Also north american slavery more generally. Her riding has appeared in and civilmonitor war history journal and she is working to compile her phd dissertation into a book. That will be well worth looking into. You can see the powerpoint under the rubble lash, black prisoners of war in the confederate south. She will speak for about 25 minutes, which will give us plenty of time for discussion. You can type in your questions q ag vq and a using the feature. You will not be up to use the chat. In anytimepe those during the talk. We may not be able to get to all of the questions. We will wrap things up by about 8 15. Ok, that is all for me. Please join me in what ever the round of applause may be maybe it is a round of laws. Dr. Newhall . Thank you, paul. Thank you to everybody for being here tonight. Its such a pleasure to share my research with you and go through the details, my findings. This has been a labor of love. I am excited to have and just really try to understand what this time can bring. Donors, i will be referencing this a few times tonight, but ive got some of these centers and donors who really want to contribute to do do this research. This is a sixyearlong process, no joke. It took a lot of time and labor. The research of africanamerican research cannot be understated. I want to give them a quick shout out so you can see what they are capable of. And we will keep having these conversations. So, im going to give you a bit of an overview, how i am going. O address this overview these are key concepts just to give you a broad sense of the way that i approach this research and the resources we put together. I will tell you not just about the civil war more broadly, but also what black prisoners of war were able to accomplish , their direct action and agency, even within very limited contingent circumstance they had throughout the war. Their choices and their actions were just as important in my opinion. We have the body of the black soldiers fighting for the united. Tates we describe the variety of experiences. I want to put this up on screen. Its what im talking about. First and foremost, i want to discuss why black prisoners of war in the first place. One question i got was did black pows even exist . Werent they all executed upon capture . I was looking through the work historians and they really sparked this wasarch and there consistent discussion about black prisoners of war being taken alive. No one could predict their movements if they did not enter into prison. We will talk about that in a second. Them black i call prisoners of war. The confederacy did not treat black soldiers as combatants, neither legitimate or illegitimate combatants. The confederacy treated black soldiers as property. Property, they could not be treated in the same ways as white soldiers. I will go through some of those differences. Black prisoner of war should have been protected under the within the, but bounds of the confederacy that was stripped away. That is an important distinction, this idea of what these men had to do to survive and navigate her captivity. Beyond just looking at black pows thumbs else, i want to get into some of the reasons why i started to look into these men and some of my findings that i think pushback against our existing knowledge. ,his definitely research particularly by george burkart, but theres also a dual narrative i kept running into. First there is an emphasis on battles and not so much captivity. We focus on capture, but not so much the aftermath. Various examples. Freemen held in prison. Beyond that, what happened is men who had vulnerability . Formerly enslaved men. There has been an emphasis on battles and battlefield atrocities. Black soldiers were very vulnerable and there has been great work done on that. What happens in the future . Thats one of the questions i really want to understand. Not just what happens, but how were they able to survive . Additionally, i found that there this space. Sis on military prisons are where we encounter information on black thereers, but beyond that were so few reaching the prisons. What happened to the others who did not make it . There is an assumption of mortality. There certainly was. What i found in my research as i went through military Service Records, pension files. I found the reality was far more complex and incarceration went far beyond that. Black prisoners of war were subjected to a diverse city of diversity. White prisoners of war were protected in certain ways. Black prisoners of war were certainly incarcerated. Quite a few were sold from out of these prisons with entirely new enslavers. The majority were enslaved by the military and used the same militaryto labor on fortifications. This is not bely confusing happenstance. The fact that so many men did survive should not be surprising thes, in large part because confederacys entire reason for being was to preserve slavery, protect slavery, and make use of enslaved people and they did that. They did this by treating black prisoners of war horribly. That is something i really tried to emphasize. We will be talking about violence and restraint. Antebellumcase in slavery. The idea that restrain his mercy i disagree with. Logic, andculated restraint is not necessarily mercy or benevolence. Reclaiming these men and reconfiguring them in a way saidathan Bedford Forrest i regard captured negores is es as property. He was not being facetious. He was not being