The largest emancipation event in U.S. history happened in Georgia. A new book describes how

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Bennett Parten is the author of "Somewhere Toward Freedom: Sherman’s March and the Story of America’s Largest Emancipation."

Credit: Courtesy

Perhaps the most widely known impact of Gen. William Sherman’s march to Savannah in the fall of 1864 is the near-complete destruction of Atlanta. A huge portion of the city was burned as the Union Army delivered one of the final blows to the Confederacy. But Sherman’s march did more than that. As Union soldiers marched to Savannah, enslaved people joined them. And when the Army arrived in Savannah, thousands of people struggled to survive in an unfamiliar place without connections or resources.

In his new book, historian Bennett Parten looks deeply into this lesser-known story. It’s called Somewhere Toward Freedom: Sherman’s March and the Story of America’s Largest Emancipation. He spoke with GPB’s Peter Biello.

Peter Biello: So what you're writing about happened after the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. But even before that, the U.S. government and the U.S. Army were trying to figure out the legal status of enslaved people who fled to the Union Army. This was ultimately how enslaved people knew that they could join the Army or be with the Army to ensure their safety to some extent. But what were they considered legally at that point?

Bennett Parten: The policies of emancipation in the Civil War is a real evolving story. It begins in 1861 with a law known as the First Confiscation Act, which treats enslaved people as confiscated property. However, the distinction there is that only enslaved people who claim to have been forced to work for the Confederacy in some capacity were given refuge within the Army's lines. After that, about a year later, more and more enslaved people continue to flee to the Army. This becomes a problem for the Army and also the U.S. government. Congress passes a humdrum bill known as the Second Confiscation Act, which is essentially an emancipation declaration. It is Congress's way of saying the enslaved people who come to Army lines are considered thenceforth and forever free. So there is an evolution in emancipation policy from one that treats enslaved people as requisitioned property, requisitioned from the Confederacy as "contraband of war" — that's often the term that's used — to one that recognizes them as free individuals.

Peter Biello: So this book deals largely with the march from Atlanta to Savannah. What you write about here is essentially that on the way, enslaved people whose owners have been displaced, maybe their plantations have been burned, they join the Army along the way, and it becomes a caravan of people led by the Army. What was that like for those people following along?

Bennett Parten: It was a harrowing experience for a lot of folks. It was one that was deeply complicated. Some of Sherman's soldiers and some of his subordinates — you know, the officers of rank — were quite willing to allow enslaved people to join the Army and to follow them. But there were equal numbers of soldiers and subordinates of Sherman's that were not as welcoming. And so it could really vary this refugee experience or this experience with emancipation. And this is important because I think that is how most historians now see the experience of emancipation more broadly, which is that it was quite literally, for many, a true refugee experience. It's one that's defined by uncertainty, a lack of security, a lack of stability. This is well before any sort of legal refugee status is in place or any conversations about citizenship status. And so it was a real liminal experience of sort that was defined by deep uncertainty and complexity. And I think that the experience of Sherman's march is really a kind of symbolic reflection of the emancipation experience more broadly. I should say Sherman expected the enslaved people to follow him [or] at least run to the Army. And in fact, as part of his official campaign orders, he says that enslaved people who run to his Army may be taken along so long as they are able-bodied and able to fend for themselves or help the Army. But that it was the soldier's first responsibility to see to their own well-being and the well-being of their troops.

Peter Biello: And as you write here, you know, there's something of a symbiotic relationship with those who followed along in the sense that they were able to point Union troops in the right direction when they were plundering the abandoned plantations. Union soldiers also were providing some protection from Confederate troops who were still scouring the countryside in search of enslaved people who may have gotten away.

Bennett Parten: Yeah, I mean, one of the things that surprised me the most in writing this book was just how present enslaved people were at every step of the march. And it wasn't just the fact that they were present. It's that they were active agents and active participants in the Army's movements. They acted as scouts, as spies, as intelligence agents. They pointed the way down hidden footpaths. They were able to offer information about where the Confederate calvary was.

Peter Biello: So when Sherman's army arrives in Savannah, it is not burned the way Atlanta was burned, in part because the local government there ingratiated themselves to Sherman in an attempt to preserve the structures of the city. And the formerly enslaved people who've been following the Army, they kind of — correct me if I'm wrong here — for the most part, stayed outside the city limits and eventually were settled on various sea islands, correct?

Bennett Parten: That's right, yeah. By the time that Sherman arrives on the Ogeechee, which in the advance into Savannah, it's the Ogeechee River, south of Savannah — which is one of those classic intercoastal waterways — that becomes the main waterway for the Army because it connects Sherman to the Atlantic Ocean. By the time he arrives there, at a place called Kingsbridge, which is a former bridge that had been burned that he uses as a depot on the Ogeechee, he sets in motion this real elaborate movement of the refugees down the Ogeechee around Savannah, around the Daufuskie Island, around Hilton Head in the Port Royal Sound, to begin settling them on the islands around Port Royal [and] Buford — this is the South Carolina Sea Islands. And the reason he does that is because at Port Royal, and around Port Royal, the town of Buford, there is an ongoing freedman's colony known as the Port Royal Experiment.

Peter Biello: Yeah, the Port Royal Experiment was an opportunity for formerly enslaved people to work land and profit from their work. And there were other attempts after Sherman's march to give land to formerly enslaved people. But those didn't work out as many had hoped. And you go into detail about that in your book. But overall, Bennett Parten, what would you say is the legacy of Sherman's march?

Bennett Parten: One of the real legacies of the march and one of things that I try to argue in this book is that while we have long known the march as a military event, really the best way to understand it is as a freedom movement. And I think we should also recognize the march as being one of these moments in American history where what American freedom means is really on the table. And it is a moment that is important for this constant redefining of this idea of American freedom. And I say that because when enslaved people ran to the Army, they were consistently imagining what freedom might mean for them. And in their conversations with the soldiers, they were explaining to them the reasons why they decided to drop everything and follow the Army and what they hoped to achieve in arriving in Savannah or elsewhere. And so, like a Selma, Ala., like a Philadelphia in 1776, like at Gettysburg or Yorktown, it's one of these moments that has had real, I think, consequences for what American freedom actually means. And it's one of these moments where American freedom is being debated and acted upon in real time.

Bennett Parten's new book is featured on the latest episode of GPB's Narrative Edge, a podcast about books with Georgia connections. Find it here or wherever you get your podcasts.