The end of slavery in the United States led to anarchy and the
deaths of hundreds of thousands of black Americans claims a new
revisionist history of the Civil War. Instead of a granting
former slaves a glorious moment of freedom, President Abraham
'The end of slavery led to hunger and death for millions of
black Americans': Extraordinary claims in new book President
Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation gifted freedom to
four million black Americans in 1863 Former slaves struggled to
begin their free life and up to one million died or got sick
Challenges the accepted wisdom of the Unionist North being
sympathetic to the cause of freed slaves Whole families returned
to work on the plantations they had escaped because there was no
work and no food Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation condemned
millions to a life of disease and hunger says historian Jim
Downs in his new book, 'Sick from Freedom'. Scouring through
obscure records, Professor Downs has revealed that freed slaves
were subject to outbreaks of c