hypocritical, even though he said this several months after the massacre. This restraint and violence could be used throughout the war. Use of theirade knowledge to navigate it. Of 1812, it is such a seminal war there are instances joined toted states get compensation, those who enemy. The so, they thought, basically reclamation and restitution and this continued. Again, emphasizing property rather than legitimacy or illegitimacy. There are approximately records of about 2000. And i found at least 300 men were captured. Theres more to be done. Be lookedre to through. And i found that about 70 survived. Escaped. Hundreds resisted and outlived to confederacy and were able enter their own voices into the record. This is the existing interpretation, basically. So, andersonville, there were really high mortality rate surrounding white trws p. O. W. s they were codified. Their lives were recorded, their theys were ordered. At were not recorded in the same way. They were not integrated into the enslaved population. So, for a long time, they had to rely on the record to understand what black pows three to begin with. We can see this moment of captivity and see their suffering and we can understand their conditions. And this was a lot of the post war discussion as well and also the suffering. They went through an inordinate amount of suffering as seen by these photographs. They were so starved it basically look like concentration camps. That is an indelible memory burned into the minds of americans. To my knowledge, there is no existing photograph of a black prisoner of war in captivity. We are only getting a snippet of spirits. They are not seeing the vast majority. This is something to reckon with. And so many were able to give alsosense of memory, but the high mortality rates were so really and a so it traded into the consciousness of americans and this is why it is pows. To uncover black we dont have the same culture. Blackt get at what prisoners of war say to themselves about their experiences. They were contained in several charleston. Bly pows thatty of black we know about our freemen from the north. And they were in a kind of limbo. They could not be exchanged under the terms of the confederacy. They did not have that right. Black soldiers good insight slave insurrections. But they also were not experience experiencing captivity in the same ways. This took several years for me to figure out. Wascally what i realized they are relative minority. Several hundred were contained in prisons like andersonville and charleston. But they were also held captive and subjected to military enslavement, in part because the confederacy argued that these men still owed labor. Their condition had not changed with their entry into u. S. Territory. They are basically building on precedent. So, most of my research has been men. Llow the path of these what happened to these men who are removed from their uniform and returns into the population . To reiterate, slavery carried over to the war. War, prisoners of particularly those who had been enslaved used their knowledge of enslavement to resist and operate within captivity. They were able to make choices to survive. Difficult choices. To how did is me start my research. Typicald off with the courses. The policies created by highlevel politicians. Record of the the war and i realized there would be difficulty finding these men. Slaves captured in arms. They are captured slaves and yankee uniforms. These euphemisms were applied regularly so i really had to expand my research. Prisoners of war was just not applicable and they were spanning the entire war and beyond thisad to go set of courses we have been relying on for so long. But also we have the response to the preliminary emancipation passed that ieing i think he makes the argument that these men have to according to the laws of the states, for sure which include fair court processes. But basically requires keeping these men alive from battlefield to the authority of the state. What was going on with these men . Is i was going through the found twords i were black sailors and two were from black sergeants captured in alabama. Detail as we get detailed as we get. What they tell us reveals a lot. They are being forced to do work for the military they are also being returned to former in slayer enslavers. So we noted that that happened. Also some of these men are being reclaimed by people who are claiming to be former slavers, but are not. Small snippets hold up the idea of what was going on for on the ground. Searcharted to expand my. I started to find things like general orders number 20 which basically establish these codes for reclamation. Initially intended for noncombatants. It established these practices that reflected antebellum slavery. I started going through newspapers and thinking, ok, is there anything i can find about indeed they were. I found several instances in newspapers before making this connection to general order number 25, which was really exciting to me and then they are being advertised as if they are simply runaway slaves. It didnt matter. Most was Holding Private property rights. There are a couple examples here. This is the aftermath of the battle of the crater in 1864. There are several newspapers that reference this. They are basically being advertised. Come be reclaimed. Basically the confederacy is formerto propagate the slavers. How did these men get up such information . If they