Monthly Archives: June 2011

Every year, the U.S. State Department issues a “Trafficking in Person’s Report.” The report describes the state of human trafficking related to unfree labor. The 2011 edition was issued yesterday, June 27, 2011. Although unrelated to the emancipation of slaves … Continue reading →

Adam Goodheart has been the most prolific and consistently good contributor to the Disunion blog in the New York Times. His piece yesterday in Disunion certainly is not an exception. In it, he discusses how the Lincoln administration’s contraband policy brought into … Continue reading →

The Achilles Heel of Contraband of War policy was how it only applied to the slaves of disloyal owners. It did not take into account the desire of slaves to be free, regardless of their owner’s stance about secession. Likewise, … Continue reading →

Fort Pickens in Florida was a backwater of the Civil War. Built in the 1830s on a barrier island to protect the entrance to Pensacola Bay, Union forces manned it at the start of the Civil War, and unlike Fort Sumter, … Continue reading →

If the purpose of Virginia’s secession was to ease the minds of Virginia’s slaveholders, the move backfired. With the Commonwealth’s proximity to Union territory, especially the federal capital of Washington, D.C., and with the move of the Confederate capital into … Continue reading →

Happy Juneteenth! On June 19, 1861, the Daily Dispatch in Richmond, Virginia, published an article analyzing the financial position of both the Union and Confederate governments. The article argued the Confederate government had considerably greater tax revenue capacity because the South … Continue reading →

For Frederick Douglass, Spring 1861 was a time of roller coaster emotions. As described in the May 5 edition of Civil War Emancipation, Douglass’ spirits were low in the early weeks of the Lincoln administration, dismayed by its policies, but … Continue reading →

Civil War Emancipation perhaps has not been as kind to Ed Ayers as he deserves. Back on May 1, I posted an entry critical of Ayers’ piece in Disunion in the New York Times in which he touted the computer analysis he and … Continue reading →

With Benjamin Butler’s contraband of war policy having received the blessing of the Lincoln administration in late May 1861 it is not surprising that slaves in locations other than around Fortress Monroe, Virginia, began to seek sanctuary with Union troops. … Continue reading →