A study of the role of Afro-Virginians in the Civil War.

By January 1865, most of Virginia's schools were closed, many newspapers had ceased publication, businesses suffered, and food was scarce. Having endured major defeats on their home soil and the loss of much of the state's territory to the Union army, Virginia's Confederate soldiers began to desert at higher rates than at any other time in the war, returning home to provide their families with whatever assistance they could muster. It was a dark year for Virginia. Virginia at War, 1865 closely examines the end of the Civil War in the Old Dominion, delivering a striking depiction of a state ravaged by violence and destruction. In the final volume of the Virginia at War series, editors William C. Davis and James I. Robertson Jr. have once again assembled an impressive collection of essays covering topics that include land operations, women and families, wartime economy, music and entertainment, the demobilization of Lee's army, and the war's aftermath. The volume ends with the final installment of Judith Brockenbrough McGuire's popular and important Diary of a Southern Refugee during the War. Like the previous four volumes in the series, Virginia at War, 1865 provides valuable insights into the devastating effects of the war on citizens across the state.

More than 150 years after the end of the Civil War, scores of websites, articles, and organizations repeat claims that anywhere between 500 and 100,000 free and enslaved African Americans fought willingly as soldiers in the Confederate army. But as Kevin M. Levin argues in this carefully researched book, such claims would have shocked anyone who served in the army during the war itself. Levin explains that imprecise contemporary accounts, poorly understood primary-source material, and other misrepresentations helped fuel the rise of the black Confederate myth. Moreover, Levin shows that belief in the existence of black Confederate soldiers largely originated in the 1970s, a period that witnessed both a significant shift in how Americans remembered the Civil War and a rising backlash against African Americans' gains in civil rights and other realms. Levin also investigates the roles that African Americans actually performed in the Confederate army, including personal body servants and forced laborers. He demonstrates that regardless of the dangers these men faced in camp, on the march, and on the battlefield, their legal status remained unchanged. Even long after the guns fell silent, Confederate veterans and other writers remembered these men as former slaves and not as soldiers, an important reminder that how the war is remembered often runs counter to history.

This ground-breaking book takes an insightful and close "New Look" at one of the most fascinating subjects of the Civil War--the long-overlooked battlefield contributions of the most forgotten fighting men of the Civil War, Black Confederates. With the release of the popular 1989 film Glory, the American public first learned about the heroism of the black troops of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry and their courageous assault on Fort Wagner, South Carolina, in July 1863. But what the American public failed to learn in viewing this popular film was the equally compelling saga of Black Confederates, including at least one defender, a free black soldier of the 1st South Carolina Artillery who defended Fort Wagner in July 1863. Significantly, large numbers of Black Confederates, slave and free, had already been fighting on battlefields across the South for more than two years before the famous assault of the 54th Massachusetts on Fort Wagner, including the war's first major battle at Bull Run. Although the vast of majority blacks served the Confederacy in menial and support roles, Black Confederates, free and slave, fought from 1861 to 1865 in regiments (infantry, cavalry, and artillery) that represented every Southern state.

"A deeply important study of how African Americans' daily lives affected their perception of military service and, in turn, how their treatment (or mistreatment) by the Army ricocheted back on their day-to-day lives."--Frank W. Sweet, author of "Legal History of the Color Line."

This companion volume to the four-part PBS series on the history of American slavery--narrated by Morgan Freeman and scheduled to air in February 2006--illuminates the human side of this inhumane institution, presenting it largely through the stories of the slaves themselves. Features 120 illustrations.

During the earliest decades of Virginia history, some men and women who arrived in the New World as slaves achieved freedom and formed a stable community on the Eastern shore. Holding their own with white neighbors for much of the 17th century, these free blacks purchased freedom for family members, amassed property, established plantations, and acquired laborers. T.H. Breen and Stephen Innes reconstruct a community in which ownership of property was as significant as skin color in structuring social relations. Why this model of social interaction in race relations did not survive makes this a critical and urgent work of history.