The Peninsula Campaign and the Necessity of Emancipation: African Americans and the Fight for Freedom

Civil War America

by Glenn David Brasher

In the Peninsula Campaign of spring 1862, Union general George B. McClellan failed in his plan to capture the Confederate capital and bring a quick end to the conflict. But the campaign saw something new in the war--the participation of African Americans in ways that were critical to the Union offensive. Ultimately, that participation influenced Lincoln's decision to issue the Emancipation Proclamation at the end of that year. Glenn David Brasher's unique narrative history delves into African American involvement in this pivotal military event, demonstrating that blacks contributed essential manpower and provided intelligence that shaped the campaign's military tactics and strategy and that their activities helped to convince many Northerners that emancipation was a military necessity.
Drawing on the voices of Northern soldiers, civilians, politicians, and abolitionists as well as Southern soldiers, slaveholders, and the enslaved, Brasher focuses on the slaves themselves, whose actions showed that they understood from the outset that the war was about their freedom. As Brasher convincingly shows, the Peninsula Campaign was more important in affecting the decision for emancipation than the Battle of Antietam.

Genres: Civil War, Nonfiction, History, American History

304 pages, Hardcover

First published April 2, 2012

Reviews

[Hope Ash · Rating 3 out of 5]

Informative, but got repetitive (perhaps because of the repetitive nature of the facts, I will allow).

[Alex Raines · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author is too enamored with the illusory black Confederates.

[Ray · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think "The Peninsula Campaign & the Necessity of Emancipation", by Glenn David Brasher, would have been an excellent 150 page book, but is less satisfying as a 300 page book. Mr. Brasher describes the various ways in which Southern slaves proved helpful to Union troops in the Peninsula Campaign in Virginia early in the Civil War. In making his point(s) however, Mr. Brasher overwhelms the reader with repetitive references to various newspapers, long forgotten soldiers, and numerous politicians repeating very similar information over and over again. That's valuable to prove one's point, but doesn't lend itself to a moving narrative.
The book does not, and is not intended to provide a complete chronological review of the Civil War, militarily nor politically, but rather focuses specifically on the interaction of the slaves in the Virginia peninsula during General McCellan's early attempts to capture Richmond. The activities of the slaves in helping Confederate troops, and of their value to Union troops, ultimately helped to convince many Northerners that emancipation was a military necessity. It was interesting to see how political pressure for emancipation influenced Lincoln's decision to issue the Emancipation Proclamation after the Peninsula Campaign to take Richmond failed early in the War.