The Slaves' War: The Civil War in the Words of Former Slaves (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780547237923)

The first narrative history of the Civil War told by the very people it freed. Groundbreaking, compelling, and poignant, The Slaves' War delivers an unprecedented vision of the nation's bloodiest conflict.

An acclaimed historian of nineteenth-century and African-American history, Andrew Ward gives us the first narrative of the Civil War told from the perspective of those whose destiny it decided. Woven together from hundreds of interviews, diaries, letters, and memoirs, here is the Civil War as seen from not only battlefields, capitals, and camps, but also slave quarters, kitchens, roadsides, farms, towns, and swamps.

Speaking in a quintessentially American language of wit, candor, and biblical power, army cooks and launderers, runaways, teamsters, and gravediggers bring the war to vivid life.

From slaves' theories about the causes of the war to their frank assessments of such major figures as Lincoln, Davis, Lee, and Grant; from their searing memories of the carnage of battle to their often startling attitudes toward masters and liberators alike; and from their initial jubilation at the Yankee invasion of the slave South to the crushing disappointment of freedom's promise unfulfilled, The Slaves' War is a transformative and engrossing vision of America's Second Revolution.

Author: Andrew Ward
ISBN-10: 0547237928
ISBN-13: 9780547237923
Publisher: Mariner Books
Language: English
Published: 08/06/2009
Pages: 416
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.84lbs
Size: 7.98h x 5.32w x 0.99d