William A. Blair – författare

This last known work of noted historian Bell Irvin Wiley reveals the private mind of John White Geary, a Union general from Pennsylvania, through his Civil War letters to his wife, Mary. Wiley had selected these roughly 200 letters for publication, but the unfinished manuscript lay undiscovered for twelve years after the historian's death. The letters provide a rare glimpse of the two main theaters of war through the eyes of a general officer. Geary saw action at Cedar Mountain and Gettysburg in the Virginia theater and in the major campaigns in the west—from lifting the siege at Chattanooga to marching with William T. Sherman through Georgia and the Carolinas.The fascination Geary's letters held for Wiley, the quintessential scholar of the common person, is clear: the letters of an uncommon man reveal ordinary concerns about children, money, home, and religion that linked Geary to many on both sides of the war. Geary's letters also show another side of the officer, that of the consummate politician who knew that military service provided capital for future political campaigns. Through intense self-promotion, he had fashioned a reputation that served him well in gaining respected political posts both before and after the war: he fought in the Mexican War and served as the first mayor of San Francisco and as territorial governor of Kansas during the period known as "Bloody Kansas," in addition to winning two terms as governor of Pennsylvania after the war. Ultimately, the letters of John White Geary show how a political general plied his trade. They reveal the complexities of any historical figure, for Geary had both the admirable qualities of loyalty to the Union and the less attractive need to exaggerate his abilities to enhance his career.

For many people, Pennsylvania's contribution to the Civil War goes little beyond the battle of Gettysburg. The North in general has received far less attention than the Confederacy in the historiography of the Civil War—a weakness in the literature that this book will help address. The essays in this volume reconsider the impact of the Civil War on Pennsylvania and the way its memory remains alive even today.Making and Remaking Pennsylvania's Civil War contains a wealth of new information about Pennsylvania during the war years. For instance, perhaps as many as 2,000 Pennsylvanians defected to the Confederacy to fight for the Southern cause. And during the advance of Lee's army in 1863, residents of the Gettysburg area gained a reputation throughout North and South as a stingy people who wanted to make money from the war rather than sacrifice for the Union. But the state displayed loyalty as well and commitment to the cause of freedom. Pittsburgh served as the site for one of the first public monuments in the country dedicated to African Americans. Women of the Commonwealth also contributed mightily through organizing sanitary fairs or helping in ways that belied their roles as keepers of the domestic world. And readers will learn from an African American soldier's letters how blacks helped win their own liberation.As a whole, the ten essays contained in Making and Remaking Pennsylvania's Civil War include courage on the battlefield but reflect the current trends to understand the motivations of soldiers and the impact of war on civilians, rather than focusing solely on battles or leadership. The essays also employ interdisciplinary techniques, as well as raise gender and racial questions. They incorporate a more expansive time frame than the four years of the conflict, by looking at not only the making of the war—but also its remaking—or how a public revisits the past to suit contemporary needs.

The University of North Carolina Press and the George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center at the Pennsylvania State University are pleased to announce the launch of The Journal of the Civil War Era. William Blair, of the Pennsylvania State University, serves as founding editor.The journal takes advantage of the flowering of research on the many issues raised by the sectional crisis, war, Reconstruction, and memory of the conflict, while bringing fresh understanding to the struggles that defined the period, and by extension, the course of American history in the nineteenth century.The Journal of the Civil War Era aims to create a space where scholars across the many subfields that animate nineteenth-century history can enter into conversation with each other.Table of Contents for this issue, Volume One, Number One:Editor''s NoteWilliam BlairWelcome to the New JournalArticlesEdward L. Ayers and Scott NesbitSeeing Emancipation: Scale and Freedom in the American SouthMelinda LawsonImagining Slavery: Representations of the Peculiar Institutionon the Northern Stage, 1776-1860LeeAnn WhitesForty Shirts and a Wagonload of Wheat:Women, the Domestic Supply Line, and the Civil Waron the Western BorderReview EssayDouglas R. EgertonRethinking Atlantic Historiography in a Post-Colonial Era:The Civil War in a Global PerspectiveBook ReviewsBooks ReceivedProfessional NotesAaron Sheehan-DeanThe Nineteenth-Century U.S. History Job Market, 2000-2009

