Many Americans believe that the coming of the blue soldiers of the North, emissaries of emancipation, was a joyful event for African Americans. Nothing could be further from the truth. How do we know this? Because we have their recorded accounts. Ending slavery, contrary to self-congratulatory American myth, was not a righteous crusade. It was a by-product of a brutal war of conquest and invasion-a total war against civilians in which black Southerners suffered as much if not more than whites. The devastation of the people's resources in large areas of the South left African Americans as well...