Freedom's Crescent

'Based on a fresh and masterful reading of sources, both old and new, John Rodrigue demonstrates that the process of emancipation and the abolition of slavery in four confederate states played a critical role in the downfall of the Confederacy. Filled with stories, unforgettable characters and a careful presentation of political events, Freedom's Crescent is an impressive and original contribution to the history of the civil war and slavery.' Louis A. Ferleger, author of Cultivating Success in the South: Farm Households in Postbellum Georgia 'The Lower Mississippi Valley may seem like a limited part of the Confederate South, but John Rodrigue tells a big story. Beginning with the secession crisis in 1860 and ending with the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment, Rodrigue shows how complex and contingent the wartime destruction of slavery was, and how painfully slow it unfolded and, until the end, threatened to backslide. A first-rate contribution to Civil War era scholarship and a sobering reminder of the boundaries to social justice.' Steven Hahn, author of A Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration 'John Rodrigue critically reflects on scholarly and popular tendencies to conflate the ending of slavery and the Emancipation Proclamation. Insisting on a distinction between emancipation and abolition, he examines the unevenness of slavery's destruction in federal and state law and in the social hierarchies of daily life. Readers interested in Atlantic slave emancipations and the American Civil War will find much value in this stimulating and capacious account.' Julie Saville, author of The Work of Reconstruction: From Slave to Wage Laborer in South Carolina