The University of North Carolina Press and the George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center at the Pennsylvania State University are pleased to Publish The Journal of the Civil War Era. William Blair, of the Pennsylvania State University, serves as founding editor.Table of Contents for this issue, Volume One, Number Two:volume 1, number 2 June 2011Table of ContentsArticlesa. kristen foster"We Are Men!": Frederick Douglass and the Fault Lines of Gendered Citizenshipkathryn s. meier"No Place for the Sick": Nature''s War on Civil War SoldierMental and Physical Health in the 1862 Peninsula and Shenandoah Valley Campaignsbrandi c. brimmer"Her Claim for Pension Is Lawful and Just":Representing Black Union Widows in Late-Nineteenth Century North CarolinaReview Essayfrank towersPartisans, New History, and Modernization:The Historiography of the Civil War''s Causes, 1861–2011Book ReviewsBooks ReceivedProfessional Notesdaniel e. sutherlandThe Seven O''Clock LectureNotes on ContributorsThe Journal of the Civil War Era takes advantage of the flowering of research on the many issues raised by the sectional crisis, war, Reconstruction, and memory of the conflict, while bringing fresh understanding to the struggles that defined the period, and by extension, the course of American history in the nineteenth century.

The University of North Carolina Press and the George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center at the Pennsylvania State University are pleased to Publish The Journal of the Civil War Era. William Blair, of the Pennsylvania State University, serves as founding editor.Table of Contents for this issue:Volume 1, Number 3: September 2011ArticlesJon Grinspan"Sorrowfully Amusing": The Popular Comedy of the Civil WarJoan E. CashinTrophies of War: Material Culture in the Civil War EraAnne E. MarshallThe 1906 Uncle Tom''s Cabin Law and the Politics of Race and Memory in Early-Twentieth-Century KentuckyReview EssayWayne Wei-Siang HsiehTotal War and the American Civil War Reconsidered: The End of an Outdated "Master Narrative" Book ReviewsBooks ReceivedProfessional NotesBarbara FrancoPlanned Commemorations: Unexpected ConsequencesNotes on ContributorsThe Journal of the Civil War Era takes advantage of the flowering of research on the many issues raised by the sectional crisis, war, Reconstruction, and memory of the conflict, while bringing fresh understanding to the struggles that defined the period, and by extension, the course of American history in the nineteenth century.

The University of North Carolina Press and the George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center at the Pennsylvania State University are pleased to Publish The Journal of the Civil War Era. William Blair, of the Pennsylvania State University, serves as founding editor.Table of Contents for this issue:volume 1, number 4: december 2011Articlesrachel a. sheldenMessmates'' Union: Friendship, Politics, and Living Arrangements in the Capital City, 1845–1861bruce levine"The Vital Element of the Republican Party": Antislavery, Nativism, and Abraham Lincolnjames l. hustonThe Illinois Political Realignment of 1844–1860: Revisiting the AnalysisReview Essaylyde cullen sizerMapping the Spaces of Women''s Civil War HistoryBook ReviewsBooks ReceivedProfessional Notesbrian kelly & john w. whiteThe After Slavery Website: A New Online Resource for Teaching U.S. Slave EmancipationNotes on ContributorsThe Journal of the Civil War Era takes advantage of the flowering of research on the many issues raised by the sectional crisis, war, Reconstruction, and memory of the conflict, while bringing fresh understanding to the struggles that defined the period, and by extension, the course of American history in the nineteenth century.

