Slaves No More: Three Essays on Emancipation and the Civil WarThe three essays in this volume present an introduction to history of the emancipation of the slaves during the Civil War. The first essay traces the destruction of slavery by discussing the shift from a war for the Union to a war against slavery. The slaves are shown to have shaped the destiny of the nation through their determination to place their liberty on the wartime agenda. The second essay examines the evolution of freedom in occupied areas of the lower and upper South. The struggle of those freed to obtain economic independence in difficult wartime circumstances indicates conflicting conceptions of freedom among former slaves and slaveholders, Northern soldiers and civilians. The third essay demonstrates how the enlistment and military service of nearly 200,000 slaves hastened the transformation of the war into a struggle for universal liberty, and how this experience shaped the lives of former slaves long after the war had ended. |
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abolitionist Adjutant American antebellum antislavery black enlistment black laborers Black Military Experience black military laborers black regiments black soldiers bondage border-state Butler Civil compensation Confederacy Confederate Confiscation Act Congress contraband camps Day of Jubilo Destruction of Slavery District of Columbia docs Emancipation Proclamation employers employment estates ex-slaves families farms federal officials federal policy field forces former slaves Fortress Monroe free blacks free labor freedom freedpeople fugitive slaves History of Emancipation independent Ira Berlin Kentucky land large numbers Lincoln lives Louisiana Lower South loyal Maryland masters ment military service Mississippi Valley Missouri National Negro North Northern number of black Official Records owners plantation planters political protection rebels Reconstruction refugees residents runaways slaveholders South Carolina southern Louisiana Stanton Statutes at Large struggle superintendents Tennessee territory tidewater Virginia tion troops Union army Union lines Union-occupied South unionists Upper South wages Wartime Genesis Washington women workers Yankee York