Stones River

The Battle of Stones River and the capture of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, took place at a critical time in the Union war effort. The federal government needed to create battlefield victories to support the implementation of the Emancipation Proclamation, slated to go into effect on January 1, 1863. Despite a grueling campaign that the Federals nearly lost, they were able to deliver enough of a victory to provide that political leverage. The battle also strengthened ties between the Federal army that fought at Stones River and its government, while weakening the confidence felt by Southerners in their own army. After the battle, the Federals remained inert at Murfreesboro for six months. Their impact on the community and its region was enormous. Even though Tennessee was exempt from the Emancipation Proclamation, slaves in the area broke down slavery by fleeing to the Union flag at Murfreesboro.

The Maryland CampaignCarnage and Emancipation

The September 1862 Maryland Campaign resulted in three highly significant events: the largest surrender of Union soldiers in the war, at Harpers Ferry on September 15; the bloodiest single day of the war, on September 17 at Antietam; and the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, issued by President Abraham Lincoln on September 22. Logistics played a prominent role in the conduct of the campaign, limiting the speed of the Union advance across Maryland and causing massive straggling in the Confederate Army from logistical failures. The ferocity of the Battle of Antietam and its massive carnage shocked soldiers of previous campaigns, and the operations of the two armies and resulting fighting dislocated civilians and caused significant damage to property. Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation changed the war from one to preserve the Union to also include the destruction of slavery. Despite the carnage of the campaign, it strengthened rather than diminished the determination of both North and South to continue the war.

“Freedom to Slaves!”

This chapter’s central focus is how the Valley’s African Americans responded to the Emancipation Proclamation and Union general Robert H. Milroy’s enforcement of it in the northern Shenandoah Valley during the first six months of 1863. Additionally, this chapter focuses on the important roles filled by African Americans, such as Lee Jenkins, in General Milroy’s espionage operations. Furthermore, the chapter examines the fate of African Americans following General Milroy’s defeat at the Second Battle of Winchester. While untold numbers of African Americans escaped north into Pennsylvania, some of whom were seized by Confederates as they moved into the Keystone State, several hundred African Americans were captured by Confederate general Richard Ewell’s command near Stephenson’s Depot, north of Winchester, among them Lee Jenkins, who ultimately committed suicide to avoid enslavement. Through Jenkins’ story this chapter also explores the difficult decisions free blacks such as Jenkins confronted when seized by Confederates and impressed.

“The Sword of the Lord”

Motivating soldiers to kill in the Civil War was more difficult than inspiring them to die for the cause. Killing, Drew Gilpin Faust wrote, “required the more significant departure from soldiers’ understandings of themselves as human beings and . . . as Christians.” Killing was a problem for many soldiers—violence seemed prohibited by the Bible, especially the New Testament’s Sermon on the Mount, but also the Old Testament command, “Thou shalt not kill” (Exodus 20:13). In response, Americans turned to other passages in the Bible to inspire soldiers to kill, a concern never more urgent than after the bloodbath at Antietam. Soon after that battle, Lincoln announced his Emancipation Proclamation, which gave some northerners a righteous motivation to fight. It was now a war for freedom. In wrestling with these interrelated concerns—the motivation to kill and the battle for emancipation—Americans struggled with the scriptures in the second half of 1862.

“We Cannot Escape History”

After the victory at Antietam, Lincoln issued the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation and hoped it would raise the intensity of the war. It did that, but in some ways that Lincoln had not intended. He wanted a righteous cause that would inspire the North—which it did—but it also inflamed the Confederacy. The proclamation directed many Americans to their Bibles—some looking for ammunition to assail it, others looking for barricades to defend it. Did the proclamation align the nation with the Bible, or did it further separate it from God’s will? Lincoln hoped, with some confidence, that the proclamation would give the war the cause it needed to inspire more than it repulsed. Only time, and more battles, would tell.