The Battle of Nashville was the pivotal conflict of the Civil War. The Union troops required an extraordinary amount of labor to build a system of fortifications, trenches, redoubts and other wartime infrastructure to successfully capture and defend the city. With a mix of enslaved and free laborers, some of whom were impressed and others who volunteered their time and expertise, Nashville became the most fortified city in the war. Previously, the number of laborers necessary to complete such a monumental task was estimated at just under 3,000. The team used two different types of documents to add to this number: One, we extracted information about additional unlisted laborers from military correspondence regarding their claims and the claims of their widows, wives, and descendants. Two, we merged multiple lists created by various Federal officers that kept track of the Black laborers with whom they worked at various sites in and around the city in the Spatial Historian program. Through comparing these lists with the original labor rolls generated by General Morton, the team was able add an additional ~2,000 people to the toll, for a total of ~5,000 laborers who worked on Nashville’s defenses during the Civil War. This article expands on the process of extracting community-sourced data and linking it to previous datasets in order to create the most complete and recent count of enslaved and free Black laborers whose labor and craftsmanship in Nashville’s defenses helped bring the Civil War to its end.

A “runaway slave record,” or as it is officially titled, “Runaway and Escaped Slaves Records, 1794, 1806-1863,” include accounts, correspondence, receipts, and reports concerning expenses incurred by localities related to the capture of enslaved people attempting to escape bondage to pursue freedom. The collection also includes records with information related to enslaved people from multiple localities who escaped to United States military forces during the Civil War. While many independent businesses bought and sold human beings, local and state governments such as the state of Virginia also participated in and profited from human trafficking. Localities were reimbursed for the expenses of confining, feeding, and selling of self-emancipated people, and likewise, the state established procedures to compensate enslavers for their financial loss when enslaved people ran away or were imprisoned or executed. If a person was captured and their enslaver could not be identified, they became the property of the state and were sold. The proceeds from these sales went to the state treasury, and often, records of those sales can be found in the Public Claims records from the Auditor of Public Accounts. The net proceeds were deposited into the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Literary Fund for the public education of poor white children.

The data in this collection is drawn directly from the historical documents and may contain language that is now deemed offensive.

This is a dataset that includes information form 596 quotes about the rations enslaves issued to enslaved people in the Southern United States between the 1720s and the 1860s. These quotes come from 568 accounts by 533 formerly enslaved people, enslavers, travelers, and white abolitionists. Supplementary Table 1 contains data on corn rations, Supplementary Table 2 contains data on meat rations, and Supplementary Table 3 data on all other types of food issued to enslaved people. Four main types of sources were used to create this dataset. The first the 32 volumes of transcripts of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) interviews of formerly enslaved people in the 1930s (Library of Congress 2022). These were queried using a standardized set of keywords (beef, fish, flour, herring, meat, milk, molasses, peas, peck, potato, quart, rice, salt, syrup, and yam) and variations of these words (e.g., ’lasses, taters). Corn was only included in the dataset when a specific amount was discussed, so the most common units of measurement (peck and quart) were searched for rather than corn or cornmeal. Only references to foods that were definitively issued as rations were incorporated into the dataset. References to food that was only issued on special occasions or changes to rations during the Civil War were not included. Two accounts in the South Carolina WPA narratives are attributed to Jessie Sparrow (Quotes 341 and 342 in the dataset). The two accounts are different enough to suggest that they are not from the same woman. Therefore, they are listed as separate people in this dataset. The second set of sources is nineteenth-century accounts by formerly enslaved people and white abolitionists. These accounts were searched for the keywords corn and food as these two terms were ubiquitous in discussions of rations issued to enslaved people. The third set of sources is journals, diaries, published memoirs, personal papers, and agricultural journals (including American Cotton Planter and Soil of the South, The American Farmer, DeBows’s Review, Farmer’s Register, Southern Cultivator, and Southern Planter) written by enslavers and travelers. These were searched for the keywords corn, food, slave, and negro. Finally, references to rationing practices that are discussed in secondary sources but were not independently identified in the sources discussed above were included when available.