The Journal of the Civil War EraVolume 2, Number 1March 2012TABLE OF CONTENTSForumThe Future of Civil War Era StudiesStephen Berry, Michael T. Bernath, Seth Rockman, Barton A. Myers, Anne Marshall, Lisa M. Brady, Judith Giesberg, & Jim DownsArticlesJacqueline G. Campbell"The Unmeaning Twaddle about Order 28″: Ben Butler and Confederate Women in Occupied New OrleansDavid C. WilliardExecutions, Justice, and Reconciliation in North Carolina''s Western Piedmont, 1865-67Matthew C. HulbertConstructing Guerrilla Memory: John Newman Edwards and Missouri''s Irregular Lost CauseBook ReviewsBooks ReceivedProfessional NotesKathi Kern & Linda LevstikTeaching the New Departure: the United States vs. Susan B. AnthonyNotes on ContributorsThe Journal of the Civil War Era takes advantage of the flowering of research on the many issues raised by the sectional crisis, war, Reconstruction, and memory of the conflict, while bringing fresh understanding to the struggles that defined the period, and by extension, the course of American history in the nineteenth century.

The Journal of the Civil War EraVolume 2, Number 2June 2012TABLE OF CONTENTSNew Approaches to Internationalizing the History of the Civil War Era: A Special IssueEditor''s Note William BlairArticlesW. Caleb Mcdaniel & Bethany L. JohnsonNew Approaches to Internationalizing the History of the Civil War: An IntroductionGale L. KennyManliness and Manifest Racial Destiny: Jamaica and African American Emigration in the 1850sEdward B. RugemerSlave Rebels and Abolitionists: The Black Atlantic and the Coming of the Civil WarPeter KolchinComparative Perspectives on Emancipation in the U.S. South: Reconstruction, Radicalism, and RussiaSusan-Mary GrantThe Lost Boys: Citizen-Soldiers, Disabled Veterans, and Confederate Nationalism in the Age of People''s WarBook ReviewsBooks ReceivedProfessional NotesMark W. Geiger"Follow the Money" Notes on ContributorsThe Journal of the Civil War Era takes advantage of the flowering of research on the many issues raised by the sectional crisis, war, Reconstruction, and memory of the conflict, while bringing fresh understanding to the struggles that defined the period, and by extension, the course of American history in the nineteenth century.

The Journal of the Civil War EraVolume 2, Number 3September 2012TABLE OF CONTENTSArticlesRobert Fortenbaugh Memorial LectureJoan Waugh"I Only Knew What Was in My Mind": Ulysses S. Grant and the Meaning of AppomattoxPatrick KellyThe North American Crisis of the 1860sCarole Emberton"Only Murder Makes Men": Reconsidering the Black Military ExperienceCaroline E. Janney"I Yield to No Man an Iota of My Convictions": Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park and the Limits of ReconciliationBook ReviewsBooks ReceivedReview EssayDavid S. ReynoldsReading the Sesquicentennial: New Directions in the Popular History of the Civil WarNotes on ContributorsThe Journal of the Civil War Era takes advantage of the flowering of research on the many issues raised by the sectional crisis, war, Reconstruction, and memory of the conflict, while bringing fresh understanding to the struggles that defined the period, and by extension, the course of American history in the nineteenth century.

The Journal of the Civil War EraVolume 2, Number 4December 2012TABLE OF CONTENTSArticlesMark Fleszar"My Laborers in Haiti are not Slaves": Proslavery Fictions and a Black Colonization Experiment on the Northern Coast, 1835-1846Jarret Ruminski"Tradyville": The Contraband Trade and the Problem of Loyalty in Civil War MississippiK. Stephen PrinceLegitimacy and Interventionism: Northern Republicans, the "Terrible Carpetbagger," and the Retreat from ReconstructionReview EssayRoseanne CurrarinoToward a History of Cultural EconomyProfessional NotesT. Lloyd BensonGeohistory: Democratizing the Landscape of Battle Book ReviewsBooks ReceivedNotes on ContributorsThe Journal of the Civil War Era takes advantage of the flowering of research on the many issues raised by the sectional crisis, war, Reconstruction, and memory of the conflict, while bringing fresh understanding to the struggles that defined the period, and by extension, the course of American history in the nineteenth century.

