For Their Own Cause: The 27th United States Colored Troops by Kelly D. Mezurek (review)

In Toward a Social History of the American Civil War: Exploratory Essays (New York, 1990), Maris A. Vinovskis calls on scholars to revolutionize the field of history by investigating the stories of ordinary soldiers, citizens, and communities during the Civil War. Inspired by both Vinovskis and Ronald T. Takaki's work on marginalized populations in the United States, Kelly D. Mezurek's first book examines the story of the Twenty-seventh United States Colored Infantry, an Ohio-based African American Civil War regiment. Through a meticulous analysis of compiled military service records, pension files, manuscript collections, family genealogies, and other primary sources, Mezurek has produced a study that will help us "better understand the influence of the Civil War on the everyday life of individuals and their communities" (p. 6).

For Their Own Cause: The 27th United States Colored Troops follows the men of the Twenty-seventh United States Colored Infantry primarily from the outbreak of hostilities in 1861 to the postwar period. Employing a chronological approach, Mezurek closely examines these soldiers' lives, giving special attention to their various motivations, struggles, achievements, fears, and aspirations. She rightfully asserts that while a significant number of black men in Ohio saw the conflict as an opportunity to help destroy slavery and assert their patriotism, others enlisted for different reasons such as financial concerns. Her discussion of how black men viewed the war in different ways is one of the book's great strengths.

Like other military histories, For Their Own Cause focuses heavily on the movements, duties, skirmishes, and engagements of the Twenty-seventh. Mezurek's text goes into great detail about the regiment's participation at the battle of the Crater during the siege of Petersburg and at the second battle of Fort Fisher. Mezurek adds another layer of analysis to her regimental study by engaging with social and cultural methodologies to get better insight into how the soldiers' wartime experiences affected their lives on and off the battlefield. Toward this end, the author evaluates the importance of camp life and socialization, the impact of religion and music, and the complicated interactions between black soldiers and white officers.

Because of Mezurek's adherence to a strict chronological organization, at times For Their Own Cause gets mired in the minute details of the regiment's day-to-day activities and loses contextual focus. Despite these small structural flaws, Mezurek's text makes a very important contribution to the historiography of African American responses to the Civil War. Like Ian Michael Spurgeon's Soldiers in the Army of Freedom: The 1st Kansas Colored, the Civil War's First American Combat Unit (Norman, Okla., 2014), For Their Own Cause is a part of a growing literature that recognizes the need to create a more nuanced and complete picture of black military service during the Civil War. Mezurek's monograph is recommended reading for students of African American and Civil War history.