After the Glory: The Struggles of Black Civil War Veterans (review)

The Civil Rights movement revived interest in the black soldiers of the Civil War, but little work has been done on their struggles afterward. Hence, After the Glory fills a real gap in the scholarship, using the testimony of the veterans themselves at every opportunity. Constructed from the records of pension petitions, from letters sent home and to the government, and from census reports and newspapers, and leavened with the work of other scholars, this is a meticulous, insightful, and often moving history.

After an introduction that frames the book, Shaffer looks at the war experiences of the veterans. A brief prologue sets the stage for the thematic organization to follow. Six "discernible areas" of struggle emerged for the veterans during the postwar period: "politics, veteran- government relations, economics, family and marital life, and historical memory" (5). An epilogue offers a historiographical look at the ways in which black soldiers were remembered in both scholarship and popular culture during the twentieth century.

What Shaffer finds is not "merely another tale of race" but "a story of gender" (9). Black soldiers fought for what one of them called "Manhood & Equality" rather than the Union or a paycheck. Shaffer found the idea of "manhood" to be ubiquitous in their writing. Although its meaning shifted depending on the context, or "what was being fought over," it stood for many things, "including, but not limited to, money, power, pride, dignity, respect, self-control, citizenship, autonomy, bravery, physical prowess, fraternal solidarity, and patriarchal authority" (5). The struggle for manhood and the privileges and meanings that it embodied was the central purpose of the black veterans. Although their participation in the war gave them added authority in the postwar world, it proved extraordinarily difficult for them to achieve the manhood that they desired—and deserved.

Veterans just after the war commanded a respect in their community and a prestige that served them well. Compared with those who did not serve in the war, veterans were more likely to be literate, economically stable, engaged in local politics, and mobile. In fact, many of them moved North. Veterans joined the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), sought and won pensions from the government, and sometimes lived in veterans' homes, occasionally alongside white soldiers.

But their struggle was ongoing. African American soldiers had to fight to earn the same pay as whites during the war and after it. Only allowed to vote after the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified, their presence in politics was brief, already eroding by the late 1870s. Any public presence was by its very nature dangerous for black men, especially veterans in the fraught postwar era. When applying for pensions, black men were at a severe disadvantage. Because former slaves often changed their names to claim new identities, and had little documentation, it was often difficult to establish their records of service. Racial prejudice played a role as well: "Practically speaking, black veterans and their families had a greater burden of proof than white persons had, despite the formal equality of black and white applicants under the law" (130). So it went—two steps forward and one and a half back.

Recording this struggle is important work. Shaffer honors these veterans by refusing to exaggerate either their successes or difficulties. He ends on an optimistic note, fully aware that these veterans could not share it in their lifetimes.