Monthly Archives: December 2011

Happy New Year’s Eve! This press release was issued yesterday by the White House, making January 2012, “National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month.” It highlights the unfortunate reality that as 2012 dawns, millions of people worldwide, and even thousands … Continue reading →

Wednesday’s Disunion in the New York Times has a noteworthy piece by Nicole Etcheson entitled “Jennison’s Jayhawkers.” Etcheson discusses the origins of the term “jayhawker” (and its verb variant “jayhawking”). She also chronicles the history of the 7th Kansas Cavalry, also known … Continue reading →

As indicated in a number of previous issues of Civil War Emancipation, many whites in the North as well as the South, including Abraham Lincoln, worried that once freed former slaves would embark on a bloody orgy of vengeance. This … Continue reading →

After the Civil War, it became common for ex-Confederates to downplay the role slavery had played in secession. With slavery dead and no bloody orgy of vengeance from the ex-slaves, former rebels found it embarrassing that they had fought and … Continue reading →

As 1861 drew to a close, many in the North accepted and some even reveled in the fact that wherever Union forces went in the South, slaves flocked to their lines seeking freedom. Yet this phenomenon created a dilemma: how … Continue reading →

The July 8 edition of Civil War Emancipation dealt with Congress taking the lead with emancipation early in the Civil War, while the Lincoln hung back and concentrated on appeasing loyal slaveholders in the border states to forestall secession there. … Continue reading →

Monday’s Disunion in the New York Times is devoted to a piece by Karenna Gore Schiff (Al Gore’s daughter) exploring one of the most famous sources on the African-American experience, the WPA Slave Narratives. Gore Schiff nicely lays out the … Continue reading →

African Americans sought to fight as soldiers from the earliest days of the Civil War. Black men realized they had a considerable stake in the conflict that they and others of their race knew was about slavery from the start. … Continue reading →