After Union forces took Hilton Head and Bay Point in November 1861, the planters of the South Carolina Sea Islands fled, leaving their cotton and thousands of enslaved people behind. These letters, written by Edward S. Philbrick and other Northerners who came to manage the plantations and teach the freedpeople, record that experiment from 1862 to 1868.
A vivid primary source on emancipation and Reconstruction, written by well-meaning outsiders whose views are those of their day. Download the free EPUB.