Einstellung zum arabisch-israelischen Konflikt, zur Wirtschaftspolitik,zur Europäischen Union, zur Ausländerpolitik und Einwanderung, zuinternationalen Beziehungen, zum Irak-Krieg, zu Militärinterventionen,zur nationalen Sicherheit, zur NATO, zu Atomwaffen, zur politischenEinflussnahme, zum Terrorismus und zu den Vereinten Nationen. Themen: Befürwortung der Übernahme einer aktiven Rolle des Landes inder internationalen Politik; Einstellung zur globalen Führungsrolle derUSA; Präferenz für eine europäische oder amerikanischeSupermachtstellung; Ablehnung des Supermachtstatus der EU wegen einer zuerwartenden Erhöhung von Militärausgaben; wünschenswerte Stärkung derEU, um zu einem besseren Wettstreit mit den USA zu kommen; Einstellungzur Höhe der Verteidigungsausgaben des Landes; Einstufung potentiellerBedrohungen der Interessen Europas durch den islamischenFundamentalismus, den internationalen Terrorismus, die hohe Zahl vonEinwanderern und Flüchtlingen in Europa, den militärischen Konfliktzwischen Israel und seinen arabischen Nachbarn, die weltweiteAusbreitung von AIDS, den wirtschaftlichen Abschwung sowie einenterroristischen Angriff mit Massenvernichtungswaffen; Einstellung zu denVereinten Nationen; Sympathie-Skalometer (100-stufige Skala) für dieUSA, Russland, Israel, die Europäische Union, die Palästinenser,Nordkorea, die Türkei, China, den Iran, Saudi-Arabien, Frankreich undDeutschland; Einstellung zur internationalen Politik der amerikanischenRegierung unter George W. Bush; Existenz gemeinsamer Wertvorstellungenzwischen den USA und der EU; Europäische Union oder USA als wichtigsterPartner des eigenen Landes; Einschätzung der Entwicklung der Nähezwischen Europa und den USA; Wunsch nach engerer Partnerschaft zwischenden USA und der EU (Split: allgemein und in Anbetracht desIrak-Krieges); Bedeutung der NATO für die Sicherheit; Einstellung zueinem Einsatz des nationalen Militärs zur Vereitelung einesterroristischen Anschlags, zur Versorgung von Kriegsopfern mitNahrungsmitteln und medizinischer Hilfe, zur Beendigung der Kämpfe ineinem Bürgerkrieg, zur Sicherung der Ölversorgung, zur Bereitstellungvon Friedenstruppen nach Beendigung eines Bürgerkrieges, zur Entmachtungeiner menschenrechtsverletzenden Regierung, zur Verhinderung derVerbreitung von Atomwaffen sowie zur Verteidigung einesNATO-Mitgliedslandes; Einstellung zur Stationierung von Truppen deseigenen Landes in Afghanistan; Preis für den Irak-Krieg zu hoch (Split:allgemein und unter dem Gesichtspunkt der Befreiung des irakischenVolkes); Einstellung zur Entscheidung der nationalen Regierung, Truppenbzw. keine Truppen in den Irak zu entsenden; Einstellung zur Entsendungvon Landestruppen in den Irak im Falle der Zustimmung der UN (Split:allgemein und unter US-Kommando); Auswirkung der Militäraktion im Irakauf die Bedrohung durch den weltweiten Terrorismus; Einstellung zurNotwendigkeit, sich vor der Anwendung militärischer Gewalt derUnterstützung der UN (dreifacher Split: NATO bzw. der wichtigsteneuropäischen Verbündeten) zu versichern; Einstellung zu einerMitgliedschaft der Türkei in der EU; Hauptgrund für eine Befürwortungbzw. Ablehnung einer Mitgliedschaft der Türkei in der EU; Einstellung zueinem Militäreinsatz der Landestruppen in einem anderen Land zurBeseitigung eines drohenden Terrorangriffs (Split: einem Bürgerkrieg inAfrika) nach Zustimmung der UN (dreifacher Split: der NATO bzw. derwichtigsten europäischen Verbündeten); Unterstützung eines solchenMilitäreinsatzes trotz fehlender Zustimmung der UN, der NATO bzw. derwichtigsten europäischen Verbündeten; wirtschaftliche oder militärischeMacht als wichtigste Grundlage zur Beeinflussung des Weltgeschehens;Einstellung zur Notwendigkeit eines Krieges und zum Übergehen der UN;militärische Stärke als Friedensgarant; Maßnahmen zur nationalenSicherheit nur mit den Bündnispartnern ergreifen; Unabhängigkeit derEuropäer von den USA durch militärische Stärke; Militäraktionen oderErhöhung des Lebensstandards als bester Weg zur Terrorismusbekämpfung. Demographie: Geschlecht; Alter; höchster Schulabschluss;Parteipräferenz (Sonntagsfrage); wichtigste Issues für eigeneWahlentscheidung bei der nächsten Wahl; Einstufung auf einemLinks-Rechts-Kontinuum; Schulbildung, Beruf, Haushaltsgröße; Wohnorttyp;(in den USA zusätzlich: Migrationshintergrund; Land). Attitudes towards the Arab/Israeli conflict, economic policy, theEuropean Union, immigration, international relations, the Iraq war,military interventions, national security, NATO, nuclear weapons, theuse of political power, terrorism, and the United