Freedom Soldiers

Freedom Soldiers draws on a terrific array of sources to reveal Black Union soldiers as enlisted freedom-seekers whose flight from slavery did not end in the ranks of the Union Army, but rather continued as they contested the terms of their employment and challenged strictures that impeded their sense of what freedom should mean. Jonathan Lande engages scholarly conversations about wartime emancipation, desertion, and labor history and tells us something new about each. Lande brings Black Union soldiers alive, not as unidimensional tropes, but as fathers, siblings, husbands, dreamers, protestors, friends, advocates.

Auteur
Jonathan Lande is an assistant professor of history at Purdue University. His work has received numerous awards, including the Allan Nevins Prize from the Society of American Historians and the William Nelson Cromwell Foundation Dissertation Prize from the American Society for Legal History.

Texte du rabat

Freedom Soldiers examines the lives of formerly enslaved men who deserted the US Army during the Civil War and their experiences in army camps, courts, and prisons. It explores their reasons for leaving, often through their own voices from courts-martial testimony.

Résumé
Almost 200,000 African Americans fought to save the Union, many believing that military service was the pathway to freedom. Yet, even after enlisting, their journeys for liberation continued amid the bloody civil war. They marched across taxing terrain, performed backbreaking labor, and endured corporeal punishment meted out by white officers. They also agonized over families still enslaved and suffered virulent diseases. Many grew disillusioned, disgruntled, or homesick. They fought on bravely, yet thousands also ran. Chafing against restraints and violence reminiscent of slavery, they briefly liberated themselves from onerous army discipline. The men examined in Freedom Soldiers took self-granted breaks--"leaves of freedom"--and, once caught, were tried by the US Army for the military crime of "desertion." In the courts-martial, they justified their unauthorized departures by telling authorities that they left to temporarily help their families, regain their health, and evade violent officers. Army judges nevertheless convicted freedom seekers, sending most to military prisons. From prisons, the convicted deserters wrote petitions to President Abraham Lincoln and Union officials requesting release. These prisoners disputed rulings, offered their continued service to the Union, insisted on the injustice of incarceration, and explained the dire need of kin around the wartime South. Drawing upon transcripts of the nearly 80,000 Civil War courts-martial cases, as well as prisoners' petitions, soldiers' letters, and government reports, Jonathan Lande recovers this subset of soldiers who took leaves of freedom and defended their breaks within the military justice system. In doing so, he reveals how Black men fought for freedom not only against Confederates but also in US Army camps, courts, and prisons.

Contenu

• Introduction

• Part I: Freedom in Camp

• Chapter 1 "Bound for Freedom's Light": Emancipating Men in the Army

• Chapter 2 "Parts of the Gigantic Machine of Death": Reacting to Army Discipline

• Chapter 3 "No Intention of Deserting": Taking Leaves of Freedom

• Part II: Freedom in the Military Justice System

• Chapter 4 Unworthy of Freedom": Policing Emancipation in the Courts-Martial

• Chapter 5 "Establish My Innocence": Defending Freedom in the Courts-Martial

• Chapter 6 "Ought Not to Be in Prison": Petitioning for Freedom

• Conclusion

• Acknowledgments

• Appendix

• Notes

• Bibliography

• Index