A Voice of Thunder: A Black Soldier's Civil WarGeorge E. Stephens, the most important African-American war correspondent of his era, served in the famed black Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Regiment, subject of the film Glory. His letters from the front, published in the New York Weekly Anglo-African, brilliantly detail two wars: one against the Confederacy and one against the brutal, debilitating racism within his own Union Army. Together with Donald Yacovone's biographical introduction detailing Stephens's life and times, they provide a singular perspective on the greatest crisis in the history of the United States. Stephens chronicled the African-American quest for freedom in reports from southern Maryland and eastern Virginia in 1861 and 1862 that detailed, among other issues of the day, the Army of the Potomac's initial encounter with slavery, the heroism of fugitive slaves, and the brutality both Southerners and Union troops inflicted on them. From the inception of the Fifty-fourth early in 1863 Stephens was the unit's voice, telling of its struggle against slavery and its quest to win the pay it had been promised. His description of the July 18, 1863, assault on Battery Wagner near Charleston, South Carolina, and his writings on the unit's eighteen-month campaign to be paid as much as white troops are gripping accounts of continued heroism in the face of persistent insult. The Weekly Anglo-African was the preeminent African-American newspaper of its time. Stephens's correspondence, intimate and authoritative, takes in an expansive array of issues and anticipates nearly all modern assessments of the black role in the Civil War. His commentary on the Lincoln administration's wartime policy and his conviction that the issues of race and slavery were central to nineteenth-century American life mark him as a major American social critic. |
Contents
Getting at the Throat of Treason and Slavery | xxi |
Liberty or Death The Fiftyfourth Massachusetts Regiment | 22 |
Equal Pay Equal Rights and the Lincoln Despotism | 54 |
Chapter 4 I Have Done My Duty | 95 |
The Letters of George E Stephens | 113 |
We Will See the AngloAfrican a Power in This Country 14 November 185915 January 1861 | 113 |
Pleasing the Jealous God of Slavery 17 October 18614 January 1862 | 125 |
10 January 186221 March 1862 | 156 |
5 April 186231 December 1862 | 197 |
Better to Die Free Than Live Slaves 18 March 18631 May 1863 | 218 |
June 18 63September 1863 | 235 |
Let Us Vindicate Our Manhood by Our Conduct 3 October 186320 August 1864 | 269 |
Index | 327 |
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Common terms and phrases
abolitionist African African Americans American Anglo-African antislavery April August Banneker Institute Battery Wagner battle Battle of Olustee black abolitionist black leaders black soldiers black troops Boston Boston Athenæum Brave Black Regiment BRFAL Brigade Brown camp Charles Charleston Civil Colonel colored command Confederate December Edward Emancipation enlisted equal pay Executive Department Letters February Fifty-fifth Massachusetts Fifty-fourth Regiment Papers fight Frederick Douglass freedom George GES to Robert Gillmore Governor Andrew Hallowell Hooker's division HTIECW James January John Whittier Messer July June killed liberty Lincoln Liverpool Point Luis F March masters military Morris Island National Archives negro North Northern officers Orlando Brown Pennsylvania Philadelphia Philip and Betty Port Tobacco Potomac R. M. Manly race rebel Records recruitment Robert Gould Shaw Robert Hamilton slavery South Carolina Southern blacks Stephens Stephens's Union Army Union troops United University Press Virginia Whittier Messer Appleton William wounded WWWCW York