Somewhere Toward Freedom

“Vivid and intricate.” —The New York Times Book Review“Somewhere Toward Freedom is one of the most innovative studies of American emancipation in the Civil War we have ever seen, from the March to the Sea in Georgia and well beyond. An epic tale of movement, of collisions with nature, of military history of a new kind in the annals of American warfare, and of the great human drama—full of loss and tragedy and confusion—of an evolving freedom for former slaves across a vast landscape.” —David W. Blight, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Frederick Douglass“In compelling prose, Parten dramatizes how Sherman’s March catalyzed the Civil War’s social revolution, as Southern Blacks fought ‘their own version of the war’ in the name of powerful visions of freedom. Rarely does a history book so completely and persuasively recast an iconic event. A must-read for all those who seek to understand the Civil War’s meaning and legacy.” —Elizabeth R. Varon, author of Longstreet“Stunningly original and comprehensive, this book boldly challenges the conventional understanding of a supposedly well-known episode in US History. Whereas historians have written at length about Sherman’s March to the Sea, Parten offers a startling analysis of thousands of enslaved people who ran to the army, followed the army, and in due course turned his March through Georgia into a march of liberation. Lucid and thoroughly researched, the book grapples with the social, cultural, and political details of the March. Ultimately, Parten redefines Sherman’s March to the Sea from a ‘total’ war of destruction into a war for emancipation and freedom. This valuable—indeed indispensable—work will transform the way we think about the Civil War.” —Orville Vernon Burton, author of The Age of Lincoln and Justice Deferred“A well-known episode in Civil War history viewed from a fresh, and illuminating, perspective.” —Kirkus Reviews“Parts of this story have been told before, in bits and pieces, in broader works about the Civil War or emancipation or the march itself. But Parten’s may be the first to make freedpeople its sole focus, and to claim that they were essential to the march’s meaning.” ­—Scott Spillman, The New YorkerSherman’s March and its marchers are a major marker of both our failures and our aspirations, and nothing has captured that contradiction with greater skill or depth than Somewhere Toward Freedom.” —Allen C. Guelzo, Washington Monthly“Paints Sherman’s March to the Sea in essentially liberationist colors… [A] signature contribution to the vast literature on Sherman’s march.” — Brenda Wineapple, The New York Times“Like the larger story of Reconstruction across the South, the story conveyed in Somewhere Toward Freedom is one of exhilaration and dashed hopes, of suffering and survival. Mr. Parten tells it with vigor and compassion and an acute eye to the consequences of a failure that we live with still.” —Fergus M. Bordewich, Wall Street Journal“Somewhere Toward Freedom is well-written, fast, and entertaining. It presents points of view often missed in Civil War studies.” —New York Journal of Books

Bennett Parten is an assistant professor of history at Georgia Southern University. His area of expertise is the Civil War period. He was named a Distinguished Lecturer by the Organization of American Historians. He is a native of Royston, Georgia, and completed his PhD in history at Yale University. His writing has appeared in The Washington Post, Los Angeles Review of Books, Zocalo Public Square, and The Civil War Monitor, among others. He currently lives in Savannah, Georgia.

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