had been formerly enslaved. What did they get out of that. Were they doing it voluntarily . Theres very little documentation about this. Slavery and how it was enacted was very often informally done. Which is why it has been so difficult to find these men. Beyond the newspapers, there are definitely several instances, but this is coming from white people. White people are recording what black what they are doing to black pows. I tried to identify what i could read what i found was had to. Ook for these memoranda basically i look through every and went to see if reportedd who had been as having been captive. I found things like this captured in the fall of 1864. , once he is captured, he is enslaved by a rebel officer. Not only sent to work, enslaved in 1865. N afters well before orwell the well before orwell after the confederacy which is opening up another can of worms. Started. Here i is testimony about what is happening. Thanks to my colleagues in graduate school who suggested this in my advisors. They suggested you really need to look through the pension files. And thats exactly what i ended up doing. 20 300sreferencing million or so. 715 were able to apply for pensions after the war. The pension files are incredible resources. The tune especially if you had been injured during the war itself. At least until 1890. I will get into all that. Medical records, they had to submit for examination. Speak to had to pension agents essentially oneonone and comment on what they went a lot of these men do talk about it to some degree. They mentioned their captivity. Where they were incarcerated. How they were treated. Whether they escaped. The people with whom they were incarcerated. They had to affirm these facts. It took a community to create pension file. They still had to be pulled out from these files. But this is where it started. He was claimed by his former and slaver from alabama and taken back. He was brutally punished by his former in slaver. He was able to win privileges back even though he was a reclaimed soldier. Even though he had actively resisted the confederacy. He ultimately escaped again with her and they head for the rest of their lives. They never communicated again. These are the kinds of stories that emerge. To acquire it. Picture ofholistic what was going on. What was happening after reclamation and people have been sold. Who ended several men up in greensboro, north carolina. He acted as a porter for the rest of the war. Ultimately he moved to louisiana afterward. Another man had been captured at a battle. He was one of the survivors. He was sent to mobile, alabama. He was aided by a white irish woman to escape. These are just slivers of these mens lives. It is just about their military service. It does not give us the whole image of who they are. What they went through from their birth to their death. But it does give us something to start working with. To expand what we know about military service for blacks. Particularly, formerly enslaved black men. Whose lives were not codified in records. Before the war and after the war. They did not codify their lives to any degree by record. Blackas something that prisoners continue to have to negotiate after the war. To undertakee direct action and make these choices in order to survive. Their survival is not an indication of that. It is a combination of a lot of different factors. His photograph is often referenced. He was also a prisoner of war. He was captured. We dont really have much beyond that. This is one of the few photographs in existence. Able to locate these records. In 1864. Captured this is his photograph that he uses during his application process to identify him. With people who we have been employed. Identify him. It was really exciting to be able to find this. It helped me navigate this. I am hoping to find more photographs like this. Not just that we have this. This really emphasizes survival. How they were able to navigate these terrifying circumstances. To push back against the silencing of their lives. Have hundreds of places to work with. They will open up different avenues of research. Thank you so much for your attention during this time. He was a great man. He went through some incredible things that i cant even begin to imagine. I cant wait to get more and find out what happened. I wanted to give you all of my contact information. Free to reach out to me. I want to say thank you so much. I look forward to hearing your questions. Thank you so much. That was wonderful. We have a good number of questions. The opry to keep them coming in the q a. One of the questions that people distinctions the between formerly enslaved black men and or bully free black men. Effort toere was any distinguish between those groups. This is a continuing process that im trying to find out. Particularly with some of these governors. He had helped start a legal process. They ran into issues quickly. Not want to enter into this. They didnt feel like they had the jurisdiction of black culture. They did not know if it should be a federal issue. Or a State Government issue. They put about four men on trial. Could not come to anything conclusive. That really helped elucidate what was going on on the ground. That was another historian. He wrote about it in the 1980s. Talking about the legal issues. They had to make themselves be legitimate. It was also about the legitimacy of the confederacy. If they were trying to gain support