Recommended. All levels/libraries."
Choice |"This book effectively opens new doors of scholarly exploration."
Virginia Magazine |"[Brasher] successfully challenges both myths [about slave participation in the Civil War], and in the process, places Virginia's slave population at the center of one of the most important military campaigns of 1862. . . . [This book] reminds us just how much the Union and ... Read moreConfederacy shared in their valuation of blacks during the war."
The Atlantic |"In a highly stimulating way this seminal work ties social, military, and political developments together into a powerful thesis about the making of the Federal decision for emancipation."
Journal of American History |"[An] assiduously researched and highly illuminating work."
Journal of Southern History |"A fascinating, impressively researched, and lucidly written addition to the literature on emancipation."
American Historical Review |"In the debate over emancipation, Brasher persuasively emphasizes the importance of such reports of blacks' participation in the war."
The North Carolina Historical Review|"By placing black people at the center of the Peninsula campaign, Brasher shows the value of blending military historiography with emancipation histiography."
H-CivWar|It is fortunate for his audience that Brasher is a careful and resourceful researcher and a lucid writer. . . . Although this work focuses on the necessity of emancipation, if other historians are wise they will let it serve as a model of how to unify political, military, and social history for future studies of all the campaigns of the Civil War."
Civil War History|"Brasher presents an insightful description of this most fascinating, yet oddly overlooked chapter of American history. . . . A valuable addition to Civil War literature and this reviewer gives it high marks for research and candor. The book makes an excellent addition to any Civil War library."
West Virginia History |"A highly praiseworthy work that succeeds in combining traditional military history and social history to the benefit of both."
Register of the Kentucky Historical Society |"This book does what history does at its best."
Civil War Monitor |"Want proof that history isn't dead? Look no further than Glenn David Brasher's revelatory account of what happened in Virginia 150 years ago this summer. . . . Brasher shows that freedom wasn't something that happened to enslaved Virginians. They seized it the first moment they could. . . . Brasher's seminal book makes it hauntingly real."
Fredericksburg News |"No student of the Civil War who wants to give an informed answer when next confronted with the 'black Confederate' question can afford to miss this fine book."
Civil War Monitor blog |"This book, which is destined to become a mainstay in the historiography of emancipation, offers a constant reminder that history does not occur in a vacuum."
Civil War News |"Rarely does an author merge so seamlessly in one study a military history
a particular campaign, social history
slavery and history from the bottom up, and political history
the origins of the Emancipation Proclamation."
Civil War Book Review |"[A] satisfying read, breaking new ground and laying the groundwork for future studies of Black/White relations on the front lines of the Civil War. This excellent book is well written, extensively researched, and convincingly argued. The University of North Carolina Press has a winner here."
TOCWOC:A Civil War Blog Show Less