Blacks and America's Lingering Race War

Blacks and America's Lingering Race War The Negro's Civil War By James McPherson (Vintage, $14 paper)

The Civil War - at least according to the history books - ended in 1865 with Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House in Virginia. In a very real sense, though, the war has been the legacy of America ever since, refought by successive generations but without cavalries and bayonets. Yesterday's assertions of state's rights echo in today's broadsides against "Big Government," and the questions of race, citizenship and democracy that resulted in about 600,000 deaths still animate our contemporary politics. Most recently, Black critics of the film Cold Mountain have pointed out the absence of any substantive depiction of slavery or Black soldiers in a film allegedly about the Civil War. Given those concerns, the republication of James McPherson's classic The Negro 's Civil War, more than three decades after it first appeared, is both timely and ironic.

History, exists in a state of perpetual revision; the past is constantly being re-evaluated, re-interpreted and rewritten. In the case of The Negro's Civil War, the subject had been examined earlier by W.E.B. Du Bois, Carter G. Woodson and Benjamin Quarles. The three belonged to a generation of Black historians who were primarily concerned with proving Black humanity and establishing the centrality of "the Negro" to the development of the young republic. McPherson's volume, however, marked the first time that a mainstream Civil War specialist had reckoned with the Black contribution to the war effort. Not coincidentally, the book appeared in the midst of both the Civil War centennial and the turbulent demands for civil rights that characterized an era some historians have termed "the sec ond Reconstruction." To McPherson's credit, The Negro's Civil War remains a compelling read.

The author's narration is neatly fitted between extended statements from the historical figures of the era, leading to a kind of documentary approach. In chronicling the evolving conflict and the Black response to it, McPherson casts a wide net, pulling together a wide array of voices and perspectives, and establishing that Blacks were, in some ways, as divided as the rest of the country. Although nearly 200,000 Blacks served in the Union Army and Navy, and approximately 500,000 slaves crossed into Union territory during the war, opinions regarding the conflict were far from homogeneous. On the verse of the war, a number of free Blacks, Frederick Douglass among them, and abolitionists actually favored secession.

The prevailing logic held that succession would automatically nullify fugitive slave laws that forced Northern states to return runaways. Nor would an independent South be able to rely upon Northern aid in putting down rebellions. secession, they argued, was the quickest path to abolition of slavery.

After the attack on Harpers Ferry in 1859, the question of Black participation in the war generated fierce debate among free Blacks. The widespread belief among Blacks that Lincoln was ultimately a racial conservative who wished to both preserve the Union and allay Southern concerns that he was anti-slavery gave rise to the opinion early on that the war was "a white man's affair."

One prospective soldier wrote that: "We have more knowledge of our duty and also more dignity than to offer our services to a government knowing that the laws call for none but white men to do military duty. I am resolved never to offer or give service, except it be on equality with all other men."

Black participation in the war hinged ultimately upon the likelihood of the conflict leading to abolition of slavery, but even after the Emancipation Proclamation and the decision to use Black soldiers in combat, Blacks found themselves struggling to achieve pay equity with their White counterparts.

McPherson also sheds light upon the under-examined subject of Blacks who fought for the Confederacy. While a type of regional patriotism led some free Southern Blacks to enlist, McPherson argues that "pressure from local officials and fear of impressments [the practice of compelling men or property to service for the public] played a part in the decision of some Southern Negroes to volunteer."

An enslaved man who had helped build the Confederate barricades at Richmond, Va., reported that: "We were afraid of another attack from the I Yankees. I left with six of my master's men to go home. When we got back, we found all the cattle and mules gone, and corn all grown up with weeds, but we didn't care [about] that, all we wanted was a chance to escape."

In some limited ways, this book shows its age. Much has been written on the ways in which slaves and free women viewed the Civil War since it first appeared, and its reliance upon accounts from Northern newspapers and free Black men - as the author acknowledges - leaves out important aspects of this story. But ultimately, this book's virtues outweigh its minor flaws. The Negro's Civil War is a case of historical writing that stands the test of time.

William Jelani Cobb is an assistant professor of history at Spelman College.

Copyright Crisis Publishing Company, Incorporated Jan/Feb 2004
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