of britain and france. There were some issues where they could be overstepping their bounds. They were debating what to do with a couple of kernels. They decided not to do anything about it. They were worried about retaliation. They were cognizant of the mess they could step into. Returning them to enslavers was the easiest option. He occupied a different status. There was never much to be done about treating them as property. I still dont know the intricacies of this process. Those were ways in which the confederacy could make distinctions. Long story short. I can imagine it was really difficult to prove identity. This wasnt an error when people did not walk around with papers. You see that happen. He was claimed by a man who claimed to be his former in slaver. People were taking advantage of the lack of records. , that wasg of records for me, the the most interesting thing. When you addressed the question of what kind of evidence you have for them. A couple of people asked about evidence that you looked at. You start looking at the worlds of surviving black pows. You come across some examples of evidence. Have you looked at these . They are on my slate. I have been told many times i need to get in touch with her. I know she has an incredible record. I was confined to the federal record. Basically, if anyone is familiar with that, you can see that is where i was collecting most of my evidence. They can identify from afar. They were going for weeks at a time. I was pulling these and not looking at them. It took a long amount of time. I had to go to the areas these men were from. I am focusing on particular individuals. Im going to try to find records from where they were. Their families. Their former enslavers. And just expand upon what i can find. Im sure they have a lot more to offer. It will nate take the next 20 years of my life. Hard workunds like but potentially very rewarding work if you are digging through all that evidence. Knowing who they are is really helpful. I will use that for the next stage of research. When i can leave my apartment. Hopefully some of them have unusual names. We have a question. About the process of applying for pensions. These records are fascinating. They can tell you about the postwar era. That is an excellent question. Good to see you here. That was absolutely a problem. Particularly formerly enslaved men. Freed men from the north had a easier time. They tended to be literate. They had an easier time acquiring evidence. They did not have ways to identify themselves. They had to prove they existed. They had to prove who they were. If they had even served in the regimen. They had that added layer of having to prove what happened to them. There was a ton of skepticism. Ofy were very skeptical enslaved people. They definitely encountered a lot of skepticism. In a way, that helped create a better record. As specialreated examiners. They would determine the fact of what was going on. They question people repeatedly. This created a very robust catalog of records for these men. Irony of that is it enabled them to the understood. To a better degree. I sort of expected that. It was really interesting to hear you explain how that happens. Another question asks about the men who were reenslaved. Were inciting rebellions. I have found no instances of that. There are massive outbreaks on several occasions. These men tussled with her white guards but they do not steal anything. I am blanking out why i am talking about it. Americans wanted freedom. They did not want revenge. They are very cognizant of the fact that violent resistance will be met with severe consequences. That dropped in the antebellum. The consequences of violent resistance were terrifying. They were trying to find ways to navigate without violence. Even if they are caught, they cant be held accountable. I dont know how conscious that is. I cant find any information about a black prisoner of war hurting a guard at all. I have not found that. Thank you. A question about the broader context. About what might be the advantages of placing black with other pows. Is that something you think is worthwhile or not . Absolutely. I think there are a lot of interesting connections to be made. The particular contingencies. The discrimination against them. I dont happen to know all that much about the history of the 20th century when it comes to that. I know there are people doing that kind of work. It is something im definitely interested in. One thing i would love to do for a future book is to expand this. I want to think about the various connections and the ways in which the laws were applied. The ways the laws were violated. Means to be a black soldier. That is a great question. Jonathan jones, one of our featured speakers, said it is great to see you here. Jonathan jones, one of our future speakers, great to see your question. And i suspect this may be a difficult thing to pin ofn, you have a sense roughly the proportion of black soldiers taken prisoner versus executed as soon as they were captured by the confederate . Dr. Wood no and i am still struggling with that. That is a really tough thing to figure out, and large part because of how these men are being spoken of and how they are being recorded as lack prisoners of war. War. Ack of prisoners of war. How people are talking about it and the numbers are not clear. It is something im going to have to review when i got your military Service Records and