Exploring the history of Civil War commemorations from both sides of the color line, William Blair places the development of memorial holidays, Emancipation Day celebrations, and other remembrances in the context of Reconstruction politics and race relations in the South. His grassroots examination of these civic rituals demonstrates that the politics of commemoration remained far more contentious than has been previously acknowledged.Commemorations by ex-Confederates were intended at first to maintain a separate identity from the U.S. government, Blair argues, not as a vehicle for promoting sectional healing. The burial grounds of fallen heroes, known as Cities of the Dead, often became contested ground, especially for Confederate women who were opposed to Reconstruction. And until the turn of the century, African Americans used freedom celebrations to lobby for greater political power and tried to create a national holiday to recognize emancipation.Blair’s analysis shows that some festive occasions that we celebrate even today have a divisive and sometimes violent past as various groups with conflicting political agendas attempted to define the meaning of the Civil War.

The Emancipation Proclamation, widely remembered as the heroic act that ended slavery, in fact freed slaves only in states in the rebellious South. True emancipation was accomplished over a longer period and by several means. Essays by eight distinguished contributors consider aspects of the president’s decision making, as well as events beyond Washington, offering new insights on the consequences and legacies of freedom, the engagement of black Americans in their liberation, and the issues of citizenship and rights that were not decided by Lincoln’s document. The essays portray emancipation as a product of many hands, best understood by considering all the actors, the place, and the time.The contributors are William A. Blair, Richard Carwardine, Paul Finkelman, Louis Gerteis, Steven Hahn, Stephanie McCurry, Mark E. Neely Jr., Michael Vorenberg, and Karen Fisher Younger.

Exploring the history of Civil War commemorations from both sides of the color line, William Blair places the development of memorial holidays, Emancipation Day celebrations, and other remembrances in the context of Reconstruction politics and race relations in the South. His grassroots examination of these civic rituals demonstrates that the politics of commemoration remained far more contentious than has been previously acknowledged. Commemorations by ex-Confederates were intended at first to maintain a separate identity from the U.S. government, Blair argues, not as a vehicle for promoting sectional healing. The burial grounds of fallen heroes, known as Cities of the Dead, often became contested ground, especially for Confederate women who were opposed to Reconstruction. And until the turn of the century, African Americans used freedom celebrations to lobby for greater political power and tried to create a national holiday to recognize emancipation.Blair''s analysis shows that some festive occasions that we celebrate even today have a divisive and sometimes violent past as various groups with conflicting political agendas attempted to define the meaning of the Civil War.

The Emancipation Proclamation, widely remembered as the heroic act that ended slavery, in fact freed slaves only in states in the rebellious South. True emancipation was accomplished over a longer period and by several means. Essays by eight distinguished contributors consider aspects of the president''s decision making, as well as events beyond Washington, offering new insights on the consequences and legacies of freedom, the engagement of black Americans in their liberation, and the issues of citizenship and rights that were not decided by Lincoln''s document. The essays portray emancipation as a product of many hands, best understood by considering all the actors, the place, and the time. The contributors are William A. Blair, Richard Carwardine, Paul Finkelman, Louis Gerteis, Steven Hahn, Stephanie McCurry, Mark E. Neely Jr., Michael Vorenberg, and Karen Fisher Younger.

The Journal of the Civil War EraVolume 3, Number 1March 2013TABLE OF CONTENTSEditor''s Note William BlairArticlesAmber D. MoultonClosing the "Floodgate of Impurity": Moral Reform, Antislavery, and Interracial Marriage in AntebellumMassachusettsMarc-William PalenThe Civil War''s Forgotten Transatlantic Tariff Debate and the Confederacy''s Free Trade DiplomacyJoy M. Giguere"The Americanized Sphinx": Civil War Commemoration, Jacob Bigelow, and the Sphinx at Mount Auburn CemeteryReview EssayEnrico Dal LagoLincoln, Cavour, and National Unification: American Republicanism and Italian Liberal Nationalism in Comparative PerspectiveProfessional NotesJames J. BroomallThe Interpretation Is A-Changin'': Memory, Museums, and Public History in Central VirginiaBook ReviewsBooks ReceivedNotes on ContributorsThe Journal of the Civil War Era takes advantage of the flowering of research on the many issues raised by the sectional crisis, war, Reconstruction, and memory of the conflict, while bringing fresh understanding to the struggles that defined the period, and by extension, the course of American history in the nineteenth century.

