The Slaves' War: The Civil War In The Words of Former Slaves

Andrew Ward's much anticipated book, "The Slaves' War: The Civil War in the Words of Former Slaves" is slated to be released on June 10, 2008 by Houghton Mifflin.

The book uses first-person narratives from the 1930's Works Progress Administration's Federal Writers' Project to look at the range of emotions felt by slaves when they finally found out they were free. The book also analyzes their view of Marse Lincoln, aka Honest Abe.

Here's a sample to get you into the content of this book:

"The war's end promised freedom, but slaves' expectations were mixed. "Some believed they'd get freedom and others didn't," Laura Abromson recalled in an interview in Arkansas. "They had places they met and prayed for freedom." According to Edie Dennis of Georgia, "Their great, soul-hungering desire was freedom--not that they loved the Yankees or hated their masters, but merely longed to be free and hated the institution of slavery."

But what was the freedom that beckoned to them? "We people on the plantation didn't know much about the war," wrote Robert Anderson in his postwar memoir From Slavery to Affluence. "It was impressed on us indirectly by everyone, that there was little chance of the slaves being set free. Some didn't care whether they were free or not, as there was little to look forward to either way." If freedom came, "what will we do?" they wondered. "We have no home, no money, no clothes, no nothing." On the other hand, "for some of the people, there could be no existence worse than the one they were in. It was a problem either way."

This book sheds light on so many of the conditions and experiences of our fore-parents that most of us don't truly consider. Change and the unknown is scary. If any one of us had been born of slaves and only knew the life of the slave, would running away and starting anew be as simple as we imagine? What did folks really think of Lincoln? Was he as revered as we learn in grammar school or was he viewed differently?

I guess we'll all have to crack open these pages as see for ourselves...