other records when it comes to casualties, is figuring out the finer points of who is a prisoner and who dies in action, versus who dies in captivity. Out of the records i have found, there are at least 700 men who die in captivity that i know of. And i suspect quite a few of them were in the immediate aftermath. Alonel johnson of the 44th, white officer, was exchanged two days after his capture all 600 men were returned to slavery, basically. Ates at least six me least six men were killed in the immediate aftermath. Another knows how he was part of a mass escape where he escapes with 20 other men and all 20 except for him were killed, drowned and rubber on the way to escape. So there drowned in a river in the way to escape. So there are ways of figuring that out and i have not gotten there yet as the numbers are tough to determine. But i hope to have something more definitive. My numbers are in flux and they are more of a guideline than a hard and fast rule. Based on the numbers i found, i believe there is strong evidence of survival as well. So that is something i emphasize because i can speak to that more definitively that executions in the immediate aftermath. I know it is happening and that it happens at salt phil and plymouth and a variety of other places, but it is hard to figure out. A lot of euphemisms are used, died in captivity, died of brutality, and i do not know when and do not know how so that is an ongoing process. That is a tough one. Ifs is a question from me, another are other questions and we will get to them. I am curious about uniforms, which he mentioned several times in your talk. It fascinated me when you talked about uniforms as a powerful symbol. Wereafricanamerican men bona fide at soldiers in International Law applied to them particularly when they return to the confederate states. What happened to their uniforms . Presumably they were not allowed to continue wearing them or to own them in any way . But what actually happened . Dr. Wood so, i guess this is going to be my stock answer for everything, it is complicated. [laughter] some get to keep them, some dont. Abram rawls whom i mentioned, he is an instance talking about the removal of his uniform. That happens after his reclamation. ,asically, he is brought back brought by his former and slaver, to the farm next to hasrs, and intentionally his uniform stripped and his closed replaced in quote proper slave as he calls it. Abram manages to hang onto his belt buckle and i believe his future wife vanishes to salvage that is the one who exchanged his close for him. So theres a lot going on unspoken. Clothes for him. Others had the uniform stripped immediately after capture. The removal of the uniform with a powerful means of negating their service and their freedom and their independence. And i think that happened quite a lot. Im not sure about the total numbers where that happens, but it definitely happens a lot to. Lock pows black pows part of what i think there is such difficult he being able to locate their captivity, if we have photographs of black pows, theyre going to be hard to find because they have probably been stripped of their uniforms so it is hard to identify them as such. That was an intentional tactic that confederates in the military and private citizens used as a means of sending a message to other enslaved people as well. Which is that there are consequences for doing this and youre going to watch and see it. Yeah, powerful things, clearly. Angela says this is fantastic, andich is nice to see, asked if he could speak about the Actual Experience within prison camps of black prisoners. Where they segregated from white prisoners . Where they allowed medical treatment . Something else is interested in the medical treatment as well. Dr. Wood yes and i have a whole chapter on medical treatment in my dissertation so i will talk about that in a second. It also dependent on the prison. Experiencesck pows are contextual and depend on where they end up, Whose Authority they are under, who they have to deal with. So there are men in libby placed with white officers as a means of degrading the white union officers, that is an intentional tactic that confederates used. A lot of the times they were segregated. That happens of the old city jail in charleston, their caps on whole separate floor, but they are interacting sometimes on the grounds when there let out for activities. In andersonville, there was a whole group of men congregated around the southern black gate of black pows, it seems they almost selfted segregated, they are mentioned as gathering around the Southern Gate and also being taken out for burial duty, to the graves for the prison. They are working alongside but kept separate from local enslaved people who have been kept separate for the purpose. There is also resentment from white pows who had been able to exit the prison and it was one of their few forms of relief to perform that kind of labors so mix black pows are in the it has been taken away from them. Aren a sense, black pows often charged as having better treatment unless oversight in some ways. So it is interesting and super complicated and seems to really depend on what prison they were in and the structure of that prison by the time they got there. Because the prisons were such a mess, and i know that you know that. People work figuring things out as they went so it seemed to depend on who the, that was. Turner at castle funder