The Journal of the Civil War EraVolume 3, Number 2June 2013TABLE OF CONTENTSEditor''s Note William BlairArticlesStephen CushmanWhen Lincoln Met EmersonChristopher PhillipsLincoln''s Grasp of War: Hard War and the Politics of Neutrality and Slavery in the Western Border Slave States, 1861–1862Jonathan W. WhiteThe Strangely Insignificant Role of the U.S. Supreme Court in the Civil WarReview EssayYael SternhellRevisionism Reinvented? The Antiwar Turn in Civil War ScholarshipProfessional NotesGary W. GallagherThe Civil War at the Sesquicentennial: How Well Do Americans Understand Their Great National Crisis?Book ReviewsBooks ReceivedNotes on ContributorsThe Journal of the Civil War Era takes advantage of the flowering of research on the many issues raised by the sectional crisis, war, Reconstruction, and memory of the conflict, while bringing fresh understanding to the struggles that defined the period, and by extension, the course of American history in the nineteenth century.

The University of North Carolina Press and the George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center at the Pennsylvania State University are pleased to Publish The Journal of the Civil War Era. William Blair, of the Pennsylvania State University, serves as founding editor.The Journal of the Civil War EraVolume 3, Number 3September 2013TABLE OF CONTENTSArticlesRobert Fortenbaugh Memorial LectureSteven HahnSlave Emancipation, Indian Peoples, and the Projects of a New American Nation-StateBeth SchweigerThe Literate South: Reading before EmancipationBrian LuskeySpecial Marts: Intelligence Offices, Labor Commodification, and Emancipation in Nineteenth-Century AmericaReview EssayNicole Etcheson Microhistory and Movement: African American Mobility in the Nineteenth CenturyBook ReviewsBooks ReceivedProfessional NotesMegan Kate NelsonLooking at Landscapes of WarNotes on ContributorsThe Journal of the Civil War Era takes advantage of the flowering of research on the many issues raised by the sectional crisis, war, Reconstruction, and memory of the conflict, while bringing fresh understanding to the struggles that defined the period, and by extension, the course of American history in the nineteenth century

The Journal of the Civil War EraVolume 3, Number 4December 2013TABLE OF CONTENTSSPECIAL ISSUE: PROCLAIMING EMANCIPATION AT 150ArticlesIntroductionMartha S. Jones, Guest EditorHistory and Commemoration: The Emancipation Proclamation at 150James OakesReluctant to Emancipate? Another Look at the First Confiscation ActStephen Sawyer & William J. NovakEmancipation and the Creation of Modern Liberal States in America and FranceThavolia Glymph Rose''s War and the Gendered Politics of a Slave Insurgency in the Civil WarMartha JonesEmancipation Encounters: The Meaning of Freedom from the Pages of Civil War SketchbooksBook ReviewsBooks ReceivedNotes on Contributors

Few issues created greater consensus among Civil War–era northerners than the belief that the secessionists had committed treason. But as William A. Blair shows in this engaging history, the way politicians, soldiers, and civilians dealt with disloyalty varied widely. Citizens often moved more swiftly than federal agents in punishing traitors in their midst, forcing the government to rethink legal practices and definitions. In reconciling the northern contempt for treachery with a demonstrable record of judicial leniency toward the South, Blair illuminates the other ways that northerners punished perceived traitors, including confiscating slaves, arresting newspaper editors for expressions of free speech, and limiting voting. Ultimately, punishment for treason extended well beyond wartime and into the framework of Reconstruction policies, including the construction of the Fourteenth Amendment.Establishing how treason was defined not just by the Lincoln administration, Congress, and the courts but also by the general public, Blair reveals the surprising implications for North and South alike.

