There Were Two Civil Wars, and We Weren’t Always Sure Which We Were Fighting

Damon Root’s ‘Emancipation War: The Fall of Slavery and the Coming of the Thirteenth Amendment’

You’re a general in the American Civil War. You have charge of Fortress Monroe, a heavily guarded outpost of the Union Army in rebel Virginia on the Chesapeake. Your name is Benjamin F. Butler, and you have guests.

Three runaway slaves have arrived at the fort, seeking protection. What do you do? It’s May of 1861, and the war is barely a month old. There…