was particularly nasty, and i know that he was doing questionable things. It really ran the gamut, and seems there was segregation, and intentionally mixing people as a way to insult the white soldiers. A question about a research maybe ahat timeconsuming one. Have you tried to look for letters from confederate soldiers that captured lack union soldiers, or were guards for them and prison camps . Is that even possible, or is that just too difficult . Dr. Wood i imagine it could be. I have not looked into confederates very much, who are in charge. I have been mostly looking at the commandants, the higherlevel guys, and that is in over site i have not looking at common soldiers an oversight i have not looking at common soldiers dealing with this so that is of the to consider and that is a great question. But i assume it when he really interesting. We will forgive you for not doing everything already, but the nice thing about turning a dissertation into a book is that you can do additional research, fill in gaps, and it is great to have these questions and suggestions coming at you tonight. Dr. Wood yes, thank you, everyone. These are awesome questions and im going to take these forward as i work on the manuscript, so, thank you. Of nativemples american soldiers being captured . And how their treatment compared with black men . Know thatyes, i native americans were definitely involved, particularly in the western theater. Im not sure about the eastern theater. There are several instances where native americans are fighting for the confederacy and are involved in some of the atrocities toward black soldiers, notably at poison spring, with that 79th u. S. Ct. So i know they are involved but i do not know the numbers of capture. I have not really looked into that and i am hoping to talk to other people about that. I know some people are doing network who im hoping to rope in for future panels because that is an understudied area as well. I think there were some native american pows at andersonville, for example, but my knowledge is surface level at best. One participant is asking whether there is evidence that black prisoners were tortured and prisons. Or i could imagine other forms of extreme violence being inflicted upon them. Dr. Wood yes, absolutely. One of the issues of being forced to work for the confederacy is as enslaved labor is a lot of these men are performing dangerous labor, particularly around mobile. Theyre having to mount guns. Theyre working in mobile bay. They are shivering and they are called and they are starving, essentially. So they are already being treated quite harshly when they are in the control of the military. I know there are several instances where men are attacked, essentially, without provocation, by guards. Theres a man from the 27th u. S. Ct held in a prison in lynchburg, virginia, who talks about how, in the middle of the night, he has gotten up to go urinate in the tub and cannot tell it is full in the darkness and is attacked from behind by a confederate guard who tries to stab him through the kidneys with his band at. Humana just with his bayonet. He manages to fight and hide among the crowd and since it is dark he manages to not be identified and to make it through the rest of his captivity not being antagonized by that guard, which i think speaks volumes about the very difficult circumstances they had to operate under. Right . Survival is not safety. Survival is just survival at the point. This happens to a number of men, when they are targeted and attacked by their guards. Im sure out of racist retaliation, out of anger, out of hatred. Even if they did not know these men. I do not have more specifics beyond general utility and working them quite hard, but i know that is happening, but i do not know very much about the stocks being used. Parks apple i know that was in use for a lot of white pows. For example, i know that was in use for a lot of white pows. Subjected to whippings, that happened in andersonville for a man who is caught try to forge a past. A pass. Is ag to forge a pass major trespass so he is ordered to be wept i think, 500 times times. 500 acts likesked hes going to whip them 500 times but does not, this is ways there are mitigations of violence by confederates themselves but they are still participating and still enforcing it. It is definitely happening and they are being brutalized out a lot of turns. Sam asks about the postwar situation. Are there pardons . And what black pows went on to do after the war . Or do they scatter and each dust is something . Dr. Wood most people return or do they scatter and each does their own thing . Dr. Wood most people return, they had families and communities to return to. There are examples like abram rawls who escapes into tennessee and they never see their families again, and alabama. But a lot of these people are still dependent after the war and they have to navigate their interpersonal elation ships with the person with the people who had enslaved them prior to the war because that is who they know. And we see that jim crow laws being input meant it. They have to enter into the strict contracts. Most are entering into physical labor, working inquiries, working as tenant working in quarries, as tenant farmers. In the north there is more diversity, some get to work and drugstores, more merchant type work. It is different in the south where they are relegated to the farmer, physical labor. A