Contains primary source material.

This book examines the transition from slavery to free labor during the tumultuous first months after the Civil War. Letters and testimony by the participants--

"Traces the history of emancipation and its impact on the Civil War, discussing how Lincoln and the Republicans fought primarily for freeing slaves throughout t

As students of the Civil War have long known, emancipation was not merely a product of Lincoln's proclamation or of Confederate defeat in April 1865. It was a p