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 convinced 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.
Industry Reviews
"Jonathan Lande's Freedom Soldiers is a persuasive and unflinching account of what it meant to escape slavery and seek liberation in the highly disciplined world of the U.S. army during the Civil War. Lande's sensitive reading of Black soldiers' testimonies reveals an unmistakable truth: That the fight for liberation was all-encompassing and sometimes meant resisting one's own allies too. A welcome and original portrait of the hard-fought battle for
Emancipation in the United States." -- Amy Murrell Taylor, Author of Embattled Freedom: Journeys Through the Civil War's Slave Refugee Camps
"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. Most of all, Lande brings Black Union soldiers alive, not as unidimensional tropes, but as fathers, siblings, husbands, dreamers, protestors, friends, advocates--in short, as fully realized
individuals." -- Chandra Manning, Georgetown University
"Jonathan Lande has written a gripping new account of Black soldiers' curation of their freedom. Freedom Soldiers reinterprets how we should think about the wages of war and liberation for Black men who fought gallantly to dismantle slavery on their own terms. Sometimes these men left posts to tend to their families, heal themselves, and decamped their units when they determined their work had been completed. Black soldiers exercised autonomy in their
resistance. In Freedom Soldiers, Lande reveals how Black male soldiers reconceptualized honor and duty via elegant prose, convincing arguments, and extensive archival research. It is a book that is not only
needed but should be a required read in Civil War History." -- Deirdre Cooper Owens, University of Connecticut
"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." -- Chandra Manning, Georgetown
University
