The Black Experience in the Civil War South

by Stephen V Ash

Overview

Large numbers of slaves worked for the Confederate war effort as wagon drivers, munitions factory workers, and officers’ body servants. But contrary to popular wisdom, the number that actually bore arms for the Confederacy was negligible.The Black Experience in the Civil War South is the first comprehensive study of the Southern blacks’ wartime experience to appear in a generation. Incorporating the most recent scholarship, this thematically organized book does justice to the richness of its subject, looking at the lives of black men, women, and children in the Confederate states and the non-seceding Southern states; at blacks on farms and plantations and in towns and cities; and at blacks employed in industry and the military.Drawing on memoirs, autobiographies, and other original source materials, Stephen V. Ash details the experiences of blacks who took up residence in Union “contraband camps” and on free-labor plantations and those who enlisted in the Union army. Most significantly, this revealing study deals not only with those who gained freedom during the war but also with those whose freedom came only after the conflict’s end.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781612346298
Publisher:	Potomac Books
Publication date:	08/01/2013
Pages:	127
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Stephen V. Ash is professor of history at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

Table of Contents

Series Foreword ix

Preface and Acknowledgments xi

Introduction xv

Chapter 1 Freedom Delayed 1

Chapter 2 Life and Labor on the Land 19

Chapter 3 Beyond the Plantation 41

Chapter 4 Gaining Freedom 61

Chapter 5 Experiencing Freedom 77

Epilogue 95

Notes 99

Bibliographical Essay 117

Index 123

What People are Saying About This

Paul A. Cimbala

"Stephen V. Ash has produced a concise, lively account of the experiences of African Americans in the slave states during the Civil War. Covering topics ranging from war work to emancipation, he shows how the great political and military events so well known to most Americans reached down into the lives of a common people who craved freedom above all else. Once again, Ash, one of our finest Civil War historians, proves that he is a master story teller as well as a conscientious researcher. He has given scholars, students and buffs an excellent starting point for understanding this essential aspect of our nation's great drama."

— Paul A. Cimbala, Professor, Department of History, Fordham University

Paul A. Cimbala

"Stephen V. Ash has produced a concise, lively account of the experiences of African Americans in the slave states during the Civil War. Covering topics ranging from war work to emancipation, he shows how the great political and military events so well known to most Americans reached down into the lives of a common people who craved freedom above all else. Once again, Ash, one of our finest Civil War historians, proves that he is a master story teller as well as a conscientious researcher. He has given scholars, students and buffs an excellent starting point for understanding this essential aspect of our nation's great drama."

—

Paul A. Cimbala, Professor, Department of History, Fordham University

Editorial Reviews

"… this is an ideal primer for a college-level US history survey. Summing Up: Recommended. Undergraduate collections." - Choice


"Encompassing erudition deserving of a wide audience of scholars and students, The Black Experience in the Civil War South is a fine continuance of the scholarly trend of slavery studies focused on slaves, not masters. African American emancipation destablized the Confederacy and wreaked the greatest change on the peculiar institution since the invention of the cotton gin." - Journal of American History


"Ash succeeds both in summarizing major developments and in offering the 'fresh look' promised by the series." - The Journal of Southern History

From the Publisher