Historian Andrew Ward presents a rich and sweeping vision of the nation’s bloodiest conflict in The Slaves’ War: The Civil War in the Words of Former Slaves. The author has brought together hundreds of interviews, diaries, letters, and memoirs of former slaves in the Unites States to create a truly groundbreaking book.
Speaking in a unique and quintessentially American language, body servants, army cooks, runaways, and gravediggers bring the war to life. The book offers slaves’ theories about the causes of the Civil War and presents their frank assessments of major figures as Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and Ulysses S. Grant.
General Lee’s slave cook, William, offers this interesting story about a little black hen that Lee had acquired. Lee was fond of the hen and had dubbed her Nellie. William said “We was all so hungry, and I didn’t have nothing to cook. I was just plumb bumfuzzled. So, I had to go out and catch the little black hen.” Somehow Lee recognized his prize hen when William brought Nellie into the commissary tent. He turned to his servant and said, “William, now that you have killed Nellie, what are we going to do for eggs?” William said, “He kept on scolding me about that hen. He never scolded me about nothing else. He told me I was a fool to kill the hen that lay the golden egg. It made him awful sad to think of anything being killed, whether ‘twas one of his soldiers, or his little black hen.”
The Slaves’ War offers a series of compelling stories, told by dozens of slaves whose voices are rarely heard. This book is recommended to anyone looking for a different perspective on the Civil War.