Few issues created greater consensus among Civil War–era northerners than the belief that the secessionists had committed treason. But as William A. Blair shows in this engaging history, the way politicians, soldiers, and civilians dealt with disloyalty varied widely. Citizens often moved more swiftly than federal agents in punishing traitors in their midst, forcing the government to rethink legal practices and definitions. In reconciling the northern contempt for treachery with a demonstrable record of judicial leniency toward the South, Blair illuminates the other ways that northerners punished perceived traitors, including confiscating slaves, arresting newspaper editors for expressions of free speech, and limiting voting. Ultimately, punishment for treason extended well beyond wartime and into the framework of Reconstruction policies, including the construction of the Fourteenth Amendment.Establishing how treason was defined not just by the Lincoln administration, Congress, and the courts but also by the general public, Blair reveals the surprising implications for North and South alike.

The Journal of the Civil War EraVolume 4, Number 1March 2014TABLE OF CONTENTSArticlesNicholas MarshallThe Great Exaggeration: Death and the Civil WarSarah Bischoff PaulusAmerica''s Long Eulogy for Compromise: Henry Clay and American Politics, 1854-58Ted Maris-Wolf"Of Blood and Treasure": Recaptive Africans and the Politics of Slave Trade SuppressionReview EssayW. Caleb McDanielThe Bonds and Boundaries of AntislaveryBook ReviewsBooks ReceivedProfessional NotesCraig A. WarrenLincoln''s Body: The President in Popular Films of the SesquicentennialNotes on Contributors

The Journal of the Civil War EraVolume 4, Number 2June 2014TABLE OF CONTENTSTom Watson Brown Book AwardJohn Fabian WittCivil War Historians and the Laws of WarArticlesChandra ManningWorking for Citizenship in Civil War Contraband CampsMichael F. ConlinThe Dangerous Isms and the Fanatical Ists: Antebellum Conservatives in the South and the North Confront the Modernity ConspiracyNicholas Guyatt"An Impossible Idea?" The Curious Career of Internal ColonizationReview EssayJohn Craig HammondSlavery, Sovereignty, and Empires: North American Borderlands and the American Civil War, 1660-1860Book ReviewsBooks ReceivedProfessional NotesJill Ogline TitusAn Unfinished Struggle: Sesquicentennial Interpretations of Slavery and Emancipation

The Journal of the Civil War EraVolume 4, Number 3, September 2014TABLE OF CONTENTSEditor''s Note, William BlairArticlesFelicity TurnerRights and the Ambiguities of Law: Infanticide in the Nineteenth-Century U.S. SouthPaul QuigleyCivil War Conscription and the International Boundaries of CitizenshipJay SextonWilliam H. Seward in the WorldReview EssayPatick J. Kellythe European Revolutions of 1848 and the Transnational turn in Civil War HistoryBook ReviewsBooks ReceivedNotes on Contributors

The Journal of the Civil War EraVolume 4, Number 4December 2014TABLE OF CONTENTSArticlesGary Gallagher & Kathryn Shively MeierComing to Terms with Civil War Military HistoryPeter C. Luebke"Equal to Any Minstrel Concert I Ever Attended at Home": Union Soldiers and Blackface Performance in the Civil War SouthJohn J. HennessyEvangelizing for Union, 1863: The Army of the Potomac, Its Enemies at Home, and a New SolidarityAndrew F. LangRepublicanism, Race, and Reconstruction: The Ethos of Military Occupation in Civil War AmericaProfessional NotesKevin M. LevinBlack Confederates Out of the Attic and Into the MainstreamBook ReviewsBooks ReceivedNotes on Contributors

Exploring the history of Civil War commemorations from both sides of the color line, William Blair places the development of memorial holidays, Emancipation Day celebrations, and other remembrances in the context of Reconstruction politics and race relations in the South. His grassroots examination of these civic rituals demonstrates that the politics of commemoration remained far more contentious than has been previously acknowledged. Commemorations by ex-Confederates were intended at first to maintain a separate identity from the U.S. government, Blair argues, not as a vehicle for promoting sectional healing. The burial grounds of fallen heroes, known as Cities of the Dead, often became contested ground, especially for Confederate women who were opposed to Reconstruction. And until the turn of the century, African Americans used freedom celebrations to lobby for greater political power and tried to create a national holiday to recognize emancipation.Blair's analysis shows that some festive occasions that we celebrate even today have a divisive and sometimes violent past as various groups with conflicting political agendas attempted to define the meaning of the Civil War.

