Yazoo is a rare and revealing firsthand account of Reconstruction told by a Wisconsin carpetbagger and devout abolitionist who moved to Mississippi in pursuit of wealth and social reform. Seeking economic opportunity for himself as well as a chance to bring about a new social order in the defeated South, Albert T. Morgan leased a cotton plantation in Yazoo County, Mississippi, in1865. His farming venture failed -as did his efforts to secure interracial democracy -but his decade spent in Yazoo County brought opportunities to serve in elected office as a constitutional delegate, state senator,...