Book Review of Slavery and Freedom in the Shenandoah Valley During the Civil War Era

Review of: Slavery and Freedom in the Shenandoah Valley during the Civil War Era . By Jonathan A. Noyalas. (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2021. Pp. 250. Cloth, $85.00; paper, $26.95.)

Excerpt: For all the historical attention given the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia during the Civil War, historians have paid scant attention to its African American population. With a nod to Edward Ayers and other scholars, Jonathan Noyalas strives to tell a fuller story in Slavery and Freedom in the Shenandoah Valley during the Civil War Era. At its core, Noyalas’s argument is one of agency; the valley’s Black inhabitants were “active participants in their quest for liberty” (9) [...]