Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation
3 total works
Freedom: Volume 1, Series II: The Black Military Experience
by Ira Berlin, Joseph P. Reidy, and Leslie S. Rowland
Published 28 January 1983
This book explicates the process by which slavery collapsed under the pressure of federal arms and the slaves' determination to place their own liberty on the wartime agenda. In documenting the transformation of a war for the Union into a war against slavery, it shifts the focus from the halls of power in Washington and Richmond to the plantations, farms, and battlefields of the South and demonstrates how slaves accomplished their own liberation and shaped the destiny of the nation.
The Civil War not only brought freedom to slaves, but it also brought military duty for many American blacks at the front lines of the warring armies. The drama of the military involvement of black soldiers comes to life in this volume. The extraordinary and virtually unknown documents in this book - written by slaves and masters, blacks and whites, soldiers and citizens - make vivid the monumental struggles of the 1860s. Drawn from the extensive records of the National Archives. this unprecedented written record came about through the intense involvement of Union and Confederate military officers and policy makers in the process of emancipation. The documents, together with the interpretive essays, offer a panoramic view of a central event in American history, as well as a unique look at revolutionary change in the day-to-day lives of men and women who experienced it.
The American Civil War destroyed slavery in the South. At first, most white Americans denied what would eventually seem self-evident. But black Americans saw clearly that the sectional conflict was their greatest opportunity for liberation. This volume of Freedom presents a documentary record of the transformation of the Civil War into a war against slavery, and the slaves' role in their own emancipation. The Destruction of Slavery shows the process by which a war for Union became a war for freedom. It demonstrates how three interrelated circumstances opened opportunities to slaves: first, the character of slave society; second, the course of the war itself; and third, the policies of the Union and Confederate governments. Together, they made emancipation an uneven, halting, and often tenuous process in which slaves played the central role.