A slave determined to gain freedom, a widow battling poverty and despair, a man of God grappling with spiritual and worldly troubles, and a former Confederate soldier seeking a new life. They lived in the South during 1865 -- a year t...

Large numbers of slaves worked for the Confederate war effort as wagon drivers, munitions factory workers, and officers' body servants. But contrary to popular wisdom, the number that actually bore arms for the Confederacy was negligi...