ABSTRACT
In view of the assault on mind, body, and spirit that was the bitter reality of slavery, the desire among slaves to be free was surely consuming. Until the publication of Herbert Aptheker’s American Negro Slave Revolts in 1943, scholars had been inclined to discount the significance of the many attempts slaves made to free themselves. Most believed that slavery was a matter for the states to decide individually, despite the wide publicity the tiny abolitionist movement gave to its horrors. Black soldiers fighting in the cause of their own freedom also meant that the government’s inaction on the slavery issue could no longer continue as the war drew to a close. Black soldiers fighting in the Civil War were actually engaged in two important conflicts: one a savage battle with the Confederacy for their freedom; the other a tenacious struggle to obtain something approaching equal treatment from the Union officers and men who were fighting, at least in theory.
