Embattled Freedom: Journeys through the Civil War's Slave Refugee Camps

by Amy Murrell Taylor

Overview

The Civil War was just days old when the first enslaved men, women, and children began fleeing their plantations to seek refuge inside the lines of the Union army as it moved deep into the heart of the Confederacy. In the years that followed, hundreds of thousands more followed in a mass exodus from slavery that would destroy the system once and for all. Drawing on an extraordinary survey of slave refugee camps throughout the country, Embattled Freedom reveals as never before the everyday experiences of these refugees from slavery as they made their way through the vast landscape of army-supervised camps that emerged during the war. Amy Murrell Taylor vividly reconstructs the human world of wartime emancipation, taking readers inside military-issued tents and makeshift towns, through commissary warehouses and active combat, and into the realities of individuals and families struggling to survive physically as well as spiritually. Narrating their journeys in and out of the confines of the camps, Taylor shows in often gripping detail how the most basic necessities of life were elemental to a former slave's quest for freedom and full citizenship.

The stories of individuals—storekeepers, a laundress, and a minister among them—anchor this ambitious and wide-ranging history and demonstrate with new clarity how contingent the slaves' pursuit of freedom was on the rhythms and culture of military life. Taylor brings new insight into the enormous risks taken by formerly enslaved people to find freedom in the midst of the nation's most destructive war.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781469661599
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	08/01/2020
Series:	Civil War America
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	1,134,835
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Amy Murrell Taylor is T. Marshall Hahn Jr. Professor of History at the University of Kentucky and author of The Divided Family in Civil War America.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

A wonderfully conceived and persuasive new history of wartime refugees—innovative in its organization, pathbreaking in its seamless integration of military and social history, and beautifully written.—Leslie Schwalm, University of Iowa



The largest hole in the literature on the American Civil War is the experience of African American slave refugees called contrabands. Amy Murrell Taylor ably fills much of that gap with her truly impressive book, Embattled Freedom. Taylor brings to life the remarkable journey of these African Americans, a migration that began with the thrill of fulfilling of their dream of freedom, but in most cases was fraught with hardship and misfortune. Without doubt, this book is the starting point for anyone interested in the saga and often tragedy that befell hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children in the wartime transition from slavery to freedom.—Joseph T. Glatthaar, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Editorial Reviews

Gracefully written and exhaustively researched, Taylor's book offers the reader a vivid and convincing narrative of these slave refugee camps as 'an elemental part of the story of slavery's destruction in the United States,' one that deserves a broad readership among not only Civil War enthusiasts but anyone interested in the history of race and slavery in the United States."—Publishers Weekly, starred review



A fine example of the latest approach to the study of the Civil War. . . . An important book because it shows clearly that, despite Civil War mythology, the conflict did not result in immediate freedom."—Civil War Book Review



A well-written, thoroughly documented, thought-provoking, if not always uplifting, book about an overlooked aspect of America's Civil War."—The Journal of America's Military Past



An insightful and powerful book that highlights the tremendous struggle and endurance of the refugees to secure their freedom in the chaos of a massive war while surrounded by a hostile and armed white population. . . . Taylor's work illustrates the importance of . . . refugee camps as sites of emancipation and the struggle to define freedom during the Civil War."—Journal of Arizona History



Taylor has written perhaps the single-most evocative portrayal of wartime refugees in the field's distinguished history. . . . In patient, concrete prose, and by "slowing down the pace of the traditional emancipation narrative," Taylor elicits not just sympathy or terror or excitement but genuine suspense."—Reviews in American History



Embattled Freedom is a profound meditation on the nature of warfare and its relation to freedom and citizenship. Amy Murrell Taylor demonstrates not only her expertise as a military and social historian but also her skill as a thinker and writer. This book is a model for scholars and students alike."—Journal of Social History



Converts a triumphalist tale of enslavement ended by emancipation into a more realistic one of an ongoing journey toward a contingent and uncertain freedom that was far from complete in 1865."—Journal of American History



A compelling account of how African American refugees' search for freedom pushed the nation toward abolition. . . . Taylor meticulously recovers the history of these erased settlements and the African American lives transformed therein. . . . An essential text for scholars and nonacademics alike."—Journal of the Civil War Era



A welcome addition to the recent Civil War scholarship that highlights the experiences of people who lived on the fringes of the war. . . . Embattled Freedom brings to life an aspect of the Civil War that many scholars have glossed over . . . well-researched and well-written."—H-Net Reviews



Taylor unravels the tangled process of emancipation during the Civil War. . . . By taking readers inside the camps, Taylor convincingly shows that slave refugee camps played a pivotal role in emancipation because they were the places where policy was enacted in the lives of individuals."—Annals of Iowa

From the Publisher

★ 10/29/2018
American popular culture often depicts enslaved African-Americans during the Civil War as either remaining loyally on plantations or running away to join the Union Army, but, in this excellent work, Taylor illuminates a very different experience had by hundreds of thousands of people. Aware that “if freedom was going to come during the Civil War, it was not going to come directly to them,” many slaves made their way to Union lines and often to slave refugee camps. Taylor focuses on the experiences of a few refugees: Edward and Emma Whitehurst, who established a small store in the ruins of Hampton, Va.; Eliza Bogan, who struggled to survive in a camp in Helena, Ark., awaiting her soldier husband’s return and the rescue of her enslaved children; and the preacher Gabriel Burdett, who could in a Kentucky camp “worship openly and freely in a way he never could while enslaved.” Gracefully written and exhaustively researched, Taylor’s book offers the reader a vivid and convincing narrative of these slave refugee camps as “an elemental part of the story of slavery’s destruction in the United States,” one that deserves a broad readership among not only Civil War enthusiasts but anyone interested in the history of race and slavery in the United States. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly