Emancipation
Historian and author Ira Berlin explains that slavery in the United States was not a regional institution. It existed in the north as well as the south, until the north committed to put an end to slavery sometime after the American Revolution. Profe...
Battle Cry: Politics of Emancipation, The
In 1862 President Lincoln's Cabinet urges him to wait for victory in the war with the Confederacy before issuing Emancipation Proclamation. Lee invades Maryland, hoping that victories in the Eastern Theater will convince Europe to support the Confed...
Battle Cry: Need for Manpower, The
As the conflict continues, the North and the South sustain severe losses of military personnel. The Confederates had already instituted a draft in the spring of 1862, but now it becomes necessary for the Union to take similar steps. Certain categori...
Battle Cry: People at War
Military history is about the experience of people at war, not just armies or generals. There are few aspects of society that are not affected. Women, for example, become heads of households, a difficult position particularly on Southern plantations...
What Price Freedom: Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, The
Just a few days into his second term in office, Lincoln's life comes to an abrupt end. On the night of April 14, 1865, Lincoln and his wife are attending a play at Ford's Theater when actor John Wilkes Booth slips into the presidential box and shoot...
House Divided: Emancipation Question, The
As a practical matter Lincoln believes in gradual emancipation. His army officers ask for specific guidance on what to do with the slaves they find in captured territories. Although Southerners contend that blacks understand it is in their "best int...
Civil War, The: A Revolutionary Event
Historian and author Ira Berlin argues that the Civil War was a revolutionary event, not only because it transformed the lives of African-Americans, but because it destroyed the institution of slavery, as well as the world's most powerful slaveholdi...