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

by Amy Murrell Taylor
@amurrelltaylor

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.

Interview with the Author

New Books Network 
Amy Murrell Taylor, “Embattled Freedom: Journeys through the Civil War’s Slave Refugee Camps” (UNC Press, 2018)
5/29/19           62 min

Midtown Scholar Bookstore Author Reading Series 
Embattled Freedom: Journey through the Civil War’s Slave Refugee Camps
4/9/19          54 min

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