“Some four million slaves were given their freedom following the South’s defeat…”
No, although it is fair to say that 4 million African Americans were released from bondage after the defeat of the Confederacy, your way of phrasing it ignores the agency, self-assertion, of the nearly 200,000 black Union combatants. Others stole away to Union lines and served as spies. Further, your figure of 4 million amounts to the total black population at the time, but some of them—such as those in Washington, DC—had been Emancipated earlier.
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PotomacWill
“Some four million slaves were given their freedom following the South’s defeat…”
No, although it is fair to say that 4 million African Americans were released from bondage after the defeat of the Confederacy, your way of phrasing it ignores the agency, self-assertion, of the nearly 200,000 black Union combatants. Others stole away to Union lines and served as spies. Further, your figure of 4 million amounts to the total black population at the time, but some of them—such as those in Washington, DC—had been Emancipated earlier.