"At the White House, Abraham Lincoln spent most of the day welcoming guests to the traditional New Year's reception. Finally, in the late afternoon, as he had pledged to do 100 days before, the President retired to his office to sign the Emancipation Proclamation" (Chapter 1, p. 1).

"Of the many questions raised by emancipation, none was more crucial to the future place of both blacks and white in Southern society than how the region's economy would henceforth be organized" (Chapter 2, p. 50).

"Long after the and of the Civil War, the experience of bondage remained deeply etched in blacks' collective memory. As one white writer noted years later, blacks could not be shaken from the conviction 'that the white race has barbarously oppressed them'" (Chapter 3, p. 78).

"Northern journalists who hurried south at the end of the Civil War telegraphed back reports of a devastated society. Where the great armies had fought...