Category Archives: Uncategorized

HEAD-QUARTERS DISTRICT OF TEXAS Galveston, Texas, June 19, 1865 General Orders No. 3 The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute … Continue reading →

Happy 150th Juneteenth!

Ex-slave Bob Lemmons, Carrizo Springs, Texas, c. 1936. Photographed by Dorothea Lange. Source: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/fsa1998021797/PP/ Probably the most famous source on slavery from the slaves’ viewpoint is the WPA Slave Narratives, compiled by the Federal Writers’ Project of the Works Progress Administration … Continue reading →

Originally posted on Crossroads:
On April 3, 1865, United States soldiers, most of them African Americans. entered what had been the capital of the Confederacy, freeing what had been Richmond’s enslaved population. Although there were other days in the war…

An artist in Harper’s Weekly (November 25, 1864) humorously imagining what would have happened had the Confederates actually sent black soldiers into the field. ******************************************************************************** Recently, the legend of black Confederate soldiers was revived by an article in The Root by John … Continue reading →

Tennessee is an interesting case in the Civil War. While it seceded and joined the Confederacy in the second wave of secession that followed Lincoln’s call for volunteers after the assault on Fort Sumter, its mountainous eastern region, with relatively … Continue reading →

I try in this blog to stick to its topic—the coming of freedom for the slaves in the American Civil War. Admittedly, I occasionally write on other subjects because I feel the compulsion to share my thoughts on them. I’ve … Continue reading →

The sesquicentennial of the American Civil War has now reached the January 1865 time period covered by Steven Spielberg’s 2012 film, Lincoln. For anyone who has not seen this movie, Spielberg dramatizes Abraham Lincoln’s effort to get the 13th Amendment, definitively … Continue reading →

Originally posted on Crossroads:
We know that January 1865 was an important month in the history of the destruction of slavery in the United States. After all, it was in that month that the House of Representatives joined the Senate…

Originally posted on Crossroads:
We’ve all heard it before from defenders of Confederate heritage: slavery wasn’t so bad. Of course, the people who say this are overwhelmingly white people, including descendants of slaveholders (hello, Connie Chastain!). Some people have also…