of the cruelty described in this book actually happened, slavery was one of the most abhorrent parts of our country’s history. The author made Cathy Williams come so alive for me that after I finished the book I spent a couple of hours reading about her. There is nothing better than reading about strong women and she certainly was that.

The Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen by Sarah Bird is a brutally honest, terrifying, thrilling, story of a young strong black girl taken by Union soldiers to be a helper for the cook with General Sheridan's army troop and her life as an adult. The fascinating story of her disguising herself and joining the Buffalo Soldiers for 2 years and the life she leads afterwards. It has a heart breaking ending.
This story is written with heart, grace and warmth for this strong warrior of a woman.
The best I've read so far in 2018!
Definitely FIVE stars.

This compelling,well-told tale tracks the life and struggles of the only know female Buffalo Soldier. Author Sarah Bird vividly, sometimes painfully, captures the inhumanity, racism, sexism and danger Black Americans faced during and after the Civil War, especially the precarious fates awaiting Black women.

Told in first person narrative, Bird imagines the life of former slave Cathay Williams, a girl who is torn from her family to be a cook's helper for the Union Army during the Civil War. When the war ends, she faces bleak prospects as a Black woman and decides to flip her name to William Cathay to enlist in the U.S. Army as male Buffalo Soldier after the war. This is an often violent, sometimes heartbreaking story right to the end.

As with all historical fiction, readers need to remember that this is, indeed, fiction. The author places Williams in the 9th Cavalry while the real William Cathay enlisted in the infantry. Other details are altered for the sake of the story. But what a story it is. What a riveting read right to the end.

I received an ARC from the publisher through NetGalley

This is a very well done book following the only female Buffalo soldier. I loved Cathy Williams with how she would fight fear and fight for what she wanted. It was a joy to watch her tongue lash stupid men. Hard to put down.

This story needs to be read in school!! Why do we not teach more about this part of history? Daughter of A Daughter of A Queen was so good.~It was a historical book that read like a fiction novel and I cannot wait until it's published and I can recommend it to every teacher friend I have.

This is a remarkable work of historical fiction based on the life of Cathy Williams. She began her life as a slave, but was endowed with a proud knowledge of her African ancestors. She experienced the Civil War as a Union Army cook. After the war she hid her gender and became a member of the Buffalo Soldiers, an all black regiment who worked in the West.

That story in itself is fascinating, but the details are riveting; I’ll not spoil them for you. There was much enlightening information: the challenges of blacks after they were freed; the treatment of the American Indians; life in the West; behavior toward women. I learned so much from this book.

This is a powerful and important book, full of engrossing historical information and impossible to put down! However you should know that the talk is tough, and the cruelties sometimes difficult to read, although they are not unnecessarily graphic. .

This book was provided to me by NetGalley in return for an honest review.

Based on the true story of enslaved woman Cathy Williams, Sarah Bird has written an adventure story for women, fraught with danger and laced with romance and humor. The fact that Ms. Williams was the first documented black female who served in the famous Buffalo Soldiers branch of the United States Army is the jumping off point for the novel. We follow her as she relates her story as a contraband cook to General Sheridan, to the surrender at Appomatox, and on to her decision to dress as a man and become a soldier. We learn how she maintains her disguise for two years as her unit marches across the Midwest to Texas, helping settlers battle the Native Americans. We also experience love and friendship through her eyes. This book is impossible to put down but you also can't read it in one gulp-I had to stop several times to just catch my breath....but those last 100 pages! Be sure to pay your bills and grocery shop before you get there because you will brook NO distractions.!

This was so well put together. We meet Cathy Williams toward the end of the Civil War, when she is "requisitioned" as a cook for the Union army, under General Sheridan. Cathy is the granddaughter of an Amazon queen, tall and muscular. As a recently freed Black woman, she is swept up in the end of the Civil War and opts to conceal her gender and join up with the peacetime army. Sarah Bird doesn't write a lot (in the galley, at least) about why she chose to pursue this story, or how much of it is based in fact, or whether it's even possible for us to know ANYTHING about women who served in the Buffalo Soldiers branch of the U.S. Calvary after the Civil War, but the tale she weaves is compelling and unputdownable. At 400 pages, this book breezed by. Definitely recommended for history aficionados.