After the Civil War's end, reports surged of violence by Southern whites against Union troops and Black men, women, and children. While some in Washington, D.C., sought to downplay the growing evidence of atrocities, in September 1866, Freedmen's Bureau commissioner O. O. Howard requested that assistant commissioners in the readmitted states compile reports of "murders and outrages" to catalog the extent of violence, to prove that the reports of a peaceful South were wrong, and to argue in Congress for the necessity of martial law. What ensued was one of the most fascinating and least understood fights of the Reconstruction era-a political and analytical fight over information and its validity, with implications that dealt in life and death.  Here William A. Blair takes the full measure of the bureau's attempt to document and deploy hard information about the reality of the violence that Black communities endured in the wake of Emancipation. Blair uses the accounts of far-flung Freedmen's Bureau agents to ask questions about the early days of Reconstruction, which are surprisingly resonant with the present day: How do you prove something happened in a highly partisan atmosphere where the credibility of information is constantly challenged? And what form should that information take to be considered as fact?

After the Civil War's end, reports surged of violence by Southern whites against Union troops and Black men, women, and children. While some in Washington, D.C., sought to downplay the growing evidence of atrocities, in September 1866, Freedmen's Bureau commissioner O. O. Howard requested that assistant commissioners in the readmitted states compile reports of "murders and outrages" to catalog the extent of violence, to prove that the reports of a peaceful South were wrong, and to argue in Congress for the necessity of martial law. What ensued was one of the most fascinating and least understood fights of the Reconstruction era-a political and analytical fight over information and its validity, with implications that dealt in life and death.  Here William A. Blair takes the full measure of the bureau's attempt to document and deploy hard information about the reality of the violence that Black communities endured in the wake of Emancipation. Blair uses the accounts of far-flung Freedmen's Bureau agents to ask questions about the early days of Reconstruction, which are surprisingly resonant with the present day: How do you prove something happened in a highly partisan atmosphere where the credibility of information is constantly challenged? And what form should that information take to be considered as fact?

The hallowed ground known today as Arlington National Cemetery bears witness to those who paid the ultimate sacrifice to protect the nation’s ideals of freedom and justice for all. But another history lies beneath the landscape—an African American freedom struggle that has been erased from the landscape. Before the Civil War, enslaved African Americans labored, escaped, raised families, and died at Arlington on a plantation founded by George Washington Parke Custis and inherited by the wife of Confederate general Robert E. Lee. After the Union army confiscated the Lee estate, Freedman’s Village was established on the site, offering refuge to a vibrant community of thousands of newly emancipated African Americans. In creating a neighborhood with homes, schools, businesses, and networks with free Blacks in the nation’s capital and beyond, Arlington’s freedpeople played a consequential—if largely forgotten—role in advancing African American liberty and equality through the rest of the nineteenth century. This deeply researched and accessibly written story brings Arlington’s African American past to vivid life. Drawing on extensive historical research conducted at Arlington House and on the national cemetery grounds, William A. Blair offers a definitive account of individuals and families on an inspiring journey from slavery to freedom.

After the Civil War’s end, reports surged of violence by Southern whites against Union troops and Black men, women, and children. While some in Washington, D.C., sought to downplay the growing evidence of atrocities, in September 1866, Freedmen’s Bureau commissioner O. O. Howard requested that assistant commissioners in the readmitted states compile reports of “murders and outrages” to catalog the extent of violence, to prove that the reports of a peaceful South were wrong, and to argue in Congress for the necessity of martial law. What ensued was one of the most fascinating and least understood fights of the Reconstruction era—a political and analytical fight over information and its validity, with implications that dealt in life and death.Here William A. Blair takes the full measure of the bureau’s attempt to document and deploy hard information about the reality of the violence that Black communities endured in the wake of Emancipation. Blair uses the accounts of far-flung Freedmen’s Bureau agents to ask questions about the early days of Reconstruction, which are surprisingly resonant with the present day: How do you prove something happened in a highly partisan atmosphere where the credibility of information is constantly challenged? And what form should that information take to be considered as fact?