Black Confederates and Afro-Yankees in Civil War Virginia

On the eve of the Civil War, more African-Americans lived in Virginia than in any other state - 490,000 slaves and 59,000 free blacks - and they were active participants in the single most dynamic event to shape the American consciousness. Black Confederates and Afro-Yankees in Civil War Virginia is the first comprehensive study of Civil War Afro-Virginian history and culture. Through it we witness every aspect of black life: slave and free; rural and urban; homefront and battlefield; at work on plantations but also in munitions factories in Richmond; as wartime Union spies and as soldiers in the Confederate army.