Thomas Morris Chester, Black Civil War Correspondent: His Dispatches from the Virginia Front (review)

BOOK REVIEWS89 acquainted with primary records and the works of such historians as Allan Nevins, James G. Randall, Albert J. Beveridge, and Kenneth Stamp. Because of timing, the author could not mention the recent excellent study, Ordeal by Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction, by James M. McPherson (1982). But many of Korusiewicz's conclusions are similar to McPherson's. Among his omissions, one can cite the intellectually stimulating, though revisionistic in nature, Ludwell H. Johnson's Division and Reunion: America 1848-1877 (1978), which represents the neo-Confederate interpretation of the Civil War. Although, as Korusiewicz correctly points out, most work on the American Civil War has been accomplished by American historians, his three studies relating to the causes, developments, and consequences of the American Civil War should not be overlooked. Written from a European perspective and with much sympathy for the American experience , they certainly contribute to the understanding of the most traumatic experience through which the United States has passed. The works of Zofia Libiszowska, Izabella Rusinowa, Korusiewicz himself, and others attest to a real progress in Polish historical scholarship on the United States. Much more, however, remains to be done. Adam A. Hetnal New Mexico State University Thomas Morris Chester, Black Civil War Correspondent: His Dispatches from the Virginia Front. By R. J. M. Blackett. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989. Pp. xvi, 375. $35.00.) The participation of African-Americans in the Civil War has recently become the renewed focus of both scholarly and popular attention. This volume of dispatches from the Virginia front adds an important dimension to our understanding of black involvement in the Union effort. Thomas Morris Chester, as Blackett makes clear in his comprehensive biographical essay, was a fascinating and complicated individual. Born to ex-slaves and immediate abolitionists in Harrisburg in 1834, Chester set out to discover and defend his own principles. At age nineteen, he rejected his parents brand of antislavery and sailed for Africa, the first of several trips he would make in support of the colonization movement. In Liberia, he taught school and periodically published the Star ofLiberia. In 1863, Chester was back in Harrisburg leading a drive to recruit black soldiers. Later that year, he traveled to England where he tried to continue his education and where he lectured under the sponsorship of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. On his return, the Philadelphia Press employed Chester as one of its correspondents covering the Army of the James. 90CIVIL WAR history From August 1864 until June 1865, Chester's dispatches appeared in the Press. Blackett explains that we do not know why Chester was hired, though he suspects it was part of an attempt by the publisher, John Forney, to boost the paper's reputation among black readers. We also do not know why Chester agreed to become, in Blackett's words, "the first and only black correspondent of a major daily during the war" (39), or how his dispatches were read. Clearly, one objective was to document and celebrate the activity of black soldiers. Like most correspondents , Chester was deeply committed to both recording events and helping readers interpret those events. "Gallant" is a word that appears frequently. So too "valor," "discipline," and "courage." Chester's concern was to examine how black troops "acquitted themselves" (139), and the results were that they "acquitted themselves grandly," often being assigned posts "of honor and danger" (149), suffering disproportionately at Confederate prisons such as Danville (266), and entering Richmond ahead of the other troops (303). What makes these dispatches special is Chester's voice, which comes through with ringing clarity. One might not expect humor in military dispatches, but that is precisely what Chester delivers: he refers to shellings as a fireworks display arranged by "the enterprising managers of the firm of Grant & Lee" (98); following a raucous celebration by Union troops, he reports that the rebels "opposite to our pickets rushed out inquiring what was the matter with the Yankees, and when informed that it was owing to the fall of Atlanta they forgot to return thanks for a courteous reply to their question" (118); and a proclamation by Jefferson Davis leads Chester to comment that...