Library Catalog
On the Shelf at CCBC Libraries
The Civil War in Maryland Reconsidered by
CONTENTS: Introduction, Jean H. Baker and Charles W. Mitchell ?Border State, Border War: Fighting for Freedom and Slavery in Antebellum Maryland,? Richard Bell ?Charity Folks and the Ghosts of Slavery in Pre?Civil War Maryland,? Jessica Millward ?Confronting Dred Scott: Seeing Citizenship from Baltimore,? Martha S. Jones ??Maryland Is This Day . . . True to the American Union?: The Election of 1860 and a Winter of Discontent,? Charles W. Mitchell ?Baltimore?s Secessionist Moment: Conservatism and Political Networks in the Pratt Street Riot and Its Aftermath,? Frank Towers ?Abraham Lincoln, Civil Liberties, and Maryland,? Frank J. Williams ?The Fighting Sons of ?My Maryland?: The Recruitment of Union Regiments in Baltimore, 1861?1865,? Timothy J. Orr ??What I Witnessed Would Only Make You Sick?: Union Soldiers Confront the Dead at Antietam,? Brian Matthew Jordan ?Confederate Invasions of Maryland,? Thomas G. Clemens ?Achieving Emancipation in Maryland,? Jonathan W. White ?Maryland?s Women at War,? Robert W. Schoeberlein ?The Failed Promise of Reconstruction,? Sharita Jacobs Thompson ??F??k the Confederacy?: The Strange Career of Civil War Memory in Maryland after 1865,? Robert J. Cook
Call Number: E566 .C58 2021
I Freed Myself by
For a century and a half, Abraham Lincoln's signing of the Emancipation Proclamation has been the dominant narrative of African American freedom in the Civil War era. However, David Williams suggests that this portrayal marginalizes the role that African American slaves played in freeing themselves. At the Civil War's outset, Lincoln made clear his intent was to save the Union rather than free slaves - despite his personal distaste for slavery, he claimed no authority to interfere with the institution. By the second year of the war, though, when the Union army was in desperate need of black support, former slaves who escaped to Union lines struck a bargain: they would fight for the Union only if they were granted their freedom. Williams importantly demonstrates that freedom was not simply the absence of slavery but rather a dynamic process enacted by self-emancipated African American refugees, which compelled Lincoln to modify his war aims and place black freedom at the center of his wartime policies.
Call Number: E540.N3 W55 2014
Freedom by the Sword by
From late 1862 to the spring of 1865, the federal government accepted more than 180,000 black men as soldiers, something it had never done before on such a scale. Because of this edition's broad focus on every theater of the war and its concentration on what black soldiers actually contributed to Union victory, this volume stands alone among histories of the U.S. Colored Troops. Includes illustrations, maps, bibliographical notes, abbreviations, and an index.
Call Number: E492.9 .D63 2011
Black Writers and the American Civil War by Call Number: E540 .N3 B58
A Black Woman's Civil War Memoirs by
"These are the memoirs of a black woman who was born a slave, who had the good fortune to gain her freedom early in the war, with the education and ability to observe and the will to recall in later years the significance of the events in which she was a vigorous participant. Susie King Taylor's recollections are invaluable for those who wish to understand the Civil War from the black woman's point of view. ... A treasure in the light of today's feminist movement." (from the Introduction by Willie Lee Rose)
Call Number: E492.94 33 RD .T3 1988
Primary Sources
- Civil War and Reconstruction Era (1861 - 1877)
from Proquest - Black Soldiers in the U.S. Military During the Civil War
from National Archives - African-American Soldiers During the Civil War
from Library of Congress
Streaming Video
- River of DeathNarrated by Emmy-nominated actress Elizabeth McGovern (Downton Abbey), “Civil War: the Untold Story” provides new insights into the causes of the Civil War, life on the home front, the politics of war, the issue of slavery, and the relatively unheralded role African Americans played in the conflict. Filmed at the actual battle sites, the five-part series uses re-enactors to recreate the epic battles of Shiloh, Vicksburg, Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge and Atlanta. Interviews with scholars and 3D graphics convey battle tactics while underscoring the relationship between the Western Campaign and the more famous battles waged in the East. “River of Death” addresses the Emancipation Proclamation and enlisted African American soldiers, the Battle of Vicksburg, and the Battle of Chickamauga. (54 minutes)
Black Soldiers in the Civil War
from the American Battlefield Trust
Online From CCBC Libraries
Searching for Black Confederates by
More than 150 years after the end of the Civil War, scores of websites, articles, and organizations repeat claims that anywhere between 500 and 100,000 free and enslaved African Americans fought willingly as soldiers in the Confederate army. But as Kevin M. Levin argues in this carefully researched book, such claims would have shocked anyone who served in the army during the war itself. Levin explains that imprecise contemporary accounts, poorly understood primary-source material, and other misrepresentations helped fuel the rise of the black Confederate myth. Moreover, Levin shows that belief in the existence of black Confederate soldiers largely originated in the 1970s, a period that witnessed both a significant shift in how Americans remembered the Civil War and a rising backlash against African Americans' gains in civil rights and other realms. Levin also investigates the roles that African Americans actually performed in the Confederate army, including personal body servants and forced laborers. He demonstrates that regardless of the dangers these men faced in camp, on the march, and on the battlefield, their legal status remained unchanged. Even long after the guns fell silent, Confederate veterans and other writers remembered these men as former slaves and not as soldiers, an important reminder that how the war is remembered often runs counter to history.
