Trivia Advent Calendar

[wpbinzel]

(12-12-2016 08:52 AM)J. Beckert Wrote:  Once referred to here as the other Great Emancipator, Lee freed his own slaves a year before the EP kicked in and also made sure they were educated first.

I read somewhere -- but have not attempted to verify -- that Lee freed his slaves before the Grants did. (Though, as I recall, the slaves held by the Grants during the Civil War came from Julia Dent Grant's father, and Grant may not have "owned" them directly. I believe that Grant did at one time "own" a slave (again, a "gift" from his father-in-law), whom he freed in 1859.)

Don't accept this as gospel, and I will certainly yield to someone who has done some research on this subject, but it does seem to make for one of those interesting, and ironic, factoids.