Slave Testimony (review)

BOOK REVIEWS91 Peace Democrat, and one relates the activities of a number of men of military age in the North who elected to make money instead of to fight. The distribution of subjects reveals the breadth of Wiley's interests. Usually thought of as an historian of the Confederacy, he was really interested in the whole war. The teaching of graduate students has been only one of Wiley's contributions to the profession of history. He has also influenced undergraduates and countless numbers of persons outside the academic community. Probably no other academic person has been so active or so successful in carrying the story of the Civil War to the lay reader—or the lay listener. His scholarly reputation will probably rest on his two best known works, the books treating of the common soldier of both armies. After the appearance of The Life of Johnny Reb, Thomas D. Clark observed that Wiley had opened a new field of history. Clark's statement was acute and accurate. Wiley had discovered a hitherto unexplored area of American life. The Civil War called into being mass armies, the first hosts of their kind in our history. The citizens who composed these armies had been wrenched away from their homes, and put down in a new environment they had an urge to tell the folks back home about their experiences. The common man suddenly became articulate, and in letters and diaries he revealed much about himself , about his army, and about the society from which he had come. Bell Wiley hit upon this truth and explored and exploited it. He forced a new aspect of the Civil War, and, it may be said, a democratic aspect, upon our attention. It is a considerable achievement. T. Harry Williams Louisiana State University Síaüe Testimony, edited by John W. Blassingame (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1977. Pp. lxv, 777. $37.50, cloth; $9.95, paper.) This book comes at a time when many social historians are claiming that ordinary working people have left few personal accounts for the historian to assess. Consequently, we are told, yesterday's inarticulate masses must be studied not through their own accounts, but in the aggregate, from quantifiable sources that will give us "objective" group characteristics. John Blassingame in Siaue Testimony clearly demonstrates that for one group of poor people in this nation's past there exists a rich literature for the social historian to draw upon. Blassingame begins with an introduction that discusses the variety and uses of slaves testimonies. For over two centuries, slaves and former slaves have written autobiographies and given 92CIVIL WAR HISTORY interviews to journalists, antiquarians, political activists and scholars. Together these accounts have given investigators of slavery vivid images of the harshness and humanity, slave rebelliousness and resignation that existed in the peculiar institution. Blassingame's introduction is a thorough analysis of the sources of slave narrative. He persuasively argues that we can put to good use the frequently criticized nineteenth-century fugitive slave autobiographies. Through meticulous research, Blassingame has managed to independently verify details in these narratives, thus demonstrating their value as historical sources. The introduction also gives a valuable discussion of the difficulties of using the WPA narratives. Compiled during the height of the Jim Crow era, often by whites clearly unsympathetic to notions of black equality, these narratives often suffered from the biases of their recorders who were often anxious to project slavery in a sympathetic light. The introduction provides a valuable point of departure for historians interested in assessing different genres of slave narrative. The testimonies are divided into seven parts: Letters, 1736— 1864, Speeches 1837—1862, Newspaper and Magazine Interviews, 1827—1863, American Freedmen's Inquiry Commission Interviews, 1863, Newspaper and. Magazine Interviews, 1864—1938, Interviews by Scholars, 1872—1938, and Autobiographies published in Periodicals and Books, 1828—1878. Some of the people whose stories we get a glimpse of are anonymous figures whose memories are only preserved in short letters or brief interviews. Others are more familiar to students of American slavery, William and Ellen Craft, Henry Bibb, Sally Hemings and Solomon Northup, to name a few. Not only do the narratives paint incredibly rich...