Product Description: From the author of What This Cruel War Was Over, a vivid portrait of the Union army’s escaped-slave refugee camps and how they shaped the course of emancipation and citizenship in the United States. Even before shots were fired at Fort Sumter, slaves recognized that their bondage was at the root of the war they knew was coming, and they began running to the Union army...read more

Draws on the diaries and letters of soldiers on both sides of the conflict to reveal the different meanings of slavery to Union and Confederate troops.