The Negro's Civil War: How American Negroes Felt and Acted During the War for the Union (review)

BOOK REVIEWS421 1863 they were lonesome for fallen comrades and felt isolated and rather destitute. If their determination to see the war through never waned, they lived to return home. "I suppose," wrote one, "if I were at home I would be discontented . . . but ... I would like to try ft again for a while. I think I would be contented until the tomatoes were gone." Even die fighting itself had deteriorated in character. At Bull Run the company had "crossed bayonets" with the New York Zouave Regiment and afterwards had drilled by the Zouave manual until the bayonets would "fairly hum." In contrast, by the end of 1863 one wrote almost apologetically that "we . . . have become quite a good set of dirt diggers, but I do not think there is any disgrace in using all lawful means to preserve our Uves, for enough gallant spirits have already fallen in this carnal war." The conscripts sent as replacements were by and large a sorry lot; the old hands probably preferred to see mud "as it will retard military movements as long as it lasts. You see we are as big cowards as ever. This thing of soldiers being anxious to engage the enemy, or as our papers term it "spoiling for a fight" is all a fudge . . . but when it comes all will do their duty." The enthusiastic volunteer of 1861 would never have admitted as much, even to himself. This book perhaps will have only a Umited appeal, but it is well written , carefully documented, and obviously the product of extensive research . It does, moreover, approach the Civil War from a somewhat different direction, and this in itself is a virtue. Jay Luvaas Allegheny College The Negro's Civil War: How American Negroes Felt and Acted During the War for the Union. Edited by James M. McPherson. (New York: Pantheon Books, 1965. Pp. xxi, 358. $6.95.) The reader deserves to know of two deceptive features of this book. One is of minor consequence. The title page fails to say that it is odifed, though as early as the foreword McPherson makes clear that this is not an essay but a collection of primary sources. Perhaps the publisher rather than the editor is responsible for this slip, and the book does have more "connective tissue" of description and narrative than the usual documentary history. The documents are also skillfully pared down to include the essential and omit the repetitive. This is a nonbook in another sense, however. It is a by-product of the editor's research for another book, the justìy acclaimed Struggle for Equality published a year earh'er, and its derivative character adversely affects the balance of treatment of the Negro in the Civil War. The freshest and fullest examples, for instance, are on topics investigated in the earUer book: northern Negro opinion on the war and on governmental policies; the Negro struggle for emancipation, suffrage, and equal rights; Negro colonization movements; and Negro soldiers for the Union. Almost 422CIVIL WAR HISTORY nothing is said about Negroes within the Confederacy, where the majerity of them were during the war, and litde about the daily life, labor, and business enterprises of northern Negroes in this boom period. The selections, perhaps inevitably, overstress the opinions of the more articulate classes of Negroes. Development of the neglected themes would have required hard grubbing among new sources; it would also have meant a second book as distinguished as Mr. McPherson's first one. Within these limitations, there are many rewards for the reader. The editor suppb'es a conceptual framework for consideration of the documents in each chapter, and much biographical information which illuminates the documents. Among the unforgettable documents are Henry M. Turner 's account of the celebration of the Emancipation Proclamation, the narrative of a reluctant "contraband" surrounded by the carnage of Missionary Ridge, and Sojourner Truth's integration of the Washington streetcars : "Sojourner rode farther than she needed to go; for a ride was so rare a privilege that she determined to make the most of it." This book is a useful supplement to the secondary works on the Negro in the Civil War by Bell I...