This brief description from Chandra Manning's fine book What This Cruel War Was Over evokes a stunning visual image. I read it yesterday and woke up thinking about it this morning:
As a regiment of black Union troops from Virginia sailed down the Mississippi River toward New Orleans [in 1863], "thousands [of former slaves] who had been made free by the President's Proclamation [came] from all parts of the cotton and sugar fields to the river banks . . . cheering us loudly," Sgt. James Taylor reported.
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