"Somewhere toward freedom" - Sherman's March and the story of America's largest Emancipation

Walter Edgar's Journal

"Contrabands accompanying the line of Sherman's march through Georgia from a sketch by our special artist." - An illustation in: Frank Leslie's illustrated newspaper, 1865 March 18, p. 405.(Library of Congress)

This week, we’ll be talking with Bennett Parten, author of Somewhere Toward Freedom: Sherman's March and the Story of America's Largest Emancipation (2025, Simon & Schuster).

In Somewhere Toward Freedom, Ben reframes this seminal episode in Civil War history. He not only helps us understand how Sherman’s March impacted the war, and what it meant to the enslaved, but also reveals how it laid the foundation for the fledging efforts of Reconstruction.

Sherman’s March has remained controversial to this day. Ben Parten helps us understand not just how the March affected the outcome of the Civil War, but also what it meant to the enslaved—and he reveals how the March laid the foundation for the fledging efforts of Reconstruction.