Nations. Topics: support for an active role of own country in internationalpolitics; attitude towards strong leadership in world affairs by theUSA; personal preference for superpower status of the European Unionand/or the USA; against superpower status for the European Unionbecause of higher military spending; support for a politicalstrengthening of the European Union to better compete with the USA orto better cooperate with the USA; assessment of own country´s amount ofmilitary expenditure; assessment of potential international threats toEurope/the USA: Islamic fundamentalism, large numbers of immigrants andrefugees, international terrorism, the military conflict between Israeland its Arab neighbors, the global spread of AIDS (HIV), a majoreconomic downturn, a terrorist attack on own country using weapons ofmass destruction; attitude towards the United Nations in general;100-point sympathy temperature scale for the USA, Russia, Israel, theEuropean Union, the Palestinians, North Korea, Turkey, China, Iran,Saudi Arabia, France, and Germany; assessment of the George W. Bushadministration´s handling of foreign policy; European Union and USAhave enough common values to cooperate; European Union or the USA moreimportant for vital interests of own country; assessment of thedevelopment of transatlantic relations in recent years; support forcloser partnership between the European Union and the USA in general(split A) and especially considering the developments in Iraq (splitB); opinion on NATO´s importance for own country´s security; attitudetowards the use of own country´s military to prevent an imminentterrorist attack, to provide humanitarian assistance to victims of war,to stop civil wars, to ensure the supply of oil, for peacekeepingmissions, to remove governments that abuse human rights, to preventnuclear proliferation, and to defend a NATO ally under attack;assessment of costs in lives and money for Iraq war (split A) andespecially considering the liberation of the Iraqi people (split B);attitude towards presence of own country´s troops in Iraq (exceptFrance, Germany, Spain, Turkey); attitude towards decision not to sendtroops to Iraq (only France, Germany, Turkey); attitude towardsdecision to remove troops from Iraq (only Spain); attitude towards owncountry´s troops in Iraq if supported by United Nations mandate (splitA) or if led by the USA under United Nations mandate (split B);assessment of Iraq war´s influence on the threat of internationalterrorism; attitude towards the need to ensure support for militaryaction similar to Iraq war by the United Nations (split A), by theEuropean Union (split B) or by the most important European allies(split C); attitude towards European Union membership of Turkey; mainreasons for rejecting/supporting Turkish EU membership; support formilitary action to prevent an imminent terror attack if sanctioned bythe United Nations (split A), NATO (split B), the most importantEuropean allies (split C); support for military action to end a civilwar in Africa if sanctioned by the United Nations (split A), NATO(split B), the most important European allies (split C); support formilitary action without mandate by the United Nations (split A), NATO(split B), the most important European allies (split C); economicstrength more important than military strength in world affairs;attitude towards the necessity of war to fight injustice; attitudetowards ignoring the United Nations if vital interests of country areconcerned; military strength is best way to secure peace; importance ofcooperating with allies on national security issues; need for Europe tostrengthen military to reduce dependence on USA; regarding globalissues USA does not need European support; combating terrorismmilitarily is best; raising living standards in foreign countries isbest way to combat terrorism; political affiliation (USA only). Demography: sex; age; highest level of education received; age whenfinished full-time education; current occupation; voting intention(Sonntagsfrage); most important political issues in decision to vote;self-placement on a left-right continuum, size of household; ethnicbackground (US only). Additional variables: country, region, degree of urbanity. Weights: redressment weight for age, gender and education (USA: racenot considered); redressment weight for age, gender and education (USA:race considered); population weight for all European countries;population weight for European countries except Slovakia, Turkey andSpain; population weight for European countries except Turkey.