Embattled Freedom

“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

“Deeply researched and imaginatively framed, Embattled Freedom offers a fresh perspective on the role of the U.S. military in shaping the lived experience of freedom for the half a million enslaved people in the Confederacy, as well as the determination of those people to make meaningful the promises Lincoln spoke of in 1863. Most importantly, her feeling for her subjects, people typically considered collateral damage by many military historians, allows Taylor to write a truly human history of warfare guided by the hopes, fears, and losses of the men, women, and children the Union Army ostensibly aimed to liberate. In short, 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 Southern 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

“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

“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

“Taylor has written perhaps the single-most evocative portrayal of wartime refugees in the field’s distinguished history. Her book is one of the best briefs for material culture that I have ever read. Our eyes almost see what the freedpeople saw; our hands seem to be touching the goods they handled, bought, sold, hammered, ate, and hid; our bodies almost feel the protection of homes and churches as they are constructed and we almost hear the calls of prayer and song, and at least hear, too, the silence when the Army orders the destruction of those homes and churches after Confederate surrender. 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

“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 Americas Military Past”

“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.”—The Annals of Iowa