A Voice of Thunder: The Civil War Letters of George E. StephensWhat was it like to be an African-American soldier during the Civil War? The writings of George E. Stephens thunder across the more than a century that has passed since the war, answering that question and telling us much more. A Philadelphia cabinetmaker and a soldier in the famed Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Regiment - featured in the film Glory - Stephens was the most important African-American war correspondent of his era. The forty-four letters he wrote between 1859 and 1864 for the New York Weekly Anglo-African, together with thirteen photographs and Donald Yacovone's biographical introduction detailing Stephens's life and times, provide a singular perspective on the greatest crisis in the history of the United States. 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 heroism and persistence in the face of danger and insult. The 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 | 3 |
The Fiftyfourth Massachusetts Regiment | 26 |
Equal Pay Equal Rights and the Lincoln Despotism | 58 |
Copyright | |
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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 blacks officers Orlando Brown Pennsylvania Philadelphia Port Tobacco Potomac R. M. Manly race rebel Records recruitment Richard H. L. Jewett Robert Gould Shaw Robert Hamilton slavery South Carolina Southern Stephens Stephens's Union Army Union troops United University Press Virginia Whittier Messer Appleton William wounded WWWCW York