A01=William A. Blair
Arlington Cemetery
Author_William A. Blair
Black history
Blacks in Virginia
Category=NHK
Category=WQH
contraband camps
emancipation in Washington DC area
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
forthcoming
Freedman's Bureau
Freedman's Bureau in Virginia
Freedman's Village
freedom struggle
fugitive slaves
George Washington Parke Custis
George Washington's adopted grandson
George Washington's heirs
Mary Lee
Matha Washington's heirs
Robert E. Lee
slave sales
slave trading in Upper South
slavery in Virginia
Virginia plantations
Virginia politics in nineteenth century
Product details
- ISBN 9781469696584
- Dimensions: 25 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 24 Nov 2026
- Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
The hallowed ground known today as Arlington National Cemetery bears witness to those who paid the ultimate sacrifice to protect the nation’s ideals of freedom and justice for all. But another history lies beneath the landscape—an African American freedom struggle that has been erased from the landscape. Before the Civil War, enslaved African Americans labored, escaped, raised families, and died at Arlington on a plantation founded by George Washington Parke Custis and inherited by the wife of Confederate general Robert E. Lee. After the Union army confiscated the Lee estate, Freedman’s Village was established on the site, offering refuge to a vibrant community of thousands of newly emancipated African Americans. In creating a neighborhood with homes, schools, businesses, and networks with free Blacks in the nation’s capital and beyond, Arlington’s freedpeople played a consequential—if largely forgotten—role in advancing African American liberty and equality through the rest of the nineteenth century.
This deeply researched and accessibly written story brings Arlington’s African American past to vivid life. Drawing on extensive historical research conducted at Arlington House and on the national cemetery grounds, William A. Blair offers a definitive account of individuals and families on an inspiring journey from slavery to freedom.
This deeply researched and accessibly written story brings Arlington’s African American past to vivid life. Drawing on extensive historical research conducted at Arlington House and on the national cemetery grounds, William A. Blair offers a definitive account of individuals and families on an inspiring journey from slavery to freedom.
William A. Blair is Walter L. and Helen P. Ferree professor emeritus of history at Penn State University.
