ABSTRACT
Without the Civil War, it is virtually inconceivable that Southern slavery would have been terminated during the 1860s and this chapter discusses this in detail. The belief that slavery must expand or die had many disciples in the South, and in particular, ambitious young men still saw westward migration as the best hope for their future. In the background, with John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry in 1859 in the forefront of Southern minds, lurked the chronic fear of servile insurrection. The unifying theme of all these fears and concerns lay in their potential for creating the kind of disunity among Southern whites which Northern Republicans might turn to their own advantage. Hard physical labor, often in wretched conditions dangerously close to the front line, encouraged some slaves to make a dash for freedom. Many of those who did return to their owners after their spell of such labor were in poor health and an unsettled frame of mind.
