African American Faces of the Civil War by
A renowned collector of Civil War photographs and a prodigious researcher, Ronald S. Coddington combines compelling archival images with biographical stories that reveal the human side of the war. This third volume in his series on Civil War soldiers contains previously unpublished photographs of African American Civil War participants-many of whom fought to secure their freedom. During the Civil War, 200,000 African American men enlisted in the Union army or navy. Some of them were free men and some escaped from slavery; others were released by sympathetic owners to serve the war effort. African American Faces of the Civil War tells the story of the Civil War through the images of men of color who served in roles that ranged from servants and laborers to enlisted men and junior officers. Coddington discovers these portraits- cartes de visite, ambrotypes, and tintypes-in museums, archives, and private collections. He has pieced together each individual's life and fate based upon personal documents, military records, and pension files. These stories tell of ordinary men who became fighters, of the prejudice they faced, and of the challenges they endured. African American Faces of the Civil War makes an important contribution to a comparatively understudied aspect of the war and provides a fascinating look into lives that helped shape America.
The Black Regulars, 1866-1898 by
Black soldiers first entered the United States Army in the summer of 1866. While their segregated regiments served in the American West for the next three decades, the promise of the Reconstruction era gave way to the repressiveness of Jim Crow. But black men found a degree of equality in the service: the army treated them no worse than it did their white counterparts. The Black Regulars uses army correspondence, court martial transcripts, and pension applications to tell who these men were often in their own words: how they were recruited and how their officers were selected; how the black regiments survived hostile Congressional hearings and stringent budget cuts; how enlisted men spent their time, both on and off duty; and how regimental chaplains tried to promote literacy through the army's schools. The authors shed new light on the military justice system, relations between black troops and their mostly white civilian neighbors, their professional reputations, and what veterans faced when they left the army for civilian life.
Black Union Soldiers in the Civil War by
This book refutes the historical slander that blacks did not fight for their emancipation from slavery. At first harshly rejected in their attempts to enlist in the Union army, blacks were eventually accepted into the service--often through the efforts of individual generals who, frustrated with bureaucratic inaction in the face of dwindling forces, overrode orders from the secretary of war and the president himself. By the end of the war, black soldiers had numbered over 187,000 and served in 167 regiments. Seventeen were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, the nation's highest award for valor. Theirs was a remarkable achievement whose full story is here told for the first time.
Brothers to the Buffalo Soldiers by
During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, African American men were seldom permitted to join the United States armed forces. There had been times in early U.S. history when black and white men fought alongside one another; it was not uncommon for integrated units to take to battle in the Revolutionary War. But by the War of 1812, the United States had come to maintain what one writer called "a whitewashed army." Yet despite that opposition, during the early 1800s, militia units made up of free black soldiers came together to aid the official military troops in combat. Many black Americans continued to serve in times of military need. Nearly 180,000 African Americans served in units of the U.S. Colored Troops during the Civil War, and others, from states such as Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Missouri, and Kansas, participated in state militias organized to protect local populations from threats of Confederate invasion. As such, the Civil War was a turning point in the acceptance of black soldiers for national defense. By 1900, twenty-two states and the District of Columbia had accepted black men into some form of military service, usually as state militiamen--brothers to the "buffalo soldiers" of the regular army regiments, but American military men regardless. Little has been published about them, but Brothers to the Buffalo Soldiers: Perspectives on the African American Militia and Volunteers, 1865-1919, offers insights into the varied experiences of black militia units in the post-Civil War period. The book includes eleven articles that focus either on "Black Participation in the Militia" or "Black Volunteer Units in the War with Spain." The articles, collected and introduced by author and scholar Bruce A. Glasrud, provide an overview of the history of early black citizen-soldiers and offer criticism from prominent academics interested in that experience. Brothers to the Buffalo Soldiers discusses a previously little-known aspect of the black military experience in U.S. history, while deliberating on the discrimination these men faced both within and outside the military. Chosen on the bases of scholarship, balance, and readability, these articles provide a rare composite picture of the black military man's life during this period. Brothers to the Buffalo Soldiers offers both a valuable introductory text for students of military studies and a solid source of material for African American historians.
Torchbearers of Democracy by
For the 380,000 African American soldiers who fought in World War I, Woodrow Wilson's charge to make the world "safe for democracy" carried life-or-death meaning. Chad L. Williams reveals the central role of African American soldiers in the global conflict and how they, along with race activists and ordinary citizens, committed to fighting for democracy at home and beyond. Using a diverse range of sources, Torchbearers of Democracy reclaims the legacy of African American soldiers and veterans and connects their history to issues such as the obligations of citizenship, combat and labor, diaspora and internationalism, homecoming and racial violence, "New Negro" militancy, and African American memories of the war.
Loyalty in Time of Trial by
In one of the few book-length treatments of the subject, Nina Mjagkij conveys the full range of the African American experience during the "Great War. Prior to World War I, most African Americans did not challenge the racial status quo. But nearly 370,000 black soldiers served in the military during the war, and some 400,000 black civilians migrated from the rural South to the urban North for defense jobs. Following the war, emboldened by their military service and their support of the war on the home front, African Americans were determined to fight for equality. These two factors forced America to confront the impact of segregation and racism."
Black Valor by
They were U.S. Army soldiers. Just a few years earlier, some had been slaves. Several thousand African Americans served as soldiers in the Indian Wars and in the Cuban campaign of the Spanish-American War in the latter part of the nineteenth century. They were known as buffalo soldiers, believed to have been named by Indians who had seen a similarity between the coarse hair and dark skin of the soldiers and the coats of the buffalo. Twenty-three of these men won the nation's highest award for personal bravery, the Medal of Honor. Black Valor brings the lives of these soldiers into sharp focus. Their remarkable stories are told in the collected biography. Derived from extensive historical research, Black Valor will enrich and inspire students with its tales of trials and courage.
Buffalo Soldiers by
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The Buffalo Soldiers by
This riveting narrative focuses on the Buffalo Soldiers, tracing the legacy of black military service and its social, economic, and political impact from the colonial era through the end of the 19th century. * Illustrates the events leading to the original formation of the Buffalo Soldiers * Examines the wars, campaigns, and battles in which the Buffalo Soldiers served significant roles, with a focus on the Indian Wars of the American frontier * Covers the American Revolution, the First Seminole War, the War of 1812, the Second Seminole War, the American Civil War, the Indian Campaigns, the Spanish-American War, the Philippine Insurrection, the Punitive Expedition, World War I, World War II, and the Korean War * Addresses the political, social, economic, and military conditions under which the Buffalo Soldiers served in America