“A needed addition to the scholarship, centering African Americans within [a] narrative that typically marginalizes them. . . . Helps create a more accurate and inclusive picture of this era.”—H-Net
“A solidly researched and well-written addition to the literature concerning slavery and the Civil War and furthers the effort to make more widely known a number of important aspects of the African American experience.”—Journal of Southern History
“Rich with new details about a previously understudied region and will be of major use to scholars of slavery in Virginia, Black service in the Civil War, and emancipation.”—North Carolina Historical Review
“We know remarkably little about how the Shenandoah Valley’s African Americans negotiated the vexing uncertainties of secession, civil war, and Reconstruction. This compelling and accessibly written narrative foregrounds the struggles of freedom-seeking enslaved persons in America’s most turbulent era.”—Brian Matthew Jordan, author of Marching Home: Union Veterans and Their Unending Civil War
“A groundbreaking study that demonstrates how African Americans shaped the Civil War era. Noyalas systematically dismantles the old myth that the Shenandoah Valley did not have enslaved populations and instead weaves a compelling story of African American resistance and perseverance in a region deeply contested by war.”—James J. Broomall, author of Private Confederacies: The Emotional Worlds of Southern Men as Citizens and Soldiers
Jonathan A. Noyalas is director of the McCormick Civil War Institute at Shenandoah University. He is the author or editor of several books, including Civil War Legacy in the Shenandoah: Remembrance, Reunion and Reconciliation.
Publication of the paperback edition made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
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