April 2011 will mark 150 years since the surrender of Fort Sumter and the start of the Civil War.  We will undoubtedly hear much about Civil War battles, secession, party conflicts, and the like over the next four years.  There is a great debate about why this war was fought and why soldiers fought and when President Lincoln began to eye the end of slavery as his objective.


Ultimately, the events which led up to the war and the war itself brought about a result many had not anticipated.  While everyone scrambles to share personal perspectives which intrigue the masses, About Our Freedom will focus on the prize which enslaved ancestors yearned to achieve, freedom.

Emancipation statue at Lincoln Park, by dbking, August 27, 2004.

To us, it is all About Our Freedom.  Our perspectives will also be an integrated part of the dialog over the next four years.   We will take a fresh look at original resources and oral history which has survived so that we can identify the principles and characteristics which embodied African Americans who came forth from the chains of bondage.


We will measure the extent of our freedom against the aspirations of our forebears to determine where we stand today.


Having read through many of the speeches, sermons, and dissertations, I am excited and confident that we will be successful in this attempt.

Genesis 39 (KJV)

 ¹And Joseph was brought down to Egypt; and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, captain of the guard, an Egyptian, bought him of the hands of the Ishmeelites, which had brought him down thither.

 ²And the LORD was with Joseph, and he was a prosperous man; and he was in the house of his master the Egyptian.

 ³And his master saw that the LORD was with him, and that the LORD made all that he did to prosper in his hand.

As I reflected this morning upon all the recent exposure I have had to the work of Civil War historians, I understood how important it is that I search for and share the stories of African Americans during this time period. Then @SmithsonianCW  tweeted this article about African Americans who served as doctors and nurses in the Civil War:  Civil War exhibit in Md. features black doctors.  Thanks @SmithsonianCW!

Our experiences are varied, and it is so unfortunate that they are virtually missing from the American Civil War memory. Most every historian is in agreement that the battle fought by the Federal government and in the hearts of Union soldiers was not initiated to bring an end to slavery but rather to preserve the Union.

Preservation of the Union was a worthy cause in itself, however, the question of slavery could not be kept at bay. In the same respect, neither can the experiences of people like Susie King Taylor, who was born a slave in 1848 in Liberty County, Georgia.

As she relates in her book, Reminiscences of my life in camp with the 33d United States colored troops, she and her family looked forward in faith and knew they would be freed by the Yankees. She was taught by African American teachers and by white children as a child which was illegal. Her life is full of examples where she overcame the limitations that could have kept her from success.

See her Find A Grave Bio: Susie King Taylor It is wonderful that she published her story in 1902:

"There are many people who do not know what some of the colored women did during the war. There were hundreds of them who assisted the Union soldiers by hiding them and helping them to escape. Many were punished for taking food to the prison stockades for the prisoners. When I went into Savannah, in 1865,1 was told of one of these stockades which was in the suburbs of the city, and they said it was an awful place. The Union soldiers were in it, worse than pigs, without any shelter from sun or storm, and the colored women would take food there at night and pass it to them, through the holes in the fence. The soldiers were starving, and these women did all they could towards relieving those men, although they knew the penalty, should they be caught giving them aid. Others assisted in various ways the Union army. These things should be kept in history before the people. There has never been a greater war in the United States than the one of 1861, where so many lives were lost, — not men alone but noble women as well," pg. 67 Reminiscences of my life in camp with the 33d United States colored troops 

 Please read her book here:


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Taylor, Susie King. Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33d United States Colored Troops, Late 1st S. C. Volunteers,. Boston, 1902. Print.

"While watching these battle lines so grand to look upon, but so terrible to think of when you remember the frightful waste of human lives they caused, the call came; "Bring the stretchers, a man hurt." Myself and Demas took the stretchers to look for the man, he was pointed out to us and proved to be Bradford (our older brother) who had been struck by a shell in the left shoulder while lying on the ground in line waiting for the first assault just opening.  By his side lay James W. Conger, whose clothing was stained by his blood. We were little more than children and the shock to us can be better imagined than described. Demas and myself lifted him to the stretcher just as Col. Kirby Smith and Adjutant Heyl were shot from their horses a few steps away We carried him to the shallow ditch by the railroad a few rods to the rear, where the temporary field hospital was located, as it offered a slight protection to the wounded from the deadly hail of bullets that fell about them coming from all directions except the rear We then placed him in an ambulance still alive and conscious. We bid him goodbye and never saw him again. He only lived a short time and occupies an unknown grave,"  told by David Auld, drummer for the 43rd Ohio Volunteers. See Civil War drummer boys did more than just play the drums.  See also  The History of Fuller's Ohio Brigade, 1861-1865; Its Great March, with Roster, Portraits, Battle Maps and Biographies, pg 431.  

This book has been added to the About Our Freedom Reading Room:

Many believed that this nation was brought into existence by God.  People of the North and South believed God favored their view of slavery.  Abraham Lincoln did not speak out publicly about religion or abolishing slavery before his election.  He was not an abolitionist.

Abolitionists believed that slavery was a sin and would put America out of God's good graces.  They believed that if a Christian could feel the power of conversion and change overnight, so could a nation.

In 1844, Christians from the North and South began to site opposing views.  There was secession and the establishment of Northern and Southern churches long before South Carolina's 1860 secession from the Union.

How did American Christian slaves endure the obvious contradictions of the principles of hope, love, and charity?

Northern Christians taught the principles of freedom while Southern Christians claimed slavery was divinely inspired,  and Africans had no soul.  Was the Civil War a political or religious war?  This will perhaps be answered as we take this journey back to the words of those who had this decision placed in front of them during that day.

I am satisfied to open my mind to the possibility that the blood so sorely sacrificed to bring my freedom opens me to a type of freedom broader than political freedom.  My mind must therefore embrace the principles a greater freedom brings. Please enjoy the PBS video below that has helped me in doing just that (God in America: Episode 3, A Nation Reborn).  You can watch an excerpt by clicking below.  Then you will be taken to the PBS site where you may watch the full episode and each of the other episodes. I would love to hear your opinions.