Author Interview--Jonathan Noyalas (Slavery and Freedom in the Shenandoah Valley) Part 3

Hello H-CivWar readers,

today we continue our multipart video interview series with Jonathan Noyalas. Our focus today is on U.S. military policies in the Valley and the reactions of the enslaved population.

Recently, I had the opportunity to interview Jonathan Noyalas via Zoom. We talked about his new book Slavery and Freedom in the Shenandoah Valley during the Civil War Era, which was released by the University Press of Florida. The interview is broken up so that you can easily use the material in class.

Jonathan Noyalas is a graduate of Virginia Tech and Director of the McCormick Civil War Institute at Shenandoah University. He is the author or editor of eleven books on the Civil War in the Shenandoah Valley. He has written over a hundred articles in both scholarly and popular publications. 

These videos are also available on this Playlist

We start our conversation with a question about what happened to enslaved individuals convicted of crimes:

From here we turn to the differences between Patterson and Milroy regarding the treatment of enslaved individuals:

We briefly turn to the shift in U.S. policy where the military does not assist loyal masters track down fugitives:

We close today with a question about Milroy's goals and limitations in the Shenandoah Valley: