his brother-in-law, john mercer langston, and he is -- o.s.b. wahl establishes a reputation for two things. one for his ardent activism as an anti-slavery political activist and second he gets a reputation for having what one of one observer calmed a trumpet tongued way with words. he was a really great speaker and was actually wickedly funny. in the late 1850s he was actually indicted for violating the fugitive slave act. >> that's a great passage of the book, by the way. >> he helps -- he takes part in a vigilante action to free a captive. there had been a fugitive slave who had been captured by kentucky slave catchers, and a group of overland abolitionists surrounded the slave captors and basically freed the man and whisked him off to canada. o.s.b. wahl was among about three dozen men who were indicted. he wound up being freed, however, because the indictment misspelled his first name. all through his life people were getting orendodus wrong, and as someone who has the last name sharfstein, i can relate. so when the civil war started, o.s.b.