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It was the final autumn of a long and bitter war. In the tidewater lands of Virginia, where the air still hung with the damp scent of tobacco and old blood, a strange quiet had settled. The armies were elsewhere — marching toward Yorktown, trading cannon fire for surrender terms. But in Greensville County, there were no parades, no flags, no declarations of liberty. Just the rhythm of harvest, the hiss of lanterns in the dark, and the silent endurance of the enslaved. In one such household, tucked among the red clay roads and roughhewn fields, lived a boy named Thomas Garland. He was called Tom. He was only thirteen.