After General Burnside's Union forces achieved victory at Roanoke Island, North Carolina in 1862, slaves from the surrounding areas streamed across Federal lines, onto Roanoke, seeking freedom. This is an account of the settlement which grew there, and which tried to achieve "a new social order".

Drawing on a wealth of primary sources, Patricia Click traces the struggles and successes of this long-overlooked yet significant attempt at building what the Reverend James hoped would be the model for "a new social order" in the postwar South.