Thank God My Regiment an African One: The Civil War Diary of Colonel Nathan W. Daniels (review)

BOOK REVIEWS1 89 of our people, or any people, for self-government" (149). He strongly deplored women's rights movements and trade unionism but was surprisingly sympathetic to ethnic and religious outsiders: Chinese people, African Americans, Mormons. Such attitudes brought him few friends but a healthy readership. What does all of this effort and crotchetiness add up to? Not all that much so far as the author himself was concerned. "With the passing of the years," the editors write, "Bierce's frustration at the apparent ineffectiveness of his unrelenting campaign to reform his contemporaries by means of satire became increasingly evident" ( 171 ). On the other hand, the writing can be enjoyed for its literary qualities and humor, and students of the nineteenth century will find information and description to texture and buttress a point or two oftheir own, thanks to the pungency and sharp eye of the author. There is much valuable observation even amid misanthropic mutterings against everybody and everything. Joel H. Silbey Cornell University Thank GodMyRegimentanAfrican One: The CivilWarDiaryofColonelNathan W. Daniels. Edited by C. P. Weaver. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1998. Pp. xvii, 214. $26.95.) Like other White Northerners who led black troops during the Civil War, Col. Nathan W Daniels was an idealist determined to improve the lot of African Americans. 'Thank God it hath been my fortune to be a participator in the grand idea of proclaiming freedom to this much abused & tortured race," he confided to hisjournal on March 29, 1 863. "Thank God my Regiment anAfrican one, that I have been permitted to assemble them under the banner of freedom to do and die for their country & liberty" (68). Unfortunately for the politically naive Daniels, his commitment to black equality alienated his brother officers, and they would force him from the service less than six months after he wrote those enlightened words. Born in 1 832, Daniels lived in NewYork and Ohio before settling in Louisiana. With the outbreak of the Civil War, he remained loyal to the Union and went to work for a provost marshal after Northern forces occupied New Orleans in April 1862. Sometime that fall, Maj. Gen. Benjamin Butler, the commander of the Department of the Gulf, began raising three black Louisiana regiments without explicit authorization from Washington. When Butler offered Daniels the colonelcy ofthe 2nd Louisiana Native Guard Volunteer Infantry, the latter accepted. In January 1 863, Daniels and seven of his regiment's ten companies arrived at barren Ship Island, a post off Mississippi's Gulf Coast deemed vital to the defense ofNew Orleans. There, Daniels strengthened his fortifications and fretted over rumors of an impending attack by the Confederates at Mobile. The real threat to Daniels and the 2nd Louisiana, however, came from the Whites with whom they served. 190CIVIL WAR HISTORY Most Black Union regiments were officered exclusively by Whites, but in the 2nd Louisiana, the major and all but one company officer were Black. Members of the gens de couleur, the free, light-skinned aristocracy that flourished in cosmopolitan New Orleans, they received commissions for the same reason that men of similar standing and influence became officers in White regiments— their ability to recruit their friends and neighbors as soldiers. Although this policy made sense, Butler and Daniels failed to account for the unreasoning racial prejudice that animated so many of their fellow Northerners. Soon after the 2nd Louisiana landed at Ship Island, White soldiers in the garrison refused to serve under Black officers. Colonel Daniels promptly disarmed the mutineers and placed them under arrest. His decision was consistent with proper military discipline, but it doomed his military career. Maj. Gen. Nathaniel Banks had replaced Butler as head of the Department of the Gulf on December 16, 1982. Banks considered Black officers an undesirable irritant and adopted various stratagems to strip them of their rank. Daniels also became a target of Banks's purge, and he was arrested for exceeding his lumber allotment in fortifying Ship Island. Through a shady deal negotiated by an intermediary , Daniels was permitted to resign his commission in late September 1 863. Daniels's ruin unfolds in painful detail in the journal he kept from January 12...