Troubled Refuge: Struggling for Freedom in the Civil War

Troubled Refuge: Struggling for Freedom in the Civil War. By Chandra Manning. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2016. Pp. [x], 396. Paper, $17.00, ISBN 978-0-307-45637-3; cloth, $30.00, ISBN 978-0-30727120-4.)

Chandra Manning's Troubled Refuge: Struggling for Freedom in the Civil War is a timely book. It contributes to scholarly debates over the process of emancipation, the meaning of citizenship, and the nature of the Union, and it resonates against the backdrop of contemporary world events, such as the refugee crisis associated with Syria's civil war. Troubled Refuge brings the experiences of American refugees who fled violence, terror, and war to light. By emphasizing contingency and struggles against entrenched social structures, Manning shows how contraband camps were an important part of the death of American slavery and the rebirth of American freedom.

The first of the book's three parts surveys the contraband camps in the war's eastern and western theaters. Manning carefully notes common traits and differences in both areas regarding threats of violence, labor issues, and resource scarcity. Eastern camps tended to be permanent, while western camps were linked to military movements along rivers and railroads, which made them more mobile. The camps represented an important component of wartime emancipation; roughly 400,000 refugees-constituting 12 to 15 percent...