lot of them return to those communities, at least art out there. Not all remain at least start their. Not at least start out there. In the first years after the war they returned to the families and try to reestablish ties and go from there. The postwar period is very complicated, and theres a lot i still do not know. The nature of sources where you rely on pension records, there is almost a survivor bias bilton. Built in. Because that guy still alive decades after the war are the ones who are most likely to have led successful lives, and healthy lives afterwards. Yes, and you see struggles with these men too. A lot of them are in abject poverty for the rest of their lives. Even though they get pensions, they are barely eking out a living because they are affected by their military service or disabilities after the war and because they have to rely on physical labor and they cannot do as much as ablebodied men, as they are described, it is really hard to make a full living wage. So a lot of these men are really struggling and that is why pensions become so necessary and why so many do apply after the war because they needed, eight need that extra support. Udc instances of them having to rely on their communities for charity, for example. And i think that might be one of the reasons why a lot of former enslavers do support their pension files. Confederate soldiers did not get federal pensions. The fact that these former enslavers are supporting black soldiers in getting pensions after the war is pretty interesting. And i think it is in part trying to get them off of the dependency of white communities, essentially, after the war. Since they do not have that same claim to their bodies and to their labor, they want to kick them to the curb a little bit is my guess. Yes, just think he out loud, i can imagine some situations just thinking out loud, i can imagine situations where the white person is the landowner, and a former black pows rents the landor is a sharecropper. So the land owner has a vested interest in that financial and health of the renter. Dr. Wood yes and if they cannot work as much because they are severely disabled, that makes things selfinterested for the tenant farmers. That definitely happens with a couple of men where they hurt their claims because they are hiding their wounds and injuries from their employers, so their employers do not know that they are wounded to the level that they are, so it is really, really complicated. Yeah. One final question, this came in and email before your talk, so you did touch on it indirectly during the talk, but i will ask it anyway. About the endng of the civil war, and the wrapping up of slavery. He is interested in the moment where confederates agreed ok, slavery is over. Enslaved people are now free. He is interested in, when did that happen . Was there a moment . What there documentation issued at that time . Dr. Wood i do not know. Given what i have seen of several men being held basically captive even after the war has ended, some men are being held until a most 1867, well after the war has technically ended. Even after Andrew Johnson declared the civil war ended, people are trickling back. That is part of the reason why it has been difficult to find some of these men, because they are still held in captivity to some degree, even though technically they are not combatants anymore. That is definitely going on. And i do not know about specific documentation. But my feeling is that former confederates are not relate former confederates, there confederates for life and a lot of ways and they see themselves as entitled to black labor and black bodies. We see that through the rise of the prison system in the postwar as well. The ways in which slavery involves. It does not ever truly and in my opinion, it just transforms and shifts. So i do not quite know about specific documentation of that, but i have some guesses. That was a great answer, the idea that slavery did not have a neat endpoint, it evolved and shifted into different forms of domination. Exactly righte there and that is a good way to answer the question, i think. So, unfortunately, we got to most of the questions, not quite all of them. We are just about out of time so i want to thank caroline very much for her presentation, and sharing your expertise through the q a session as well. I also want to think the audience members for being here and attending the event. Also for asking such great questions. [laughter] dr. Wood all new material for the book, thank you. [laughter] lots of homework, lots of new things to think about, between the dissertation and the book there is scope for doing new things out,fleshing so it is great to have new ideas. I appreciate carolines presentation and the audiences questions, so thank you fremont. Next, Historic Site manager Paige Gibbons backus talks about the state of medical knowledge at the beginning of the civil war, including surgical practices and diseases common among the soldiers. She also describes advances later in the war such as sterilization and Reconstructive Surgery that drastically improved a soldiers chance of survival. This talk was part of a symposium on the war in the east hosted by the emerging civil war blog. To the emerging civil war virtual symposium and thank you for joining us online for this years event. I want to give one more shout out to our technical director, chris white, for his help behind the camera today