Jim Downs, notable historian who researches the civil war and reconstruction’s effect on slaves is the author of the fascinating book Sick From Freedom. The Civil War is infamous for how disease claimed lives of more soldiers than military combat. In his book Downs exemplifies that disease and sickness actually had a more devastating effect on emancipated slaves than on soldiers. Downs encourages readers to look beyond military casualties and consider the public health crisis that faced emancipated slaves in the years following the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. Estimates show that at least a fourth of the four million former slaves got sick or died between 1863 and 1870, including at least 60,000 who perished in a smallpox epidemic that began in Washington and Spread throughout the south. Downs persuasively presents that emancipation was a process, not an instant transition from slavery to freedom, but a progression to citizenship that was tied to the poor health and wellbeing of slaves. His perspective on emancipation is unique, as typically historians have presented the liberation of slaves as a glorious liberation, not one plagued with illness, death and suffering. Downs begins his book by presenting the story of an unnamed freed child who managed to survive the period of emancipation, along with his five siblings. The boy and his family traveled to a Union camp in Chattanooga Tennessee, where his father had enlisted, and was promised that his family would be taken care of. The rest of his family was sent to a camp in Nashville where they experienced starvation, and the relentless smallpox epidemic that took the life of their mother. So the kids were sent back to Chattanooga in the winter of 1863 where the unnamed boy suffered from frostbite, so bad that he would have to have a double leg amputation. Downs then pauses to reflect on just how bad the former slave boy’s living conditions must have been in order for a doctor to suggest that his frostbite was so serious that he has to loose both of this legs. Downs provides this story, which is representative of the problems that former slaves experienced during the emancipation period. He shows that emancipation did not bring immediate freedom because illness and death stood in the way of that freedom. Downs investigates the process of emancipation in the United States, noting freed people’s unclear political status, and the unhealthy environments that they were forced to live in. These unfathomably horrid environments along with lack of employment propagated disease outbreak. Downs then traces the formation of the Medical Division of the Freedman’s Bureau. He exposes how …show more content…
Sick From Freedom draws a diverse audience. Those interested in microbial diseases, the history of medicine or federal medical assistance, or the politics of slavery, just to name a few, would all find this book interesting. Downs’ argument is unique in the sense that typical histories examine emancipation as a simple switch to freedom and not a process that was related to health, citizenship, and politics of slaves. Downs says that, “ The experience of sick people was often pushed aside in favor of a liberation narrative that heroically described the abolition of slavery” (6). His argument adds to our understanding of emancipation, slavery, and civil war illness causing the largest biological crisis of the 19th