Troubled Refuge: Struggling for Freedom in the Civil War

by Chandra Manning

A fascinating and original portrait of the escaped-slave refugee camps and how they shaped the course of emancipation and black citizenship.

By the end of the Civil War, nearly half a million slaves had taken refuge behind Union lines, in what became known as "contraband camps." These were crowded, dangerous places, yet some 12-15 percent of the Confederacy's slave population took almost unimaginable risks to reach them, and they became the first places Northerners came to know former slaves en masse. Ranging from stories of individuals to those of armies on the move to the debates in Congress, Troubled Refuge probes what the camps were really like and how former slaves and Union soldiers warily united there. This alliance, which would outlast the war, helped to destroy slavery and ward off the surprisingly tenacious danger of re-enslavement. But it also raised unsettling questions about the relationship between American civil and military authority, and reshaped the meaning of American citizenship, to the benefit as well as the lasting cost of African-Americans.


From the Hardcover edition.

Genres: History, Civil War, Nonfiction, American History, African American, War, Military Fiction

416 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 16, 2016

About the author

Chandra M. Manning is associate professor of history at Georgetown University.

Reviews

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit of a slog to get through and sometimes repetitive but definitely a book worth reading. I suppose I always took a simplistic view of the Civil War. Before it there was slavery. After it there wasn't. This book demolishes that myth and goes into detail to show how the Union Army and slaves/free people brought about the end of slavery together.

[Jerome Otte · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well-researched and compelling history of the slaves that journeyed to Union lines for freedom, and how the Union army dealt with them.

Manning focuses on the contraband camps, and tells how they spread from Butler’s army at Fort Monroe to wherever Union troops set down. She describes how the fortunes of contrabands were affected by the mobility of Union armies; in the West, Union troops moved by train and boat, making life more difficult for escaped slaves. She describes how the camps were affected by disease, food shortages, emancipation, and black enlistment, and how contraband slaves provided labor for Union soldiers.

A vivid, insightful work.

[H Phillips · Rating 3 out of 5]

Excellent book on an underreported aspect of the Civil War. Well put listings of events, results, successes and failures.

[Gregory Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chandra Manning is one of the best historians alive right now. Full stop.

My expectations were high for this book after loving Manning's *What This Cruel War Was Over* and *Troubled Refuge* delivered. The book's subjects are the refugee former enslaved people who moved out of literal bondage and into freedom. That path was different for everyone, including some who ran to Union lines, others who ran between the lines, and finally others who did not find freedom until the close of the war.

The book is meticulously researched, as is Manning's style. There are stories that bring the main characters to life alongside tangible evidence. As someone who teaches historical methodology, I'm not sure I could select a better historian or book to show how this process can be done. Does Manning have an interpretation? Sure. Is it an agenda? No. It's good history, rooted in evidence, that explains a story that has been either unknown or outright fabricated. As Manning did for common soldiers with her first book she does for African American refugees in this book.

I would use this book for a grad class on the Civil War and Reconstruction. It's a great fit for comps lists on 19th century US history. I would not assign it to undergrads, but I do think many of the details here can sharpen historians' understanding of the war and its aftermath.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some books address history widely, and others pick one aspect and go deep. Troubled Refuge is one of those that picks a relatively small topic… the contraband camps during the Civil War, where freed Black people joined up with Union armies for liberty, employment, and protection… and considers these camps and the people involved from every possible angle. The book is wonderfully done, looking not only at the people, camps, and army, but also at many aspects of the legal status that military release from enslavement meant. What did it mean that formerly enslaved people were no longer enslaved, if there was no legal standing to define what they now *were*? There was nothing that said they were citizens, so what were they? Around the world, most other attempts to end slavery ended up with at least some window of re-enslavement, so how did that affect people’s views?

