Book excerpt: Rogosin (history, St. Lawrence U.) uses the Civil War pension system as a rich source of documentation for enhanced understanding of how ex-slaves made the transition from slavery to freedom. She uses personal histories and pension narratives to show how former slaves negotiated the system, constructing and communicating their familial relationships for the bureaucracy in order to quality for the Union veteran benefits that were their entitlement. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR