Bruce Levine constructs an argument in his book Confederate Emancipation that focuses on the reasons why Confederate officials did or did not consider emancipation through military participation for blacks in the South. He clearly describes when, how and why these decisions were made and how they changed over the course of the war. However, at the same time he creates different causal arguments about the outcome of the war not directly related to his main argument. These additional arguments and discussions somewhat hamper the clarity of the realization of his thesis.
His main argument revolves around the thought that there was a limited time frame during which the idea of “emancipation” was considered. His landmarks of time are primarily a countdown the passing of “a black troops law between the end of 1864 down through March and April of 1865” (14). To Levine, this was in part created because of the desperation of the Confederates after the fall of Atlanta (39). Even so, he cites a realization “that the Confederacy was outnumbered and outgunned from the start” in early 1861 as a reason for the beginning of a dialogue about arming slaves (38). This somewhat startling and important causal answer to the outcome of the Civil War colors the rest of his argument, and since he places no footnotes on the paragraph, perhaps feeling it is an accepted fact, it brings to question the way in which he portrays the motivations of Confederate officers.
The rest of his argument of allowing blacks to fight for the Confederacy is certainly well-reasoned and researched. Prior to the fall of Atlanta, however, it is somewhat dubious to state that the Confederacy was constantly in fear of losing and felt themselves to be the underdog. The eleventh hour of the war certainly brought about changes to what Confederate officers were willing to do in order to win the war, yet the reasons for what occurred before that “desperate” phase would have been better served if they were somehow removed from different, fundamental questions of causality in the Civil War.