This is an excellent book that both teaches about the reality of the contraband camps, uses plenty of first person sources, and ponders reflective questions that take us out of our “we know the answer from here” viewpoint to consider Civil War questions from participants’ point of view.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had read a review in a history journal that this book didn’t contain much new information for scholars, but is very well written. I agree. Her use of the cyclorama metaphor in the introduction was excellently done. I think if you are newer to Civil War or slavery studies there will be more in this book which is fresh to you. The part that was most striking to me was her first “interlude,” which had a tone more like a NYTimes article and touched on recent events. I’d never seen a historian do something like that before in a serious book and it was both impressive and possibly a sign of the times in which we live (blogs, YouTube, etc have changed the way people portray the self as something to foreground). I also found her formulation of the standing of black people in the antebellum U.S. pages 163-166 very interesting regarding unwritten rules, assumptions, rights and standing in relation to civil authority.

Her acknowledgments were also unusually moving and suggestive of a vibrant personality.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an important book for those who want to understand the civil war and what followed. Its a good reminder that discussions over -- did Lincoln free the slaves -- is simply the wrong question. Here you can learn that slaves took advantage of the conditions created by the civil war and a very large percent of them ran toward the union lines. Military leaders were forced to deal with this as political leaders tried to develop a strategy that dealt with competing goals. Manning describes conditions in camps of former slaves as something akin to refugee camps we have today without much of the humanitarian support that such camps currently "enjoy". African-Americans and military and political leaders of the Union forces cut deals as best they could. Conditions in the camps varied considerably. In a final chapter the author tries to put the failure of reconstruction into perspective in terms of what was achieved. She points out that after many wars where slavery was suspended it was reintroduced and that this threat hung over peoples heads in 1865-66,

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author's talents shine when explaining and connecting large ideas and theories. This book helped distill large and often competing narratives of the civil war and slightly beyond. I loved being immersed in the complexity of the ideas and motives of all the forces that propelled and endured the civil war. My frustration was the descriptions of individual camps. Often times it seemed repetitive and at some point I couldn't remember what contraband camp was being discussed as they all blurred together. Obviously many of the camps had similar struggles and problems that united them, but this section of the book seems like an outlier in an otherwise captivating book that had me barely put it down. I plan on reading her other book and as someone who has no background in history or academia, this book was beyond what I could have hoped for and sparked my appetite to find authors who have a similar strength in writing on this topic.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Manning provides a thorough look at the varied experiences of enslaved people seeking freedom, primarily with the Union Army, during the American Civil War. Her metaphor of the cyclorama was an interesting one, which worked more often than it didn't. I know why she organized the book as she did - she explains as much in the introduction - but it did make the book feel a little meandering. By jumping around in space and time, Manning made it harder to mentally organize the experiences she was describing. But overall, it was an insightful book about the challenges and opportunities offered by military emancipation. Particularly valuable was her formulation on traditional assumptions about the federal government's relationship with slavery and enslaved peoples, and how military emancipation both challenged and maintained these assumptions.

[Diana H. · Rating 3 out of 5]

The content of this book was great and deserved 5 stars. However, the writing got bogged down in many areas. With a complex, meaty topic like this one, I think shorter chapters would have given the reader a break to consider what had just been read. Like I said, the content is great; the writing? Not so much.

[Greg M. Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing history of an overlooked aspect of the Civil War: what happened to the slaves liberated by Union armies in the middle of the war. Covers humanitarian efforts to help, racist neglect or militia attacks, and their own significant contributions to Union victory. Also covers the difficulties they encountered shortly after the war.

[Alice · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m so glad I read this book. Learned so much about the Civil War that I didn’t know. Slavery and the palpable hopes that African Americans placed on Emancipation come alive despite the often repetitive prose. Never thought before about what it means to be a citizen.

[Randolf S. Cadiente · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read.

It obviously was more than just war between the states. Its to bad that the United States wasn't that successful in pursuing reconstruction. It created major problems in the future.

[Lexie DeVries · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting book. Opened my eyes to things I didn’t know, but the book (in my opinion) was a little hard to read. It seemed a bit repetitive. But worth reading and understanding this part of history of the Civil War.

[Dave Hoff · Rating 2 out of 5]

Heavy reading about subject not usually discussed in Civil War History books. As fast as the Union Army advanced, the slaves considered themselves free, and joined the Army as it moved. added burdens on the Commanders. , Some did enlist and put on uniforms, others tagged along.

[Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, though wish there was more about the contraband camps. Still very enlightening.