Somewhere toward freedom Sherman's march and the story of America's largest emancipation

One of the most iconic military events of the Civil War was Sherman's March to the Sea, the campaign that ran through the heart of the Confederacy. One of the most important episodes in the history of Reconstruction was the Port Royal experiment, when formerly enslaved people operated plantations on the Sea Islands of South Carolina, under U.S. Army protection. In Somewhere Toward Freedom, Parten links the two events. Parten focuses on the refugee crisis Sherman's march created--perhaps 20,000 formerly enslaved people followed the army "towards freedom." With the end of the war looming, the logistical question of what to do with refugees became conflated with the political question of how to manage emancipation and the postwar South. Standard accounts note that the Port Royal experiment influenced subsequent management of Reconstruction. Parten persuasively argues that the refugee crisis played an unappreciated role in shaping that transition. Tragically, the march's promise of freedom was largely truncated in the postwar era, and few of the refugees found the freedom they believed they were marching toward. What began as a military triumph ended as a civil-rights failure. This unique look at well-known historical events belongs in all history collections.

In a raw display of military power, General Sherman's March to the Sea during the American Civil War took over 60,000 troops from Atlanta to Savannah and ravaged the Georgian countryside. In his first book, historian Parten (Georgia Southern Univ.) argues that Sherman's campaign became one of liberation. From the beginning, enslaved people flocked to Union lines. Eventually, over 20,000 formerly enslaved people joined Sherman's march, often providing crucial information about Confederate troop movements, terrain, and labor. By the end of 1864, thousands of starved and ill-clothed formerly enslaved people arrived in Port Royal, South Carolina, where Northern abolitionists, in conjunction with army officials, attempted to settle them on abandoned Sea Island plantations and provide titles to the land. By September 1865, former Confederates demanded their land be returned. What began as an incredible opportunity for freemen turned to bitter disappointment as the federal government failed to secure the newly won rights of formerly enslaved people. Promises of economic and material security, along with land grants, never materialized, as Congress focused on other issues. VERDICT This important work highlights a little-known dimension of Sherman's march and will be of interest to readers of Civil War and emancipation history.--Chad E. Statler

Vigorous history of Sherman's March to the Sea, viewed less as a military campaign than as a "veritable freedom movement." When William Tecumseh Sherman's army arrived at Atlanta in 1864, it found itself a magnet for thousands of enslaved people who left surrounding plantations and found refuge among the blue-clad soldiers. By Georgia historian Parten's count, something like half a million such enslaved people crossed into U.S. lines. Sherman was not enthusiastic about them, less interested in emancipation than in crushing the secessionist rebellion. As Parten writes, Sherman was even less interested in the prospect of enlisting Black soldiers in the Union army: "With Atlanta within reach and the end of the war coming into view, he held that now wasn't the time to insert new soldiers into the mix. He also couldn't let go of the idea that enslaved people would serve the army best as laborers." Though Ulysses S. Grant held similar views, urging Sherman to send Black men north to Virginia to build siegeworks around Richmond, the army finally relented and enrolled Black soldiers--an important step in later securing full citizenship rights. Parten examines and dismantles certain myths about the March to the Sea, discarding the "lost cause" view that Sherman had unleashed savage war on the civilian population; instead, he holds, Sherman reserved his wrath for the slaveholders and the Confederate military--which, at one critical battle, turned out to be "little more than a sad assemblage of old men and young boys." Parten also uncovers some unsavory aspects of racism among the Union forces, including one general's habit of pulling up bridges so that the train of formerly enslaved people who followed after him would not be able to cross--which, in one horrific instance, led to the murder of many at the hands of rebel fighters. A well-known episode in Civil War history viewed from a fresh, and illuminating, perspective. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.