2024 the best military schools in america review
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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.
Publisher : The University of North Carolina Press; Illustrated edition (August 1, 2020)
Language : English
Paperback : 368 pages
ISBN-10 : 1469661594
ISBN-13 : 978-1469661599
Item Weight : 1.2 pounds
Dimensions : 6.12 x 0.82 x 9.25 inches
Reviewer: Andrew J. Klein
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Compelling Account of an Under-Reported Aspect of the Civil War
Review: Professor Amy Murrell Taylor provides a compelling account of former slaves seeking freedom among the Union Army in the Civil War. She skillfully weaves family narratives of families in three major theaters of the war, Virginia, Tennessee, and the trans-Mississippi. In the narrative, she describes the hardship faced and the efforts to overcome them by the three families. Her research is expansive and detailed, relying completely on original sources as no collections have been completed or compiled. Professor Taylor is a brilliant writer of history. We saw her speak at the May 2019 annual meeting of the American Battlefield trust and she is an engaging speaker as well.
Reviewer: Stacey Nelson
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Civil war book
Review: Some of the history surrounds my boyfriendâs family. Which is why I purchased. Very educational
Reviewer: Brian Dirck
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Top-notch social history of the Civil War era
Review: One of the best books I've read on the social history of the Civil War era in quite a while. All of us who study the war have encountered brief, vague references to "refugee camps." Taylor brings those camps to life, in careful, painstaking detail, describing the nuts-and-bolts operations of these camps and their impact on the lives of those freedmen who encountered within the camps the messy, complex process of emancipation. An excellent book, one I plan to assign to my students in my Civil War-era undergrad courses.
Reviewer: Ronald E. Brooks
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: history of Fort Monroe
Review: Although I am only halfway finished with the book I wanted to know more about Fort Monroe in Hampton, VA.
Reviewer: j david sullivan
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Exceptional!
Review: This is an exceptional work of scholarship translated into a fascinating and well-written book! I am writing an historical fiction novel and found this to be the most eye-opening book among more than fifty in my research thus far. It changed my perceptions on key perspectives of the period by 180 degrees and I shall forever be grateful!
Reviewer: Justin
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Very good book
Review: I read it. My Dad read it too. Well written. Well researched. Our ancestors made the long treks described in the book so it hit close to home.
Reviewer: David Marshall
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Great book
Review: This excellent book concerns the lives and the difficulties of people pursuing liberty in the 1860âs. Slaves started to escape to Union lines and camps beginning in 1861. Amy Murrell Taylor looks at different camps, several individuals throughout this manuscript, how free people secured employment; found shelter; confronted removal from camps; faced combat as a USCT; found food; clothed themselves; preserved their faith and contended with loss. She looks at several camps such as the one at Hampton, Virginia, Camp Nelson, Kentucky, Monroe, Virginia, and Helena, Arkansas. Men, women and children fought for their freedom throughout the Civil War and following during Reconstruction and the Jim Crow Era. This is a wonderful story about people who found a way to become free inside the slave refugee camps.Nearly a half million people fled farms and plantations in pursuing refuge behind the defenses of the Union Army throughout the conflict between 1861-1865. Most individuals remained in the South and as the author indicated most Northern Governors and citizens did not want feed slaves to move to their state. Settlements multiplied quickly creating refugee camps in many locations. As these camps started, a new government/military bureaucracy was created. The men who ran the camps did not always have the interest of newly freed people. Following the war, many of the camps failed to last and new citizens had to find their way in a region and country that was not necessarily kind or lawful in dealing with these men, women and children. This title started as an act of recovery. Taylor research many peopleâs stories in military records, newspapers, and military reports, in an attempt to detail what happened in camps and refugee settlements. Embattled Freedom allows readers to ascertain what it meant for former slaves to attempt to find liberty during this momentous period in United States history in many locations and their dealings with people in charge of dealing with camps, and the culture of the Union army. However, the journey to the promised land many times failed to live up to the dreams of enslaved people. This historian looks at this journey day by day, month by month and year by year which makes for a fabulous read.Unfortunately for people seeking freedom, military and political emancipation did not always go hand in hand with each other. Food and space became a serious issue. The impressment of individual men to work and or become soldiers away from their families happened often and created many problems. This title does an excellent job of spending a great deal of the narrative in the problems of the camps and not in Washington, D.C. Taylor allows interested people to understand how life in the camps led to freedom and closer to citizenship and self-reliance for the refugees. This historian permits students to walk in the shoes of many real people and understand the tribulations they went through. These survivors found a way to live in a war zone, finding employment and ultimately reach their goal of citizenship and a better life for themselves and their families. Numerous examples of disappointment and broken promises are interwoven throughout this tome. Compensation and disrespect by the bureaucracy and the military played a significant role in people living in camps and for their free labor.Near the end of the war, after the Emancipation Proclamation and the passing of the 13th amendment in Congress in January, 1965, President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. Taylor makes strong points in detailing what Southern States governments passed with the Black Codes in limiting the freedom of the former slaves. One of the best parts of her fabulous title is the explanation of the rise of the KKK and what it meant to the lives of African Americans. She explains how President Johnson did everything to move away from opportunities of such things of freedmen from owning property by instead returning confiscation land to former plantation owners. The author shows readers how Rutherford B. Hayes gained the Presidency and ended Reconstruction which led to eighty years of Jim Crow laws in essence making freed people 2nd class citizens. The very end of this important volume is most uplifting and positive with hope for the United States and moving forward as one people.The University of North Carolina Press has hit a home run with this excellent book. Included are 14 helpful illustrations, 8 outstanding maps, notes, a bibliography and an index. This reviewer highly recommends Embattled Freedom: Journeys through the Civil War Slave Refugee Camps which is part of the important Civil War America series. You will not go wrong in making a purchase.
Reviewer: Jesse Curtis
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Fine-grained analysis that is never boring
Review: This is an outstanding book. Taylor masterfully weaves together individual stories of Black people fighting for their freedom with the broader currents of the Civil War. I'm using an excerpt for my undergraduate class.