ISBN: 1469653265Publication Date: 2019
The Role of Southern Free Blacks During the Civil War Era by
This book will appeal to a broad audience of professional historians, undergraduates, and local historians interested in African America, Civil War, Antebellum, and Reconstruction History. It examines the impact of the Civil War on free blacks in and around Richmond, VA., by drawing on private, public, court, church, military, and government documents thus offering a unique perspective on the lives of both urban and rural free blacks.
Publication Date: 2015
Lincoln and the U. S. Colored Troops by
When Abraham Lincoln issued his final Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, he not only freed the slaves in the Confederate states but also invited freed slaves and free persons of color to join the U.S. Army as part of the U.S. Colored Troops (USCT), the first systematic, large-scale effort by the U.S. government to arm African Americans to aid in the nation's defense. By the end of the war in 1865, nearly 180,000 black soldiers had fought for the Union. Lincoln's role in the arming of African Americans remains a central but unfortunately obscure part of one of the most compelling periods in American history. In Lincoln and the U.S. Colored Troops John David Smith offers a concise, enlightening exploration of the development of Lincoln's military emancipation project, its implementation, and the recruitment and deployment of black troops. Though scholars have written much on emancipation and the USCT, Smith's work frames the evolution of Lincoln's ideas on emancipation and arming blacks within congressional actions, explaining how, when, and why the president seemed to be so halting in his progression to military emancipation. After tracing Lincoln's evolution from opposing to supporting emancipation as a necessary war measure and to championing the recruitment of black troops for the Union Army, Smith details the creation, mobilization, and diverse military service of the USCT. He assesses the hardships under which the men of the USCT served, including the multiple forms of discrimination from so-called friends and foes alike, and examines the broad meaning of Lincoln's military emancipation project and its place in African American historical memory.
Publication Date: 2013
Black Troops, White Commanders, and Freedmen During the Civil War by
Recounting the experiences of black soldiers in the Civil War In the ten probing essays collected in this volume, Howard C. Westwood recounts the often bitter experiences of black men who were admitted to military service and the wrenching problems associated with the shifting status of African Americans during the Civil War."Black Troops, White Commanders, and Freedmen during the Civil War" covers topics ranging from the roles played by Lincoln and Grant in beginning black soldiery to the sensitive issues that arose when black soldiers (and their white officers) were captured by the Confederates. The essays relate the exploits of black heroes such as Robert Smalls, who singlehandedly captured a Confederate steamer, as well as the experiences of the ignoble Reverend Fountain Brown, who became the first person charged with violating the Emancipation Proclamation. ""Although many thousands were enlisted as soldiers, blacks were barred from becoming commissioned officers and for a long time they were paid far less than their white counterparts. These and other blatant forms of discrimination understandably provoked discontent among black troops which, in turn, sparked friction with their white commanders. Westwood's fascinating account of the artillery company from Rhode Island amply demonstrates how frustrations among black soldiers came to be seen as "mutiny" by some white officers.
Publication Date: 2008
Eagles on Their Buttons by
Eagles on Their Buttons is a fascinating examination of the Fifth Regiment of Infantry, United States Colored Troops--the Union Army's first black regiment from Ohio. Although the Fifth USCT was one of more than 150 regiments of black troops making up more than 10 percent of the Union Army at the end of the war, it was unique. The majority of USCT regiments were made up of freed men who viewed the army as an escape from slavery and a chance to take up arms against their former masters. The men serving in the 5th USCT, however, were freemen who were raised in a northern state and saw serving in the army both as a way to gain equal rights under the law and as an opportunity to prove their worth as men. Because historians have written little on this subject, many Americans believe that African Americans simply received their freedom with the Emancipation Proclamation. They know nothing about the struggles these courageous people endured to gain their independence. Now, by incorporating personal documents, letters, diaries, and official records, Eagles on Their Buttons sheds important new light on this unfamiliar aspect of the Civil War. Versalle Washington shows what caused the soldiers in the Fifth USCT to join their regiment, what sort of men they were, and how they fought and lived as African American soldiers under white officers. He discusses the regiment's service, addressing its role in the siege of Petersburg, the battle of Chapin's Farm, and the capture of Fort Fisher and the port of Wilmington. Washington also looks at what effects the soldiers' service had in terms of societal changes following the Civil War. Eagles on Their Buttons is a fresh contribution to Civil War scholarship and will be welcomed by professional historians and amateur Civil War buffs alike. This book is part of the University of Missouri Press' Shades of Blue and Gray series.
Publication Date: 1999
Databases
- Oxford African American Studies Center This link opens in a new window
Articles and scholarly essays, historical newspaper articles, primary sources, and timelines you can use for African American topics.
- U.S. History This link opens in a new window
Articles, essays, and primary sources on the history of the United States. - ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Baltimore Sun This link opens in a new window
Primary source articles covering the politics, society and events of the time period 1837 - 1992.
