In January 1865, not long after his march had reached the sea, General William Tecumseh Sherman held a remarkable meeting in Savannah, Georgia. Along with Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, Sherman spoke with a group of 20 Black ministers about slavery, the Civil War, and the world that was to rise from the ashes of both. Of the sentiments the Baptist Garrison Frazier voiced on behalf of the group, one in particular was repeated: the desire, as Frazier put it, 'to assist the Government in maintaining our freedom,' by which he meant serving in the military. Since the beginning of the conflict, Black Americans had invested their hopes for freedom in the Union cause, through both their support of the military and their service within its ranks. Expressing that devotion, Frazier told Sherman and Stanton that 'if the prayers that have gone up for the Union army could be read out, you would not get through them these two weeks.' On the eve of Juneteenth, a holiday celebrating the military...
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