Black Soldiers in Blue: African American Troops in the Civil War Era (review)

Nearly a century and a half after African Americans served in the Civil War, we continue to ask the same questions about them as contemporaries did. Did black soldiers fight gallantly? Were they well led by their (mostly white) officers? Did Confederates massacre black troops? Several essays in this collection address these questions, while others pursue additional perspectives on African American service to the Union.

Though the collection has no formal section designations, the essays fall into distinctive parts. In the first, John David Smith surveys the development of a policy on black soldiers. Smith joins those who question Abraham Lincoln's pragmatism in accepting African American troops; the decision, Smith argues, was part of Lincoln's "linear course" toward emancipation (9).

Five essays focus on significant battles fought by African American soldiers. The authors center on the conventional battle narrative, adding details on the involvement of black troops and seeking answers to the traditional trio of questions. Agreeing with virtually every other study, these essays find that black soldiers fought bravely and effectively, winning whites' admiration in the process.

The authors also agree with most predecessors that the attitude and military skills of commanders fell far short of those of their black troops. There were, of course, exceptions—William Glenn Robertson notes Benjamin Butler's steadfast support for African American troops, and Anne J. Bailey acknowledges Thomas J. Morgan's leadership skills—but mostly the authors point to mismanagement born of prejudice. Arthur W. Bergeron Jr. describes the misuse of black troops at Olustee, several authors note William T. Sherman's refusal to use black soldiers in combat, and Robertson recounts commanders' disastrous vacillation about black soldiers before the Battle of the Crater.

Most of the battles studied in these essays were free of systematic atrocities. To be sure, few engagements involving African Americans were without incident—Richard Lowe points to probable executions after Milliken's Bend, and Robertson reminds us of the spontaneous slaughter of black troops at the Crater—but most tales of black flags and calculated massacres are unsubstantiated.

Other engagements of lesser military significance, however, did produce evidence of premeditated racial violence. Fort Pillow, examined by John Cimprich, and Saltville, described by Thomas D. Mays, differ from other engagements in the scale and nature of their atrocities. Cimprich finds, in the preponderance of the evidence, a partial verdict for the plaintiffs: a massacre occurred at Fort Pillow. But other allegations, such as that black soldiers were buried alive or that Nathan Bedford Forrest ordered the killing, are probably untrue. At Saltville, the scale of killing may have been smaller, but the nature of the barbarity—wounded black soldiers executed on the battlefield and in a hospital—was especially chilling.

Several more essays take up topics usually overlooked in the focus on the traditional three questions. Michael T. Meier shows that even unsympathetic whites' careers could be transformed in a biracial army: Lorenzo Thomas went from a desk job to prominence as a dynamic organizer of black regiments. Noah Andre Trudeau introduces the lesser-known U.S. Colored Cavalry, whose most remarkable feature was its existence, given the additional prejudice against African Americans serving in the army's elite branch. Keith Wilson examines the worldview of three commanders of black soldiers, contrasting the paternalism of Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Robert Gould Shaw with James Montgomery's evangelical devotion to warfare as punishment for slavery. Edwin S. Redkey profiles Henry M. Turner, a chaplain in the U.S. Colored Troops whose service developed his skills for and devotion to evangelism for black churches.

Two final essays focus on black soldiers' experience after Appomattox. Robert J. Zalimas Jr. finds in 1865 an ominous precursor of Reconstruction in Charleston, South Carolina: black soldiers in the occupation force were relentlessly abused by white comrades, regardless of whether the latter were "praying men" recruited from churches or ex...