Slavery, Resistance, Freedom (Gettysburg Civil War Institute Books)

188 Pages·2007·0.79 MB·English

by  Gabor S. Boritt

Slavery,
Resistance,
Freedom
GettysburgCivilWar Institute Books
Published by Oxford University Press
Edited by Gabor Boritt
Why the ConfederacyLost
Lincoln,the War President
Lincoln’s Generals
WarComesAgain
Why the Civil War Came
The Gettysbury Nobody Knows
Jefferson Davis’s Generals
The Lincoln Enigma
Other books by Gabor Boritt
TheGettysburgGospel:TheLincolnSpeechthatNobodyKnows
Lincoln and the Economics ofthe American Dream
The Lincoln Image
(with Harold Holzer and Mark E. Neely, Jr.)
The Confederate Image
(with Mark E.Neely, Jr., and Harold Holzer)
The Historian’s Lincoln
(with Norman O. Forness)
The Historian’s Lincoln,Rebuttals:
Whatthe University Press WouldNot Print
Of the People, By the People,For the People
and OtherQuotations from Abraham Lincoln
(withJakobB.Boritt,DeborahR.Huson,andPeterC.Vermilyea)
Slavery,
Resistance,
Freedom
edited by
GABOR BORITT
and SCOTT HANCOCK
essays by
Ira Berlin
John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger
Scott Hancock
Edward L. Ayers, William G. Thomas III,
and Anne Sarah Rubin
Noah Andre Trudeau
Eric Foner
1
2007
1
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Copyright#2007byGaborBoritt
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electronic,mechanical,photocopying,recording,orotherwise,
withoutthepriorpermissionofOxfordUniversityPress.
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Slavery,resistance,freedom/editedbyGaborS.Boritt;ScottHancock,
assistanteditor;essaysbyIraBerlin...[etal.].
p. cm.
Includesbibliographicalreferences.
ISBN978-0-19-510222-2
1. Slavery—UnitedStates—History. 2. Slavery—UnitedStates—Historiography.
3. Memory—Socialaspects—UnitedStates—History. 4. Government,Resistanceto—
UnitedStates—History. 5. Fugitiveslaves—UnitedStates—History. 6. Slave
insurrections—UnitedStates—History. 7. AfricanAmericans—Socialconditions—To
1964. 8. UnitedStates—History—CivilWar,1861–1865—Participation,African
American. 9. AfricanAmericanleadership—History—19thcentury. 10. Reconstruction
(U.S.history,1865–1877) I. Boritt,G.S.,1940- II. Hancock,Scott. III. Berlin,
Ira,1941–
E441.S6442007
326.0973—dc22 2006038009
Maponpage104#2004NoahAndreTrudeau
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica
onacid-freepaper
To Tom Kemp and Ed Johnson
By lateJune it is usually warm,
Evenhot in Gettysburg.
In the night atour farm,
The firefliesglow inthe dark,
Fleeting specks illuminating the woods and
TurningMarsh Creek into a pageant.
In the daytime along the side ofthe road,
Orange tiger lilies proclaim their eternal message.
My heart overflows;
Itis time to see old friends again,
Time to make new ones.
Itis time for the Gettysburg Civil WarInstitute.
gabor boritt
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction xiii
Scott Hancock
1. American Slaveryin History and Memory 1
Ira Berlin
2. The Quest for Freedom: Runaway Slaves
and the Plantation South 21
John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger
3. ‘‘Tradition Informs Us’’: African Americans’
Constructionof Memoryin the Antebellum North 40
Scott Hancock
4. Black and on the Border 70
Edward L.Ayers, William G.Thomas III,
and Anne Sarah Rubin
viii / Contents
5. AStrangerin the Club: The Army ofthe Potomac’s
Black Division 96
Noah Andre Trudeau
6. ‘‘The Tocsin of Freedom’’: The Black Leadership
ofRadical Reconstruction 118
Eric Foner
Notes 141
Contributors 163
Acknowledgments
A
ll knew,’’ Lincoln said in the spring of 1865, that
slavery‘‘was,somehow,thecauseofthewar.’’1Thatwar,theonly
oneinthehistoryoftheUnitedStatesinwhichallparticipantswere
Americans,costmorethansixhundredtwentythousanddead,and
a million and a half in total casualties. In a like war today, in a
nation with a population of three hundred million people, those
numbers would grow, proportionally, to five and a half million
dead,andmorethanthirteenmillionintotalcasualties.
Thosesoul-shatteringfigurespointtooneofthecostsofAmer-
ican slavery. Of course Lincoln was wrong in saying that ‘‘all’’
knew.Neitherthennornowdoallknow,thoughinourtimemost
professionalhistorians,atleast,havecometoacceptthecentrality
of slavery to the Civil War. Indeed scholars have gone further,
taking the words of Lincoln’s second inaugural address to their
logicalconclusionbypicturingtheinstitutionofslaveryascrucial
toallofU.S.history.Howeveruncomfortablethatthoughtstillis
inthis twenty-first century, we can take comfort inknowing that
Americansaretryingtofaceuptotheissuesspawnedbythis,the
most dominant flawof a truly remarkablehistory.
At Gettysburg, we celebrated the twentieth anniversary of
the founding of the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College by
devotingaweeklongsessiontoAfricanAmericanhistory.Someof
ix