“A valuable addition to the historiography of the Civil War. . . . [It] will contribute significantly to the understanding of the grim tragedy suffered by this gay and colorful region.”—Mississippi Valley Historical Review

Published forty years ago, this first book by the esteemed historian Charles P. Roland ranks as a first of its kind and ahead of its time. Roland draws from an abundance of dormant primary sources to describe with the touch of a true raconteur how war brought south Louisiana’s sugar cane industry to the brink of extinction and disaster to the lives of civilians both black and white. Historians today will value Roland’s approach as both illustrative of an earlier era and remarkably seminal to current emancipation studies. His rich, enthralling work deserves, and demands, to be brought into a wider spotlight for contemporary readers.