Freedom: Volume 1, Series 1: The Destruction of Slavery: A Documentary History of Emancipation, 1861–1867

by Ira Berlin (Editor), Joseph P. Reidy (Editor), Barbara J. Fields (Editor)

This book explicates the process by which slavery collapsed under the pressure of federal arms and the slaves' determination to place their own liberty on the wartime agenda. In documenting the transformation of a war for the Union into a war against slavery, it shifts the focus from the halls of power in Washington and Richmond to the plantations, farms, and battlefields of the South and demonstrates how slaves accomplished their own liberation and shaped the destiny of the nation.

896 pages, Hardcover

First published January 31, 1986

About the author

A historian of American slavery, Ira Berlin earned his BA in chemistry, and an MA and Ph.D. in history from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He taught at the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle and Federal City College in Washington, DC before moving to the University of Maryland in 1974, where he was Distinguished University Professor of History. A former president of the Organization of American Historians, Berlin was the founding editor of the Freedmen and Southern Society Project, which he directed until 1991.