GLC@Lunch: Jonathan Lande, “Black Deserters and the Journey of Emancipation during the Civil War”

Tracing the lives of Black deserters in US Army camps, courts, and prisons, Jonathan Lande yields a new understanding of the experiences of formerly enslaved soldiers who fought to bring about their bondage-born dreams of freedom. He contends that even after enlistment and military engagement with Rebel forces, some Black southern-born troopers were compelled to continue to fight to make freedom meaningful as they served. Their stories show that emancipation in the army was an odyssey strewn with wartime obstacles, disrupted by military discipline, and complicated by the need to support suffering families trapped in bondage. The soldiers’ struggles demonstrate that the saga of realizing freedom persisted within the Union ranks.