Book Chat: Somewhere Toward Freedom

Description

In the fall of 1864, Gen. William T. Sherman led his army through Atlanta, Georgia, blazing a path of destruction as they headed east across the state to Savannah. While the army marched through town after Confederate town, plantation owners fled… But even before they did so, slaves self-emancipated by physically joining the Union lines. By the time the army seized Savannah in December, as many as 20,000 enslaved people had attached themselves to Sherman’s army in the expectation that the company would help free them.

In conjunction with our new exhibit, The Second American Revolution, the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum invites you to join Bennett Parten for a discussion of his book, Somewhere Toward Freedom, which offers a new, breakthrough account that reframes Sherman’s March as the largest liberation event in American history. Parten's compelling narrative is the first to focus on the myriad stories of the enslaved individuals who self-emancipated. It's a journey told through the lens of resilience, hope, and the beginning sparks of Reconstruction.

This program will take place on Wednesday, October 7, 2026, in the ALPLM Union Theater.  Doors open at 6:00 p.m.  Program begins at 6:30 p.m.  This program is free to attend but advance registration is required.

Audience members will also be able to visit the special exhibit “The Second American Revolution,” which examines the war’s aftermath, the attempts to give African Americans an equal role in the South and the successful movement to reverse most of those gains for the next century. The exhibit includes the pen Abraham Lincoln used when signing the Emancipation Proclamation, artifacts from racial terror groups and short films explaining the forces that reversed Reconstruction.

A limited number of copies of "Somewhere Toward Freedom" will be available for purchase after the program and can be signed by the author.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Bennett Parten is an assistant professor of history at Georgia Southern University whose area of expertise is the Civil War period. He is a native of Royston, Georgia, and completed his PhD in history at Yale University. His writing has appeared in The Washington Post, Los Angeles Review of Books, Zocalo Public Square, and The Civil War Monitor, among others. He currently lives in Savannah, Georgia, where he often encounters reminders of Sherman’s March.