Tell About the South: Caroline Newhall on Black Civil War POWs

Caroline Wood Newhall is a Ph.D. candidate at UNC-Chapel Hill in the Department of History and the Center’s 2018-19 McColl Fellow. She will speak about her dissertation research on black prisoners of war who were captured by the Confederacy during the American Civil War. Newhall’s research on Civil War pensions and service records confirms that several thousand black soldiers survived capture and navigated wartime captivity, often as enslaved laborers. Hundreds of survivors later provided exhaustive testimony on their imprisonment when they applied for federal pensions. In this talk, Newhall will discuss how Confederate policy drew upon antebellum precedent, and how men of the United States Colored Troops weakened the Confederacy from within as both invading soldiers and reclaimed slaves.

This event is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served. Please RSVP via this Google form.