Amy Murrell Taylor’s Embattled Freedom seeks to give a voice to enslaved African Americans in the Civil War who were refugees. Taylor focuses on three people who help illustrate the refugees’ struggle. Using a micro-historical approach, she seeks to humanize refugees presenting their particular struggles as a historical minority.

The research that went into Embattled Freedom is evident from the beginning of the book. Taylor takes the reader through the refugees’ journey. She shows the Union army was not the saving grace for enslaved, and escape from the plantation did not equal freedom. The layout of the book has three different arcs. The arcs are told through three different perspectives and locations, giving voice to the group of Civil War refugees as a whole. The term refugee is an interesting one; it humanizes enslaved people.

Amy Taylor touches on all aspects of refugees’ lives from marriage to clothing to religion. The fact of religion being the least regulated part of refugees’ lives was an interesting one. One would think to ‘civilize’ newly freed African Americans religion would be the main way. Obviously, basic needs took priority, but after that Protestant Christianity was next. Taylor shows the reader that religion and education went hand in hand. She also points out that many refugees were already educated before they came into the camps. Whether it was from clandestine learning when enslaved or self-taught education, many refugees could read, write, and spell before entering the camps.

Clothing as a source of social power is an interesting notion. The idea of “clothing [as] an important, visible marker of status and social position” shows that some things in human nature do not change. Refugees who gained new clothing were seen as shedding their life of enslavement and stepping into freedom. Women’s clothing especially displayed social freedom. Women’s clothing were “barometers of social change.” Yet clothing shows the social status of African American women were still less than their white counterparts. As US Sanitary Commission agent Maria Mann noted that refugee women, unlike white women, were not allowed to wear full skirts. The skirts issue shows that African American women were still at the bottom of the social ranking.

Removal from refugee camps and separation of black families shows the reader security did not come from being in a camp. The idea of refugee isolation helping to prevent fraternization between black women and white men was overall ridiculous. As Taylor writes “proximity had always been associated with army protection.” The separation of refugees from the main army was tricky. Taylor shows readers that the execution of separation did not work well. The Mississippi River islands did not provide refugees with proper shelter, landscapes, or economic opportunities. It was a quick solution that did not work.

Taylor points out that there were over 200 refugee camps in the occupied South with over “half a million people” taking up residence in these spaces. The tragedy of these spaces being so easily reduced to nothing on the physical landscape and history books is enormous. For refugees, the loss of camps was akin to losing all sense of freedom again. Everything built since their freedom was being destroyed and taken away from them. One has to wonder at the psychological effects of it all on the refugees. The resettlement process would have been very traumatic.

I appreciate Taylor’s emphasis on how finding Union lines did not mean the refugees were completely free. Freedom was something those in bondage would have to fight their way out of through various means. In the different chapters, Taylor shows that the enslaved living how they wanted to was a form of freedom and resistance. The snippets of African American marriage and family point back to the struggles Tera Hunter’s Bound in Wedlock outlined. The idea of enslaved marriages being less than because it was not officiated by white preachers or recognized by the federal government comes up in this book.

Amy Taylor adds to the historiography of the Civil War with her emphasis on the escaped enslaved in the South. Taylor’s work should be read in American schools. Embattled Freedom shows freedom did not occur when the Emancipation Proclamation was issued. Freedom was something hard-fought by African Americans, not only physically but mentally. The Civil War may have started the path to freedom, but it illustrates that safety and security did not come with freedom.